The decline of a model community-based conservation project: Governance, capacity, and devolution in Mahenye, Zimbabwe

By Péter Bálint, Judith Mashinya. 2006

158 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract This paper reports the results of our research, conducted from June to August 2004, on the community-based conservation project in Mahenye, Zimbabwe. Previous studies have described this project as a model example of Zimbabwe’s CAMPFIRE program. We explore the project’s recent performance within the context of the country’s post-2000 political and economic crisis and address the implications of our findings for arguments supporting devolution of authority for natural resource management to the community level. These issues are related in that calls for devolution are at least partly contingent on the demonstrated capacity of local institutions to manage projects in the community interest despite difficult circumstances. In our research, we found that outcomes in Mahenye have deteriorated sharply from conditions described in earlier studies. We found further that local failures of leadership combined with the withdrawal of outside agencies responsible for oversight and assistance may be more to blame for this decline than the ongoing national turmoil. Our results suggest that even in apparently successful conservation and development projects, local participatory decision-making institutions are fragile and require continuing external support. Consequently, we argue for caution in promoting full devolution of authority to the community level without safeguards to maintain good governance and adequate capacity.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Sociology and Political Science, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5dfd119b403de6ca46bc33917c86ff2b5bdf02ca

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In Global and Planetary Change

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Citations in the corpus

The role of fairness and benefit distribution in community-based Payment for Environmental Services interventions: A case study from Menabe, Madagascar☆ (2010, background): “Benefit capture by the elite (Kellert et al., 2000; Thompson and Homewood, 2002; Balint and Mashinya, 2006; Fritzen, 2007), variable opportunity and transaction costs among individuals and communities resulting in the perception of unfair distribution (Kumar, 2002; Adhikari, 2005; Meshack et al.”
Managing the Miombo Woodlands of Southern Africa: Policies, Incentives and Options for the Rural Poor (2010, unknown): “A wide range of studies on devolution processes in miombo countries are now emerging, with both positive and negative outcomes (Balint & Mashinya, 2006 ; Nemarundwe, 2004 ; Virtanen, 2003 ).”
An operational model for mainstreaming ecosystem services for implementation (2008, background): “However, there are many cases where well intentioned, bottom-up projects fail because of failures of regional and global institutions to support their outcomes (25, 95, 96).”
Tourism Governance and Attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals in Africa (2019, background): “Furthermore, Balint & Mashinya (2006) noted that to ensure successful conservation in Zimbabwe and Sub-Saharan countries, full devolution of authority to the local communities need to be anchored with good governance and sufficient capacity.”
African community-based conservation: a systematic review of social and ecological outcomes (2018, background): “…in the context of eroding community trust, changes to and reduction of traditional rules of use, and breakdowns in traditional networks and institutions (e.g., Songorwa 1999, Balint and Mashinya 2006, Jayne et al. 2009, Kamoto et al. 2013, Suich 2013, Dyer et al. 2014, Silva and Motzer 2015).”