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Assessment of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in Southern Africa: Final Report

Assessment of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in Southern Africa: Final Report

Author(s): Gary Naughton, Art Hansen, Clyde Kiker, Brian Jones

Publication Date: 1998

Location: Southern Africa

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The process of CBNRM is a key component activity within the RCSA\rquote s Natural Resource Management Project, initiated in Southern Africa in 1989. It depends heavily on the utilization and conservation of the big game resources, and on wildlife tourism. The CBNRM process has been a success because the combination of forces related to high visibility of the resource, market opportunity and need for action motivated governments and dependent resource users to work together. In addition, the wildlife-focused CBNRM is effectively reaching the traditionally disadvantaged rural poor because their marginal communal lands (in terms of agriculture) are becoming profitable as wildlife production systems. The program is making a meaningful contribution to many local economies previously dependent on subsistence farming and remittances. The report suggests that the success of wildlife management has overshadowed many other natural resource management opportunities that are beginning to develop. However, the mechanisms for community action and entrepreneurship are in place and sustainable, and expansion to other resource development opportunities is a matter of introducing additional technology, extension education and market development linkages into the existing system. The report puts forth the following recommendations for improving the productivity, profitability and sustainability of the resource base: Expansion of CBNRM efforts should be geared towards linking existing market demands to an expanded range of products and/or services, in addition to those of the wildlife sector; Follow up activities to assist the development and use of coordinated monitoring of biological indicators, to reflect on the productivity of the resource and the sustainability of livelihoods dependent on them;Introduce systematic and structured collection of economic data into the monitoring and evaluation activities of the project management portfolio. This is noted as an important activity for conducting meaningful economic assessments of the CBNRM program in the future.

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