Browsing by Author "Mwango, Nelly Chunda."

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An assessment of the implementation of the community environmental management programme in Zambia : a case study of Luansobe Settlement - Mufulira district.
(2004) Mwango, Nelly Chunda.; Fincham, Robert J.; Quinn, Nevil.
This dissertation comprises two components. Component A consists of background to the research and includes the problem statement, aim and objectives. It also includes the literature review, which provides details on the concept of community-based natural resources management (CBNRM) and its benefits as a participatory approach adopted in the management of natural resources. Component B is presented as a research paper that complies with the requirements of the selected journal for purposes of publication shown in appendix I. Relevant information on the purpose of the study and background to the concept of CBNRM from component A is included in component B for purposes of the research paper. It also includes research findings, analysis and conclusions of the study. CBNRM has been identified as a feasible participatory approach to natural resources management based on community needs and priorities. This research reviews the implementation of the Community Environmental Management Programme (CEMP) as a participatory approach adopted by the Zambian Government to address growing environmental concerns, with particular reference to deforestation, as a result of human activities. This study focuses on Luansobe settlement in Mufulira district, one of eight districts in which the CEMP is being implemented as a pilot project. Luansobe is located in the peri-urban area of Mufulira. The majority of the people living in the area are unemployed and live below the poverty datum line. These people are largely dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods. Unfortunately, some of the activities people are engaged in are having adverse impacts on the resources, in particular forest resources. The main sources of livelihoods are charcoal production and subsistence farming, which are contributing greatly to the deforestation of the surrounding Nsato Forest Reserve. The CEMP is intended to set up institutional structures at national, district and community levels to address the problem of deforestation and the related poverty levels. This is under the premise that this situation can be improved with good management and community involvement. The study reviewed literature on the concept of CBNRM with particular reference to co-management as one form of a participatory approach with shared responsibility on the management of natural resources between government and local communities. The significance of community involvement in the use and management of forest resources is highlighted. The factors necessary for the effective implementation of joint management programmes are also highlighted and their importance in achieving conservation, community development and good governance. A case study was reviewed to show the importance of these indicators to the successful implementation of such participatory programmes. A list of indicators was compiled as the basis for the assessment of the implementation of the CEMP. A review of government documents provided background information on the establishment of the CEMP, the need for its implementation in Luansobe and the structures put in place at national, district and community levels to implement the programme. These data were supplemented by information gathered through semi-structured interviews with purposively selected key informants and workshops with local community members. Information obtained showed that the institutional structures implementing the CEMP on the ground are different from those set out in documents and are deficient of communication links among the stakeholders, especially community members. This has had negative effects on the representativeness of decisions made regarding the implementation of the programme and accountability of leaders to community members. This has further affected the implementation of projects under the CEMP intended to improve people's livelihoods through alternative sources of income that promote the sustainable use of forest resources.
Perceptions of the conservancy concept, common pool resources and the challenge of collective action across private property boundaries : a case study of the Dargle Conservancy, South Africa.
(2013) Mwango, Nelly Chunda.; Fincham, Robert John.; Breen, Charles Mackie.
Conservancies are viewed as playing an important role in enabling the landscape-scale management of biodiversity and ecosystem services by extending conservation areas beyond the boundaries of formally protected areas (PAs). In the South African context of the Biodiversity Stewardship Programme (BSP), conservancies are viewed as a viable landscape-scale approach to stewardship that can contribute to meeting government conservation mandates of conserving biodiversity and expanding its protected area network outside state PAs, through partnerships with private landowners. Using the landscape approach theory, I determined that the landscapescale context of biodiversity and ecosystem services creates common pool resources (CPRs) that require collective action in the form of integrated management planning across private property boundaries. In this context, conservancies create multi-tenure conservation areas with landscape meanings and associated benefits that require landscape-scale collective action. However, using property and collective action theories, I deduced that when landowners in a conservancy seek to engage collective action for landscape-scale conservation objectives under the BSP, they are challenged by the tension between individual meanings defined at the scale of their own property and landscape-scale meanings that straddle property boundaries. This tension is reinforced by property rights in which each actor holds resources under a private property rights regime while the landscape-scale meanings of CPRs need to be addressed in a common property rights regime context. Based on this complexity, my research set out to determine peoples’ meanings attached to the concept of conservancy and to illustrate how these meanings influence the ability to attain collective action necessitated by the CPR management regimes superimposed on private property rights regimes. This was with the view to refine the concept of conservancy to enable those who establish and engage with conservancies to better appreciate the implications and the nature of the governance regime that is required for success. My results show that the success of a conservancy as a landscape approach is dependent on landowner commitment to collective action. Landowner commitment is also influenced by a shared understanding of the conservancy as a multi-tenure conservation area managed collectively for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services across private properties. Thus Conservancy members need to develop an understanding of the conservancy as an area of contiguous multiple private properties that require collective management through integrated management planning, guided by a Dargle Conservancy management plan. Conservancy members also need to develop an understanding of the contiguous properties as encompassing biodiversity and ecosystem services that require common property rights regimes for their sustainable use and management. This explicit landscape approach will encourage landowner commitment to the conservation objectives set out in the multi-tenure conservation areas. I use my research findings to identify three issues for further research in community-based conservation areas as a landscape approach to conservation: firstly, research that focuses on developing integrated management plans for landscape-scale bio- and eco-regions by designating contiguous private properties into different categories of PAs according to collectively agreed conservation objectives; secondly, research that focuses on developing appropriate management regimes based on a model of multi-tenure conservation areas managed collectively for the conservation of biodiversity across private properties; and thirdly, research that focuses on establishing social structures for the development of adequate capacity and decision-making at the conservancy level to implement a landscape approach that supports ecological functions beyond individual boundaries. Building on this research will provide an important continuous learning process between conservancies and conservation agencies. Such learning is necessitated by the complexity of continually changing social and ecological systems that influence perceptions and behaviours.