The introduction of transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs) in southern Africa was based on an enchanting promise: simultaneously contributing to global biodiversity conservation, regional peace and integration, and the sustainable socio-economic development of African communities. Cross-border collaboration and ecotourism became seen as the vehicles of this promise, which would enhance regional peace and stability along the way. However, as these highly political projects take shape, conservation and development policy making progressively shifts from the national to regional and global arenas, and the people most affected by TFCA formation tend to disappear from view.
This book focuses on the forgotten people displaced by, or living on the edge of these protected wildlife areas. It moves beyond the grand 'enchanting promise' of conservation and development across frontiers, and ill-conceived notions of TFCAs and/or transfrontier parks as unified socio-ecological systems. Peoples' dependency on natural resources - the specific combination of crop cultivation, livestock keeping and resource harvesting activities - varies enormously along the conservation frontier, as does their reliance on resources on the other side of the conservation boundary. Hence, the studies in this book move from the dream of ecotourism-fuelled development supporting nature conservation, towards the local realities of marginalized people in marginal environments on the edge of national parks and protected areas.
1. Introduction: People at Wildlife Frontiers in Southern Africa
2. TFCAs and the 'Invisible Peoples'
3. Deconstructing the Edge of Protected Areas
4. Population and Livelihoods on the Edge
5. Understanding Cultural Heterogeneity: Implications for Natural Resources Conservation on the Edge
6. Crossing the Edge: Determinants of Movements
7. Consequences of Animals Crossing the Edge of Protected Areas
8. On the Edge of State and Economy
9. Opportunities at the Edge
10. Conclusion
Jens A. Andersson is a rural development sociologist who has worked on smallholder farming and migration in Southern Africa. He coordinates the 'Competing Claims on Natural Resources' programme, a collaboration between Wageningen University and several universities in Southern Africa.
Michel de Garine-Wichatitsky is an ecologist and a veterinarian who has worked on livestock-wildlife interactions in Southern Africa. He coordinates the collaborative research platform 'Production and Conservation in Partnership'.
David H.M. Cumming is an ecologist who has been working in conservation in Southern Africa since the early 1960s. He is presently an Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town, a Research Associate at the University of Zimbabwe, a freelance consultant, and advisor to the AHEAD-GLTFCA initiative.
Vupenyu Dzingirai is a social anthropologist based at the Centre for Applied Social Sciences at the University of Zimbabwe. He has worked intensively in the Zambezi Valley among indigenous communities threatened by development activities.
Ken E. Giller is an agro-ecologist who works principally on sustainable intensification of smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa. He is leader of the 'Competing Claims on Natural Resources' programme.