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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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Community Based Natural Resources Management during and after Jambanja: Problems and Prospects for Devolved Governance of Wildlife in Zimbabwe
| Panel |
26. Decentralising power and natural resource control: responses and perspectives
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| Paper ID | 107 |
| Author(s) |
Chimhowu, Admos Osmund
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | Zimbabwe has often been considered the trailblazer in devolved governance of wildlife resources through its CAMPFIRE programme started in the late 1980s. By February 2000, when the Jambanja or Fast Track land reform programme started, the CAMPFIRE model was well established and, it together with other innovations like private wildlife conservancies were seen as prototypes of devolved governance of wildlife and neo-liberalisation natural resources. Apart from the transformed patterns of land ownership brought about through Jambanja, an associated socio-economic crisis has unfolded setting back most of the post-colonial gains in poverty reduction among rural communities. This has put pressure on resources at a time when state institutions have been in decline. Using case study evidence from North Western Zimbabwe, this paper looks at the state of devolved management of wildlife resources during and after Jambanja and the ensuing of crises. It considers how the changed rural space economy since Jambanja has affected devolution and considers some emerging outcomes of a weakened bureaucracy on the institutions created to support and manage the devolved dispensation. The paper analyses the changing spatiality, institutional authority and the emergence of ‘new local’ big men and concludes that the CAMPFIRE model still requires a strong and effective central state to work especially in cases where local institutions are unstable. |
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