Corruption and wildlife governance
Reforming wildlife governance in East and Southern Africa: the role of corruption, U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre (2009)
This brief looks at the role corruption plays in structuring wildlife governance systems in Africa by comparing the differing governance structures which have elicited variant economic and ecological outcomes. Wildlife is an important economic asset in Africa worth billions of dollars annually. The biological diversity is a natural spectacle and priceless global heritage.
The author notes that Namibia is Africa’s best example of the role that institutional reforms play in increasing wildlife population and investment in wildlife-based enterprises. Local communities and private landholders have been involved in decision making about wildlife use on their lands what has in turn generated strong incentives for local investments in conservation. This attracts wildlife-based enterprises that contribute to local and national economic growth and encourages further investments in conservation in a sustainable and virtuous cycle.
In Tanzania however, reforms have made limited headway in the country and wildlife populations are declining as a result. Although reforms have been proposed and donors have extended support, governments are maintaining centralised wildlife governance arrangements, resisting the use of market-based mechanisms and thus creating opportunities for corruption.This has led to reduced benefits at the national level, by preventing market-based pricing of wildlife, and at the local level, through the failure to devolve greater rights over wildlife to local communities. These factors undermine incentives for conserving wildlife at all levels.
The brief presents the following lessons from the comparison between Namibia and Tanzania:
reforms that decentralise user rights over wildlife can radically change the attitudes of landholders towards wildlife and shift incentives from eradication of wildlife towards conservation and investment
reforms are often incompatible with the private interests and motivations of influential political elites and policy-makers. This is because devolving rights over wildlife to local actors constitutes a shift in control over wildlife’s economic value, which involves losing direct access to money and resources.
To attain better outcomes, the brief suggests the following strategic responses to the political challenges facing wildlife and natural resource governance reforms:
local activists, community based organisations, donor and government agencies all need to collaborate to improve the existing level of knowledge with regard to patterns of natural resource use
donors should deal directly with the reformist constituency itself, which comprises non-governmental actors such as local communities, civil society organisations, networks, and even private sector entrepreneurs.
[via ELDIS]
How to get a copy
Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=44891&em=030310⊂=enviro
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