Conservation Geographies in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Politics of National Parks, Community Conservation and Peace Parks
نویسنده
چکیده
Sub-Saharan Africa has been the location of intense conservation planning since the colonial era. Under the auspices of wilderness protection, colonial authorities established national parks largely for the purpose of hunting and tourism while forcibly evicting indigenous populations. Concerns about the ethical and economic impacts of protected areas have generated interest in community conservation initiatives that attempt to include local participation in natural resource management. In recent years, the anticipated loss of biodiversity, coupled with the integration of ecological concepts into planning processes, has generated interest in larger-scale initiatives that maximize protected habitat. Central to this shift are transboundary conservation areas, or Peace Parks, that involve protected territory that supersedes national political borders. This study provides a review of national parks, community conservation, and Peace Parks, in order to understand the development politics and governance challenges of global conservation. Although these approaches are not mutually exclusive, the study asserts that they represent major trajectories to conservation planning in Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the developing world. In considering the histories of these models in Sub-Saharan Africa, I argue that conservation planners often prioritize economic and ecological factors over the political circumstances that influence the effectiveness of these approaches. The study concludes by suggesting that an analysis of these three models provides a lens to examine ongoing debates regarding the employ of conservation as an economic development strategy and the challenges to environmental governance in the 21st century.
منابع مشابه
Willingness to participation of local communities in the conservation of national parks
Removing local communities from lands that they have been exploiting for generations without consultation or adequate compensation can result in retaliation and hostile attitudes toward the objectives of the protected areas.Therefore, this study examines the application of willingness to participate of local communities in the conservation of national parks. For the empirical observations, Iran...
متن کاملSummary PhD English - Büscher Jan09
Despite their ambiguous historical record, conservation/development interventions the world over have remained a popular environmental governance tool. One of the latest global ‘trends’ are interventions to establish so-called ‘Transfrontier Conservation Areas’ (TFCAs): large contiguous spaces that are principally aimed at conserving biological diversity across national boundaries. In line with...
متن کاملPeace Parks and jaguar trails: transboundary conservation in a globalizing world
An increasingly utilized strategy for expanding conservation in the developing world has been the promotion of protected areas that supersede national borders. Alternatively known as transfrontier biosphere reserves, transfrontier or transboundary conservation areas, or Peace Parks, these protected areas are aggressively advanced by conservation agencies for their purported ecological and econo...
متن کاملVegetation structure and composition in the semi-arid Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape
Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape (MCL) woody vegetation was characterized to establish structural and compositional attributes. Stratified random sampling based on major soil types was used and nine plant variables were measured in 137(20x30) m2 sampling plots; these being genera, species and family names; basal circumference; plant height; depth and diameter of tree canopy; number of s...
متن کاملAfrican Buffalo Movement and Zoonotic Disease Risk across Transfrontier Conservation Areas, Southern Africa.
We report on the long-distance movements of subadult female buffalo within a Transfrontier Conservation Area in Africa. Our observations confirm that bovine tuberculosis and other diseases can spread between buffalo populations across national parks, community land, and countries, thus posing a risk to animal and human health in surrounding wildlife areas.
متن کامل