Browsing by Author "Nielsen, Martin R"

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Designed for accumulation by dispossession: an analysis of Tanzania's wildlife management areas through the case of Burunge
(wiley, 2020-12) Kicheleri, Rose P; Mangewa, Lazaro J; Treue, Thorsten; Nielsen, Martin R; Kajembe, George C
Unfortunately, adverse rather than positive local welfare outcomes of community-based conservation initiatives are quite common. Through the case of Burunge Wildlife Management Area (WMA) this study documents how WMAs in Tanzania appear designed to facilitate accumulation by disposses- sion in the name of decentralized wildlife management. Based on focus group discussions, interviews, and policy-document analyses, we show that the pro- cess of establishing the WMA was fraught with hidden agendas and lacked legitimacy as well as transparency. Villagers and their local governments were also oblivious to the fact that the village land they contributed to forming the WMA would no longer be under village control even if they withdrew from the WMA. Decentralized revenue streams were gradually recentralized, and when the High Court ruled in favor of a Village Government that did not want to be part of the WMA, higher levels of government scared it to stay and to drop its legal as well as economic claims. We conclude that by mechanisms of rule-through-law WMAs deliberately dispossess village communities by atten- uating the authority of democratically elected village governments. Hence, the wildlife policy needs urgent revision to democratize and thus promote positive livelihood outcomes of the WMA concept.
Institutional rhetoric versus local Reality: a case study of burunge Wildlife management area, Tanzania
(SAGE, 2018) Kicheleri, Rose P; Treue, Thorsten; Nielsen, Martin R; Kajembe, George C; Mombo, Felister M
Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) are establishments that promote wildlife conservation and rural development in Tanzania. However, through focus group discussions, key informant interviews, a questionnaire survey, and literature review, we found that the participation of local people in both the establishment and management of the WMA was limited and rife with conflict. While benefits have materialized at the communal level, local people saw neither value nor benefit of the WMA to their livelihoods. Specifically, local people’s access to natural resources got worse while private eco-tourism investors and the central government have gained financially. Contrary to the livelihood enhancing WMA rhetoric, top-down institutional choices have sidelined democratically elected Village Governments and successive legislative adjustments disenfranchised and dispossessed them and their constituencies. We conclude that village governments should consistently demand for their legal rights to the resources on their land until the WMA approach to conservation and development is democratized.
Panorama of agro-pastoralism in western Serengeti: a review and synthesis
(2017) Kavana, Pius Yoram; Mahonge, Christopher P; Sangeda, Anthony Z; Mtengeti, Ephraim J; Fyumagwa, Robert; Nindi, Stephen; Graae, Bente J; Nielsen, Martin R; John, Bukombe; Keyyu, Julius; Speed, James; Smith, Stuart; Shombe, Shombe; Ntalwila, Janemary; Ilomo, Ophery
Agro-pastoral production system in western Serengeti is subsistence oriented livelihoods directed towards attaining self-sufficiency in food and livestock production and supporting growing human population. Production strategies involves the extensive use of land cultivating for food and cash crops production, and fallowing land. Households form the basic units of production, which utilize land, family labour, livestock keeping and any capital at their disposal to meet their production goals. Livestock, especially cattle have great symbolic value regarded as a bank on hoves, and a basis for various traditional transactions that makes households strive to increase livestock capital. Analysis of crops production and livestock population trends reveal that agro-pastoral system expand due to increase in prices of livestock products. Paucity of land to absorb the growing human and livestock population caused the political and administrative machinery to develop and implement village land use plans to ensure proper land utilization. However, introduction of land use plans alone is not a panacea to land use problems in villages. It was envisaged that land use plan should be accompanied by introduction of sustainable crops and livestock production systems by improving productivity of land in terms of pasture and crops to support the current human and livestock population in the Western Serengeti. The future direction of agro-pastoralism in Western Serengeti under these circumstances is not well understood. This entails a need for a multidisciplinary study of impact of agro-pastoralism on livelihood of people in Western Serengeti.