Community Based Wildlife Management : its Role in Conservation and Development

Abstract: Tanzania has exceptional wildlife, environment and natural resources. The traditional way of conserving nature and wildlife has been through parks and reserves. In the 1980’s community based conservation emerged as a resource management paradigm. Its premise was that giving local people a stake in wildlife would increase their incentive to conserve it. This would make wildlife an important engine of local economic development. The core elements in community based conservation projects concern development, conservation and sustainable land use. Its ambition both to improve conditions for the local communities and conserve wildlife seems like a win-win situation, but has this really been working that well when applied in the field? This study aims to review the Community Based Wildlife Management in Tanzania, exemplified by a case study in the Wildlife Management Area in Burunge, located in a migration corridor between two national parks. There has been much controversy surrounding community-based management projects. While gains for the local communities have not always been clear, gains for wildlife seem more evident. Both species numbers and individuals have increased, but at the same time there has also been increasing conflicts between locals and wildlife. This is a sign that the WMAs are only halfway to towards reaching their goal of improving conditions for both communities and wildlife. CBC stills seems like the way forwards, maybe in a modified form which allows more government control, but where local people’s rights are still respected.