Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
these management changes, there is a mounting body of evidence that
suggests that pastoral forms of management do not always lead to deg-
radation and that they are stocking the rangelands at optimum levels for
their management objectives and ecological conditions (Homewood and
Rodgers, 1987; Behnke and Scoones, 1993; Behnke and Abel, 1996; Oba
et al., 2003). This shift in ecological thinking has therefore led to a shift
towards a new social paradigm that acknowledges indigenous knowledge
as important for resource management. The emphasis is on community
participation in development projects and recognition that supporting and
adapting existing traditional management may provide a more successful
long-term route for aid intervention.
Policy discourses
The choice between the ecological and social paradigms outlined above,
together with the long-term sociopolitical changes that have characterized
Tanzania's history over the last few hundred years, have been central in
dei ning contemporary policy discourses. Colonial rule in Tanzania has
had a profound ef ect on the subsequent management of resources in
these areas and the way in which local communities are perceived. When
the British and other European nations began to colonize large parts of
East Africa in the late 1800s the received wisdom was that Africa was one
of the last great wildernesses untouched by humankind (Anderson and
Grove, 1987; Leach and Mearns, 1996; Neumann, 1996). National Parks
were created by the British colonial administration in part to protect this
wilderness, but they were also created to preserve the aristocratic lifestyle
that was diminishing in the United Kingdom as the result of social and
political changes in land ownership (Neumann, 1995, 1996). In reality, the
i rst National Parks were less to do with conserving wildlife as it is under-
stood today and more about protecting hunting rights and a particular
way of life, and exercising social control through exclusion and settlement
of indigenous communities (Anderson and Grove, 1987; Neumann, 1995).
These early ideas of separating people and nature became entrenched in
the colonial administration and the independent administrations that fol-
lowed. This 'people versus environment' discourse in policy is inextricably
linked with conservation thinking, equilibrium theory and the pastoral
paradigm. Today wildlife is perceived as a common heritage that should be
conserved for its own sake and for the sake of future generations (Lovett
et al., 2001). Maintaining biodiversity through the exclusion of livestock,
which under the equilibrium paradigm is believed to out-compete native
ungulates for forage, is seen as a necessary part of conservation strategy.
Local communities are perceived to be at odds with sustainable man-
agement of resources and top-down interventions are advocated. This
