Namibia’s community wildlife conservation system has come off the rails, investigation shows.

Namibia’s Community-Based Natural Resource Management is seen as a global gold standard for conservation. But a probe has found that it’s falling apart.

Themes: Hunting, Indigenous people, Livlihoods, NGOs, Poverty, Conservation, Tourism

An investigation into Namibia’s wildlife management policies and programmes by two environmental researchers has found that the claimed success of conservation in the country and economic benefits for poor rural communities are largely a fabrication.

Ngorongoro's conservation status is becoming increasingly linked to anti-Maasai rhetoric

Loliondo and NCA are two separate but closely related issues. The Maasai in NCA live under harsh restrictions that don’t exist in Loliondo. It’s Loliondo that’s my area of expertise.

Themes: Conservation, Indigenous people, Livlihoods, NGOs, Parks, Pastoralists, Tourism

Leaked short-term eviction plans for the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and vicious anti-Maasai hate campaigns in the media have been followed up by an anti-Maasai frenzy in the Tanzanian Parliament when discussing Ngorongoro. Posts from the 12th Feb and 6th Feb follow.

El robo de tierras indígenas y el circo del turismo blanco en África

Themes: Conservation, FPIC, Parks, NGOs, Tourism, Indigenous people, Hunting, Human rights

El cortometraje ‘Nyama’ narra la expulsión de la comunidad batwa de territorios protegidos de Uganda en pro de la conservación medioambiental y critica la condescendencia de los extranjeros

Loliondo and Ngorongoro Attacked from Every Angle, and People Have Spoken Up.

Themes: Conservation, FPIC, Indigenous people, Hunting, Human rights, NGOs, Pastoralists

The Tanzanian government must stop threatening and abusing the Maasai of Ngorongoro District, whether it’s for the old “Loliondogate” issue in Loliondo and Sale Division and the hunters’ wish for a “protected area”, or for the even older wish to for the love of tourism money further dispossess and strangle those in Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Now the Arusha RC John Mongella must backtrack on his (the government’s) terrible threat described in the previous blog post.

Mau Forest rehabilitation still overshadowed by forced evictions

Themes: Conservation, Human rights, Livlihoods, NGOs, Parks, Poverty

*More than 50,000 people have been forcefully evicted from Kenya’s ecologically important Mau Forest in the past decade. *With few options to relocate, evicted smallholders and others continue to enter the forest in search of grazing and fuel. *The Kenya Water Tower Agency has built electrified fencing, but encroachers have torn sections of this down. *Enlisting evictees to create tree nurseries and support for alternative livelihoods points the way to more constructive approaches.

Advocates call for a new human rights-based approach to conservation

Advocates say that a new approach to conservation based in human rights and legal recognition of Indigenous and other community land tenure is needed.

Themes: Conservation, Parks, NGOs, Indigenous people, Livlihoods, CBD

Delegates to COP15 began meeting this week to discuss a draft framework that will guide the world’s response to a worsening biodiversity crisis. Advocates say that a new approach to conservation based in human rights and legal recognition of Indigenous and other community land tenure is needed. Some have criticized the most recent draft of the world’s biodiversity plan for going easy on industry and failing to include language that would protect vulnerable people from dispossession and abuse.

Factors of success in community forest conservation.

This article explores how relevant predictions from two theories (Olson, 1965; Ostrom, 1990) that underpin, either implicitly or explicitly, the design and implementation of Community Based Conservation (CBC) efforts were, in practice.

Themes: Conservation, FPIC, Human rights, Indigenous people, Livlihoods, NGOs, Parks

Abstract: Drawing on structured interviews of 29 conservation practitioners with first‐hand experience working with successful community forest conservation projects in eight countries around the world, this article explores how context influences the importance of Mancur Olson's five requisites for collective action, and Elinor Ostrom's eight design principles for effective common‐pool resource management. Results suggest that Olson was correct that social cohesion is a common attribute of successful community forest management efforts. But the survey also suggests that it is shared identity that is most the important contributor to cohesion and that this can occur largely absent of regular, positive face‐to‐face interactions as Olson suggests. Interviews also show that all eight of Ostrom's design principles are manifest by successful community forest conservation efforts. Although recognition of a community rights to self‐determination was reported to be essential, it was also considered insufficient without the timely and competent support of national authorities to help communities effectively exercise their rights when faced with threats from more economically and politically powerful external actors.

The bold plan to save Africa's largest forest.

Themes: Conservation, Indigenous people, NGOs, Poverty, Livlihoods

The Congo Basin contains the world's second-largest rainforest, crucial for regulating the world's climate. Inside it, a plan to halt the forest's decline is bearing fruit.