Developing Capacity for Community Governance of Natural Resources Theory & Practice

By Brian Child and Deborah Wojcik

Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is a compelling concept that combines community custodianship of natural resources with sustainable development and poverty reduction. However, there is a large gap between the conceptual promise and actual performance of CBNRM. CBNRM is complex and challenging, and one of the major challenges is what we call micro-governancehow to replace the ubiquitous problem of elite capture within communities with genuine participation and equitable benefit sharing.
This book is for people want to understand and implement CBNRM governance more effectively, including graduate students, scholars and practitioners. It is targeted most specifically at the scholar-practitioner who wants to draw upon micro-governance theory to know why and how to work with communities to implement sound local institutions. The perspectives and resources presented have been developed and tested over many years working with CBNRM communities in southern Africa. The book offers convincing evidence for preferring participatory democracy over representational forms of governance, and discusses how to manage the scale paradox that economies and ecologies are better managed at larger scales, but that larger representational institutions invariably forfeit critical public goods like participation and equitable benefit sharing.
The books purpose is to provide the reader with the practical tools to operationalize good governance at the village level, in ways that are theoretically sound. It provides the reader with theoretical insights and practical lessons about micro-governance in the context of CBNRM, tools for designing and implementing conceptually rigorous community constitutions that enable communities to govern themselves fairly and effectively, and resources for developing the management and monitoring systems necessary to protect these conditions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491813348

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© 2014 Center for African Studies at the University of Florida. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/12/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1335-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-1334-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013917265

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

List Of Figures, Tables, And Photographs

About The Authors

Acknowledgements

Acronyms & Abbreviations

1.   Introduction

1.1   Purpose Of This Manual

2.   Community-Based Natural Resource Management (Cbnrm) In Southern Africa

2.1   Governance, Institutions And Cbnrm

2.2   De-Institutionalization And The Dual Economy

2.3   The De-Institutionalization Of Wildlife

2.4   The Re-Institutionalization Of Wildlife On Private Land

2.5   The Sustainable Use Approach

2.6   Cbnrm And The Re-Institutionalization Of Wildlife On Communal Land

2.7   Devolution

2.8   Micro-Governance

2.9   Steps In The Establishment Of Cbnrm

3.   Governance

3.1   Extractive Versus Inclusive Institutions

3.2   What Is Governance?

3.3   Characteristics Of Good Governance

3.4   Democratic Governance

3.5   Challenges Of Scale

3.6   Participatory Versus Representational Democracy

3.7   Governance In Multi-Community Cbos

3.8   Bottom-Up And Top-Down Accountability

3.9   Loose-Tight Management In Cbnrm

4.   Principles For Designing Accountable Community Organisations

4.1   Constituent Accountability

4.2   Jurisdictional Parsimony

4.3   Scale And Allocation Of Roles

4.4   Financial Mismanagement And Poor Institutional Design

4.5   Empowering Community Members To Create Accountability

4.6   Conformance Criteria And Monitoring

4.7   Institutional Conformance Criteria

4.8   Natural Resource Management Performance Criteria

5.   Revenue Sharing & Accountable Financial Management

5.1   Wildlife Are Our Cattle

5.2   Why Private Benefits (Cash Dividends) Matter

5.3   Principles Concerning Benefit Sharing

5.4   The Principle Of Producer Communities

5.5   Maximising Benefits To The Landholder

5.6   Wildlife Must Benefit Individuals, Just As Do Crops And Livestock

5.7   Committee Or Community Benefit?

5.8   The Participatory Revenue Allocation Process

5.9   Avoiding Differential Taxation

5.10   Revenue Sharing And Private Benefits

5.11   Public Benefits

5.12   Downward Accountability Through The Upward Flow Of Money

5.13   The Community Instructs The Committee—Not The Other Way Around

6.   Operationalising Bottom-Up Financial Accountability

6.1   Institutionalization

6.2   Standard Agm Format

6.3   Standard Format For Quarterly General Meetings (Qgm)

7.   Participatory Budgeting And Control: The Revenue Allocation Process

7.1   Explaining Income

7.2   Allocating Income To Best Uses (Budgeting)

7.3   The Revenue Distribution Ceremony

7.4   Quarterly Financial Reporting At General Meetings

7.5   Touching The Money To Create Proprietorship And Accountability

8.   The Importance Of Constitutions For Participatory Governance

8.1   What Is A Constitution?

8.2   Structure Of A Constitution

8.3   Preamble

8.4   Name And Identification Of The Organisation

8.5   Objectives Of The Organisation

8.6   General Principles

8.7   Membership

8.8   Rights, Responsibilities And Powers Of General Members (Members’ Bill Of Rights)

8.9   General Meetings

8.10   Roles And Responsibilities

8.11   Checking A Constitution

9.   Concluding Comments

10.   References And Additional Resources

10.1   References

10.2   Manuals

10.3   Highly Recommended Cbnrm Manuals

10.4   Articles And Online Resources

10.5   Books

Appendix: Example Of A Constitution For Participatory Governance In A Single Village Community

Photo1--.jpg

Local CBNRM community planning, Caprivi Strip, Namibia. Photograph by Deborah Wojcik.

LIST OF FIGURES,

TABLES, AND PHOTOGRAPHS

Figures

Figure 1: Using Wildlife To De-Couple Economic Production From Ecological Inputs.

Figure 2: The Sustainable Use Approach And The Price-Proprietorship Hypothesis.

Figure 3: The Price-Proprietorship-Subsidiarity Hypothesis.

Figure 4: A Synopsis Of The Four Key Aspects Of Cbnrm.

Figure 5: An Illustration Of The Differences Between Representational And Participatory Governance.

Figure 6: The 80:20 Rule—Benefit Sharing In Small (Single Village) And Large (Multi-Village) Communities.

Figure 7: Sequence For Establishing Cbnrm.

Figure 8: Eight Characteristics Of Good Governance (Adapted From Unescap 2011).

Figure 9: Governance At The Local Level Is Embedded Within Governance At Larger Scales.

Figure 10: Layers Of Governance In Multi-Village/Community Cbos.

Figure 11: Levels And Complexity Of Governance In Cbnrm, Showing Linkages Across Different Levels

Figure 12: Matching The Institution To The Scale Of The Resource.

Figure 13: Conformance Criteria That Need To Be Met Before Benefits Are Released.

Figure 14: A Role Play To Contrast The Economic Differences Between How Domestic And Wild Resources Are Managed.

Figure 15: Illustration Of Participatory, Activity-Based Budgeting. Mahenye, Zimbabwe, 1990.

Figure 16: Illustration Of The Revenue Distribution Process

Figure 17: People Meeting Face-To-Face At An Agm.

Figure 18: Simple Checklist For A Good Constitution.

Tables

Table 1. The Sustainable Use Approach.

Table 2. Comparing Benefits And Choices Offered By Conventional Conservation And The Sustainable Use Approach.

Table 3. Comparing Public Benefits Between Representational And Participatory Community Governance.

Table 4. Matching The Institution To The Scale Of The Resource.

Table 5. Ideal Allocation Of Roles And Responsibilities In Cbnrm Delegating Functions Upwards.

Table 6. Decision Tree For Deciding How To Allocate Money From Wildlife.

Table 7. Decision Tree For Deciding Who Should Employ And Manage Community Game Guards.

Table 8. Four Steps For Participatory Budgeting And Control (I.e. Accountability).

Table 9. Sample Of An Income Table For Concession With Both Hunting And Tourism.

Table 10. Income-Expenditure Budget Sheet (From Flipchart) As Illustrated For Mahenye.

Table 11. Example Layout Of A Quarterly Financial Variance Analysis.

Table 12. Basic Conformance Criteria.

Table 13. Checklist For Releasing Money To A Community And Monitoring The Agm Basic Conformance Criteria.

Table 14. Key Roles And Finances In Cbnrm.

Photographs

1.   Local CBNRM community planning, Caprivi Strip, Namibia

2.   Women Involved In The Community Decision-Making Process, Mozambique, 2013

3.   Community Game Guards, Zambia, 2000.

4.   The Khwai Community In Botswana Assessing The Quality Of Their Governance Using The Governance Dashboard Process.

5.   Livestock In Mozambique

6.   Self-Help Community Project In Luangwa Valley—Money Is Used For Roofing Sheets And Door Frames; The Men Make Bricks And The Women Supply Sand, Stones, And Water

7.   Presenting The Budget, Mahenye, Zimbabwe, 1990

8.   Presenting The Budget, Mozambique, 2013

9.   Participatory Budgeting In The Amazon

10.   A Woman Getting Her Full Share In Cash In The Chikwarakwara Community, Zimbabwe

11.   Contributing Money To Different Projects, Zimbabwe

12.   Explaining Cbnrm To A Community, Mozambique, 2012

13.   Explaining How Income Will Be Divided From Sabia Game Park And Shared Between Five Villages, Mozambique, 2013

14.   Traditional Leader, Kilian Mabunda, From The Amashangaan In South Africa, Talking To Fellow Shangaans, Mozambique, 2013

15.   New Committee Being Introduced To The Community In Mavanguana Village, Mozambique, 2013

16.   Theresa Nube From The Mozambican Wildlife Agency (Direccao Nacional De Terres E Florestas) Explaining The Return Of Revenues From Hunting To Communities, 2013

17.   Alex Mcdondald And Shadreck Mizhi Explain Hunting Techniques To Community Members And Trainers

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Brian Child

Brian Child has a BSc (Honours) in Agricultural Economics from the University of Zimbabwe. He was also a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford where he obtained a PhD by making an ecological and economic comparison of wildlife and livestock land use options in drylands in Zimbabwe. Working for Zimbabwe’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management, he provided research and extension support to the private conservation or game ranching sector, and later headed the iconic CAMPFIRE Programme (Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources). He spent six years in the Luangwa Valley in Zambia developing a CBNRM programme and bringing South Luangwa National Park to technical and financial sustainability by introducing decentralized performance-based management and new commercial agreements. He implemented the Emergency Resource Protection Programme in Kafue National Park for three years. He also chaired the IUCN Southern African Sustainable Use Specialist Group where he facilitated highly experienced scholar-practitioners to collectively reflect on the Sustainable Use Approach to private, community and state conservation, and to make these experiences available through a series of Earthscan books, a journal special edition, and the use of community theater. He joined the University of Florida in 2004 to develop an interdisciplinary programme in African conservation, where he and colleagues support over twenty PhD and Masters students working on subjects ranging from community governance to land use economics and land use land cover change. He also provides technical advice to agencies such as UNDP, Norway, and the World Bank on Protected Area Management (especially sustainable financing) and on CBNRM. His current interest is linking research to training to practice in large landscapes in Southern Africa through a co-learning transdiciplinary process, with a particular focus on governance, land use economics, and stakeholder processes.

Deborah Wojcik

Deborah Wojcik is an interdisciplinary social scientist whose work focuses on the complexities of social-ecological systems and how people learn and make decisions about the environment and natural resources. Her doctoral research employed qualitative and quantitative research approaches to better understand micro-governance of water and wildlife resources, specifically how communication and social networks affect community-based natural resource management in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. She has worked in several Southern African countries and the Peruvian Andes conducting community-based research. Deborah earned her Ph.D. from the University of Florida in Forest Resources and Conservation, with a concentration in Tropical Conservation and Development and certificate in Environmental Education and Communications. She was a National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (NSF-IGERT) Fellow focused on adaptive management of water, wetlands, and watersheds. She holds Master of Environmental Management, Master of Arts in Teaching, and Bachelor of Science degrees from Duke University. During her career, Deborah has worked on environmental education, training, and community engagement initiatives in academic, government, and non-profit settings in several countries. She currently serves as the chief academic staff officer for the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources at Stanford University.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Funding for this manual was provided by a Higher Education for Development (HED) grant awarded to the University of Florida by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of a project entitled Transforming CBNRM Education in Southern Africa (2009-2013). The project was managed by the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida.

The University of Florida faculty team was led by Principal Investigator (PI) Brian Child and Co-PIs Grenville Barnes, Sandra Russo, and Brijesh Thapa. Dr. Child developed much of the text from extensive experience working with CBNRM programmes in Southern Africa over several years. Deborah Wojcik compiled the information and other existing materials and wrote supplemental text throughout the document. Stephanie Thorn provided formatting and editorial input, graphic design, and production coordination and management.

The objective of this manual is to provide a resource that will help sustain and support CBNRM programmes in Southern Africa by improving education and training programmes.

ACRONYMS & ABBREVIATIONS

1

INTRODUCTION

Southern Africa is the crucible of Community-Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM). The purpose of CBNRM is to maximise the value of wild resources to landholders and communities because this addresses poverty reduction and incentivises conservation. CBNRM was conceptualised and implemented by Southern Africans, and helped to change the global narrative about the relationship between conservation and people. Because of its early successes in Southern Africa, CBNRM received considerable support from development partners like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Norway and non-governmental organisations like