Conservation, livelihood and democracy

Abstract

"Concern with environment is not a recent phenomenon in Africa. Already at the turn of the century there were serious debates and learned discussions about the deteriorating soil conditions and excessive deforestation in the Cape Colony in South Africa (Grove, 1987). Likewise the British, German and French colonial authorities were preoccupied with this problem in the 1920s and 1930s and took a variety of preventive measures (Darkoh, 1987; Korir-Koch, 1991). Many of these measures were of a coercive nature often relying on forced labour for construction of structures for soil conservation and compulsory destocking to ease the pressure on rangelands. They were deeply resented by farmers, pastoralists and forest dwellers. It was therefore not surprising that governments which came to power after independence decided to abandon them. However, after a period of benign neglect in the early years of independence, African governments have become increasingly alarmed by the state of the environment and are now setting in motion wide-ranging measures to arrest and reverse its degradation. Throughout much of this period, there has been a tendency to view the environmental problem in physical, ecological and technical terms. The problem is defined as loss of soil, disappearance of forests, extinction of wildlife and plant species, spread of deserts, pollution of waterways and sedimentation of dams and irrigation facilities. The villain of the piece is the nomadic herder, the subsistence farmer and the forest dweller whose galloping numbers and primitive methods of earning a livelihood are portrayed as putting intolerable pressure on limited and fragile resources. The measures devised to cope with the problem have focused on technical solutions involving land use and alleviation of human and animal pressure on resources. Conceived by government officials and international experts, they have been imposed upon a largely passive if not an outright hostile populace. It is not surprising that most of these measures have failed to achieve their objectives. In recent years, some attempts have been made to view the environmental problem in a holistic framework integrating physical and ecological with social and political processes. This is an important advance but the full implications of this approach continue to be largely neglected or insufficiently reflected in the design and implementation of measures for environmental rehabilitation and conservation. The purpose of this paper is to present a social perspective on the environment problem and to outline an approach to resource conservation informed by this perspective. A social approach to environment focuses on issues of ownership, control and management of natural resources. It addresses questions of power and conflicts of interest (Redclift, 1987, 1992; Vivian, 1992). It brings out the complex and multiple interactions between social and natural systems. It pays attention to institutions, motivation and incentives. And it stresses the vital links between resource conservation and human needs. Thus a strategy for environmental improvement is unlikely to succeed if it neglects the social dimension. Reliance upon purely ecological, technical or economic approaches is undoubtedly one of the reasons for the failure of many conservation programmes and policies."(pg 5)O