This article critically evaluates participatory, integrated conservation and development programmes in Africa, focusing on protected area buer zones. I argue that, despite the emphasis on participation and bene®t-sharing, many of the new projects replicate more coercive forms of conservation practice and often constitute an expansion of state authority into remote rural areas. I suggest that the reasons for this state of aairs can be traced in part to the persistence in conservation interventions of Western ideas and images of the Other. These stereotypes result in misguided assumptions in conservation programmes which have important implications for the politics of land in buer zone communities.
The wildlife conservation problems in Tanzania are examined from a political ecology perspective. The analysis is historical, exploring the establishment of national parks under British colonial rule and the tightening of state control over access to resources at the expense of customary rights. Examples are presented from the Mt. Meru area of northeastern Tanzania. During the colonial period, the formal political debate over land and resource rights was conducted without the participation of African peasants. After independence the state continued to assert control over resource access unilaterally. As Meru peasants have effectively been shut out of the formal political process, their only recourse for defending the loss of access to natural resources is everyday forms of resistance, including de facto alliances with commercial poachers and 'foot dragging' in regards to compliance with conservation laws. Consequently there is little local support for current wildlife conservation policies on Mt. Meru and wildlife populations have declined in the 30 years since Arusha National Park was established there.
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Since the mid‐1980s, “democratization” and structural adjustment, have been transforming domestic political economies throughout sub‐Saharan Africa. In Tanzania, these processes could significantly alter the terrain in the conflict between local land rights and state wildlife conservation. The situation has become increasingly complex as the parties involved ‐ land‐holders, state and international conservation agencies ‐ are joined by land rights political organizations, domestic conservation groups and foreign capital. The paper focuses on struggles over land and resource rights, specifically on new forms of grassroots political action which has emerged on the question of wildlife conservation in national parks. At the same time, tourism is expanding with an influx of foreign capital. The paper explores the implications of the interactions between these forces.
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