Zimbabwe biodiversity strategy and action plan
Rather than a hierarchy, the decision and action process should be seen from an individual perspective of concentric circles. Each circle of participation represents an institution household, village, community, district that embodies some kind of collective action Uphoff, The benefits of the institutions are "public goods," and it is suggested that the natural resource base should be perceived as the natural capital of the economic dimension of the institution. In this conceptual framework the protected area asserts a force primarily for the local public good but also balances local interests with those of a wider public and of future generations.
Only through the evolution of viable local natural-resource-management institutions will the greater public, through its agencies, be able to establish a network of co-management institutions capable of not only planning but managing a wider landscape than the park. A way exists to maintain Africa's splendid large-mammal diversity in savanna land use by facilitating the establishment of local wildlife-management systems, linked together and with the government-protected areas. Governments should not only discuss trade-offs outside the park but realize the necessity for trade-offs inside as well.
The buffer zone is not outside the park but between the perceptions of central government and local people regarding appropriate use of local resources. Sustained use Most consumptive use of wildlife in Africa is defined by governments as illegal. While efforts to protect endangered species with force are important and heroic at times, they should not hide a profound malady of approach. While all common-pool resources need protection from illegal appropriation, the loss of Africa's elephants and rhinos in the past decades is symptomatic of a massive divide in perception of value between governments and local people.
While Western governments may believe they can protect the remnants of their wildlife diversity by the investment of enforceable regulations, it is unlikely that Africa can invest the management cost.
Wildlife has to save itself, and the experience of Zimbabwe and other countries indicates that it can, provided it is used wisely and marketed effectively and the rents are appropriated to the land they came from. It is a gross tragedy that elephants and rhinos, for example, have paid so much and received so little protection in return. Respect and care for the community of life includes improvement in the quality of human life, the conservation of the earth's vitality and diversity, and the sustained use of renewable resources IUCN, An African conservation ethic is necessary, and it is proposed that it be based on local proprietorship and sustained use, with protected areas providing a local subsidy to ensure harmony between protected and public lands.
This in turn will require governments to empower their rural people at the expense of urban people.
Biodiversity and Planning Support Programme Zimbabwe Case Study
Some communities will come off better than others. Those who pay the costs of having wildlife on their land must receive the economic benefit. There must be an incentive for having wildlife instead of goats and cows on the range, and it must be competitive or complementary. As McNeely states, behavior affecting the maintenance of biological diversity can best be changed by providing new approaches to conservation that alter people's perceptions of what behavior is in their self-interest.
McNeely goes on to say that unfortunately too little biodiversity will be conserved by market forces alone, and that effective government intervention is required. What "effective government intervention" is, how it will be paid for, and why it is lacking, are issues not generally stated. How are conservation costs to be met and by whom, if not by the people on the land and the countries they live in themselves? A caring partnership Maintenance of biodiversity depends on the integration of social, biotic, and economic factors. The future requires a new approach to basic needs that encompasses physical and emotional human needs as well as to maintain the ecosystems that sustains them.
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Governments must help rural people get back in touch with the natural resources in their areas and, on the basis of unequivocal local proprietorship, begin to reestablish a true spirit of stewardship. That spirit must translate into the process of institution-building for wildlife and natural-resource management. The role of the state is to facilitate this process by ensuring an enabling framework and professional technical inputs. The role of science is to support the planning, training, monitoring, and evaluation phases of the policy process. The nature of the economic system for management is critical and should be determined locally, not bureaucratically, to ensure the full impact of the incentive structure.
Investments must be made in developing the human institutions and understanding the ecosystem, its resources, and their use and market. Rents from the resource must be returned to the land through wise and gentle management and to the community. Managing the local environment must reward itself, and communities can determine and negotiate the rates for reinvestment capital , sustainability recurrent , income, community development, levies, taxes, etc. The post-colonial synthesis proposed seeks to reunite old and new, local and central, cultural and natural diversity, in the context of modern Africa.
To make co-management strategies possible, governments should be persuaded that the proposal is favorable to their own interests and does not threaten established decision-making processes. The affective economy, described by Hyden , of networks of land, kinship, and support in much of rural Africa still offers a high human quality of life to many.
The quality of all rural life could be lifted further by forest and wildlife departments' moving from being protectionist to becoming enablers of sustainable conservation and development.
Rural wildlife or natural-resource cooperatives could be allowed to negotiate with the national and international private sector on marketing the sustained yield from their common system. The possibility exists of regional and national associations supporting primary producers, able to capture the best possible values for their natural resource products. These resources are in some cases more valuable than others and include beautiful landscapes, lake shores, rivers, and forests as well as valuable minerals gold, gemstones, etc.
In other areas resources are stressed by overuse. Spectacular resources like Victoria Falls contradict this view but reinforce the point that governments through their parks, forests, and powers can wield immense influence on local and regional land-use practices.
National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan - Zimbabwe - Google Books
Government need only empower people to manage their own resources and use the protected areas to supply further benefits in order to be a lead stakeholder in the policy-making for landscape planning. As it stands, the natural-resource departments in communal lands are far behind other agencies in extension services.
Wildlife conservationists must participate in the development process armed with sound technical advice as to how to sustain the benefit flow. References Berkes, D. Brown, M. Buffer Zone Management in Africa. QEP, Uganda, Washington, D. World Wildlife Fund. Child, B. Hong Kong. Grosvenor Press International. Cousins, B. Cumming, D. Project paper no. Chief, Council and Commissioner. Royal van Gorcum. Personal communication. Hyden, G. University of California Press. Gland, Switzerland. World Conservation Union. Martin, R.
Harare, Zimbabwe. McNeely, J. Economics and Biological Diversity. Murphree, M. Communities as Institutions for Resource Management. University of Zimbabwe. New York. Cambridge University Press.
Shaffer, Mark. Viable Populations for Conservation. The convention requires Zimbabwe to prepare a national biodiversity strategy and to ensure that it is mainstreamed into the planning and activities of all sectors that have an impact on biodiversity. National biodiversity strategies and action plans NBSAPs are the principal instruments for implementing the convention at national level. In line with this provision, Zimbabwe developed its first national biodiversity strategy and action plan NBSAP in , which covered the period This new NBSAP therefore promotes the integration of conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity into relevant sectoral or cross-sectoral plans, programmes and policies.
The ministry, however, depend on various stakeholders for the actual implementation. Strategic guidance is provided by an inter-ministerial committee and the Biodiversity Forum as the national steering committee. The Biodiversity Office takes the lead in coordinating and monitoring progress.