THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNITY.OWNED NATURAL RESOURCE.BASED

ENTERPRISES:PRACTICAT TESSONS FROM MBOMIPA AND

THE WILDTIFE SECTOR IN TANZANIA

Martin T. Walsh

MBOMIPA Project, Iringa, Tanzania &Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, U.K

i{#. i 4'4r: '1

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paper presented to aWorkshop on Common Pool Resources in Tanzania,New Africa Hotel, Dar es Salaam, Tar:r;ania,14 December 2001

Dr. Martin WalshMBOMIPA ProjectP.O.BOX 398IringaTanzania

tgl.026-27A2686fax.026-2702807email. kisutu@hdmail.com

CONTENTS

Acronyms & Abbreviations

Map of the MBOMIPA Project Area

L lntroduction

2 MBOMIPA and CPRs

3 Political and economic conditions of development

3.1 Empowerment and all that it entails

3.2 Significant benefits of different kinds

3.3 External political and economic support

4 Conclusions

References

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OUTLINE OF MAIN POINTSANDARGUMEFIT (DRAFT)

THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNITY-OWNEDNATURAL RESOURCE-BASED ENTERPRISES:

PRACTICAL LESSONS FROM MBOMIPA AhtI)TIIE WILDLIFE SECTOR IN TANZAI\IA

Martin T. Walsh

Outline of main points and argument

I Introduction

Subject ofthe paper:

r Management and use of wildlife as a common pool resource (CPR) inTarzania.

o Government and donor-sponsored efforts to develop new instifutions toperform this role.

o Focus on the creation of 'community-owned natural resource-basedenterprises' and analysis of some of the critical factors which favour theirdevelopment.

. Why I have used this title, and some of its wider implications.

In the context of this workshop:

o Support and illustration of one of Prof. Shivji's main themes: that CPRsand their management must be approached in terms of an understanding ofthe wider political and economic context - and social history - in whichthey are embedded.

r To question and perhaps modify some of his specific conclusions -especially those relating to wildlife management and the potential role ofvillage management institutions.

ilIBOilIIPA and CPRS

MBOMIPA:

Examples from MBOMIPA = 'Matumizi Bora ya Malihai Idodi naPawaga'.

A community wildlife management project now working with 19 villagesin ldodi and Pawaga divisions, Iringa district, bordering Ruaha NationalPark.

o A collaboration between the Wildlife Division and TANAPA in theMinistry of Natural Resources and Tourism, and supported by DFID (U.K.government).

o Project began in October 1997, inheriting the CBC component of REWMP(Ruaha Ecosystem Wildlife Management Project), which began in 1993,More than eight years of project experience.

r One of the leading pilot CWM projects in Tanzania, contributing todevelopment of the new Wildlife Policy of Tanzania (March 1998), WMAGuidelines, and review of legal framework (WCA of 1974).

o MBOMIPA is also the name of an almost-registered CBO (community-based organisation) established to manage wildlife resources on behalf ofthe 19 participating villages (a proto-WMA).

CPRs:

Academic theorisation of cPRs has played little role in the development ofMBOMIPA, either the project or the CBO, though there has been someCPR-related research in the areaand neighbouring Usangu.

Other development agendas have moulded the project(s), including CBC,CBNRM,'sustainable livelihoods', and'poverty reduction'.

Difficult to identifi 'the commons' in the catchment of the Great Ruaha,unless abstracted from complex historical realities, risking grossoversimplification.

Conceptualising 'wildlife' as a CPR (or set of CPRs) also has itschallenges, given the mobility of the fauna.

The human history of the Great Ruaha River and its environs can bedescribed at one level in terms of competition and conflict over naturalresources, e.g.

1950s: ejection from southern extension of Rungwa GR (gazetted 1951).

1964: creation of Ruaha National Park and further exclusion

1984: gazettement of Lunda-Mkwambi GCA: exclusion from the north andrestriction on activities in the south, the legal preserye of resident huntersand illegal target of poachers large and small.

(a much simplified history)

. Ripe in 1993 for a pilot CBC programme

3 Political and economic conditions of development

A common question:

o "What are the key ingredients required to establish successfulCBC/CBNRM initiatives?"

A rough and ready answer.

o First, empowerment, i.e. the transfer of significant powers to projectvillages by higher authorities (WD)

o Second, provision of significant benefits, material and otherwise, to theparticipating villages and villagers. I confess, however, that I have neverbefore given my answer deeper consideration.

But do these hold up?

3.1 Empowerment and all that it entails

A caution:

I 'Empowerment' is often used glibly, need to be careful in defining who andwhat and how.

Empowering the MBOMIPA villages;

o The paradigmatic instance was the Director of Wildlife's endorsement ofvillages' right to raise a 'village levy' on the game quota, in effect allowingthem to sell hunting rights to resident hunters.

o This was done at the end of REWMP in 1996 and was the start ofsignificant incomes for participating villages (originally 9) - see the Tables.

e.g. in 1996 hunters had to pay villagers an average of more thanTsh.100,000 for a buffalo; now Tsh.250,000.

Table l: Village and District Incomes from Sale of the Resident HuntingQuota (LMS,Idodi and Pawaga Divisions), 199{t-2000

* This sum was shared among all l8 villages then participating in the prqect. Previouslyonly the 9 villages with hunting blocks on their land had shared the proceeds of residenthunting.

Table 2: Reported village rncomes fromZio/o Share of Licence Fees fromTourist Hunting (LMN, Pawaga Division), 199G2000(sums rounded to nearest Tsh.)

** In this year the district authorities chose to distribute a portion ofthe available funds tovillages in neighbouring Isimani division, gving none to the 18 MBOMIPA villageswhich had agreedto begin poolingtheir income from different sources.

INCOMESFROMRESIDENTIIT]NTTI{G

1996(Tsh.)

1997(Tsh.)

1998(Tsh.)

1999(TshJ

2m0(Tsh.)

Idodi & PawagaVillages( n = 9 )

3,703,619 6,100,000 10,603,99812,000,00020,039,000*

Iringa District(excluding licencefees)

1,402,100 2,100,000 2,700,000 3,000,000 0

TOTALWLLAGE &DISTRICTINCOMES

5,105,719 81200,(x)0 13"30389815,{n0r(xr0 201038,U)0

INCOMES FROMTOURIST H{JNTING

1996(Tsh.)

1997(Tsh.)

1998(Tsh.)

1999(Tsh.)

2mo(Tsh.)

Pawaga Villages (n = 7) 0 1,750,000 4,128,059 4,106,499 0**

TOTAL VILLAGEINCOMES 0 1,750,000 4,12E.'059 4,t06'A99 0

o But this was only the culmination of a series of acts establishing villages'new rights (with project support and advice).

o Nonetheless, this empowerment was fragile in some respects: it was basedon an administrative decision, not creative use of available provisions in theWCA of 1974. As a result it rests on a relatively weak legal foundation.

Empowerment qualified:

Empowermentnecessarily thecorurequences.

Ask: 'Power toinvolved).

can therefore be qualified in different ways: it is notresult of a one-off act with unequivocal causes and

do what?' (specifying, for example, the particular rights

r And perhaps more importantly, 'Power to whom?' These are the essentialdetails of empowerment.

Experimenting with village institutions:

r REWMP established Village Wildlife Committees (VWCs) which becameprojectised and unaccountable to the rest ofvillage government.

o MBOMIPA reformed these as Village Natural Resource Committees(VNRCs), sub-committees of village government with a technical andadvisory role in running the wildlife 'business'. Profits of the enterprisebelong to the village as a whole and are invested in village development forbenefit of all villagers.

o Training provided to both \rNRC and other village governmert members.But still there is political imbalance, given initial V|{RC control of theproceeds of wildlife utilisation.

r There is also a lot of change in village institutions because of charges andallegations about the misuse ofNR, more highly valued and politicised thanbefore. Is this 'good governance' developing?

Should we villagise NR management?

o MBOMIPA experience also supports Prof Shivji's observation that VillageAssemblies are relatively weak vs. Village Councils. It is difficult toensure affendance and participation of minority and disadvantaged groups.

o This is a problem which needs to be tackled but how easy is it? Will therebe any wildlife left if we wait for democratisation at village level?

o There are some obvious problems with the 'villagisation' of NR andespecially wildlife management.

e These include the limited capacity of village governments in terms of thepersonnel and skills available in small and remote communities...

o AIso the potential for conflict between villages over access to and the useof CPRs in the absence of well drafted and properly enforced agreements.

CBOs, a r adical alternative?

o The Wildlife Policy and resulting draft WMA Guidelines stipulate WMAmanagement by CBOs which are gazetted as Authorised Associations(AAs)

The MBOMIPA CBO is on the verge of being registered, the first of aseries of steps towards becoming an AA (once new regulations are inforce).

It is anticipated that the wMA itself will be ceded from the lands ofparticipating villages: in turn the CBo (and future AA) will be expected torepresent and serve the interests of its constituent villages, a relationshipenshrined in its constitution.

There is potential here for morebacking.

There may also be potential forvillages and the CBO/AA.

radical empowerment with full legal

new resource conflicts, e.g. between

3.2 Significent benefits of different kinds

Unpicking and contextualising:

o The role of economic incentives and other benefits in establishingCBC/CBNRM is frequently mentioned.

r As with empowerment, we need to understand the role of different kinds ofbenefits, and identifu who gets what and how and when.

What are the significant benefits provided to MBOMIPA villagers?

r One way of looking at this question is to think of it as an enterprise (orseries of linked village enterprises).

e Our traditional focus has been on the benefits provided directly as theprincipal output of the enterprise, i.e. the use of profits to improve villageservices (especially health and education) and infrastructure. Such servicesetc. are in theory available to all villagers, including minority andmarginalised groups. Their development also reduces the pressure on localhouseholds to pay extra levies.

r We can also identify other groups of beneficiaries associated with differentaspects ofthe operation ofthe enterprise(s).

e These include the Village Game Scouts (VGS) recruited by the VlrlRCs,who may benefit both financially and in terms of the training they receive.

. They also include the managers of the enterprise(s), especially (at present)VNRC offrcials and members, and other village government members whohave been trained by the project.

r Women managers cite a specific set of benefits for women as a group.They contrast the historical situation in which women did not hunt and onlybenefited very indirectly from the consumption of game meat, with thepresent in which they can play a role as managers of wildlife and can allbenefit from improved health and education services in their villages.

r Meanwhile, surveys show that animal populations in the project area aregenerally stable and in some cases increasing. This suggest that wildlife asan asset is being maintained and perhaps enhanced. Surprisingly to someobservers, some villagers do explicitly value animals as NR assets, and saythat this offsets any crop and other damage that they may cause.

Related observations:

This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but it should give some idea of therange of benefits stemming from present activities. There is clearly scopeto be innovative in describing and attempting to understand these further.

We need more careful analyses of both winners and losers.

How can we weigh the relative importance of different benefits (andnegative impacts too)?

Is there any minimum bundle of benefits which will sustain the process?E.g. benefits just for one particular group of actors?

3.3 External political and economic support

Adding a third key ingredient:

6

r External political and economic support is another key ingredient, whichcan be related back to empowerment. Indeed the case study ofempowerment illustrates well the involvement of external actors in bothhelping to initiate and support village activities (e.g. the project, theWildlife Division).

The need for support:

r Because of the severe conflicts which the process generated initially, it isclear that CWM in Idodi and Pawaga would never had got gotng withoutstrong support from the outside.

o The inherent weakness of villages (their capacity and organisation),especially in such a marginal and undeveloped area, also means thatexternal alliances are required to help develop community wildlifemanagement.

e An inter-village CBO may have much greater capacity than a single villagein this regard. Nonetheless, it is diffrcult to see how the current (draft)process for establishing a CBO/AA and WMA can work without externalinputs.

Potential allies:

o Local government (districts) and regional institutions (including NationalParks like Ruaha) have a limited capacity to provide all of the kinds ofsupport required.

Donor funded projects are never likely to support more than a few WMAs.

The greatest potential perhaps lies in the private and voluntary sectors(recognising that one major push to develop the new Wildlife Policy anddraft Guidelines was from the private sector).

Would private sector involvement really be like sleeping with the enemy?

There is evidently scope for combining different kinds of support, thoughmanaging multiple alliances may pull CBOs and their enterprises inconfl icting directions.

Conclusions

Why' cor4munity-owned natural resource-based enterprises' ?

First,'community-owned' :

r 'Community' is a very loose term, but this can be useful, allowing itsapplication to different levels of organisation, e.g. village, inter-village(cBo).

o It also serves as a useful reminder of the heterogenous (multi-ethnic etc.)nature of many (for want of a better word) communities.

o 'Community-based', however, is too vague.

o The plrase 'community-owned' puts the spotlight back on issues ofempowerrnent and the ownership of NR and wildlife-based institutions andenterprises.

Second,'NR-based enterprises' :

o Our traditional formulations emphasise conservation and/or management(and use) ofNR.

o But why not shift the emphasis fromwhst is being managed (e.g. CPR), tohow andby whom?

o Think about ownership of the enterprise rather than (or as well as)ownership of the resource.

o NR management is just one part of the management of an NR-basedenterprise.

Theoretical and practical consequences:

o In practical terms, an enterprise approach helps us to understand whyrelatively few community-owned businesses succeed and many others fail.

. It provides with us with a way to structure our assistance to community-owned institutions of this kind and guidelines on how to improveperformance as well as conceive of their relations with private and otherenterprises.

e There is already an extensive literature and guidelines on how to establishand operate enterprises in Africa, including collective enterprises ofdifferent kinds.

This provides a link back to earlier research on collective villageenterprises in Tanzania during the period of ujamaa and related studies ofthe reasons behind the success and failure of women's and other groupenterprises in Kenya. In the latter case research led directly into the designof a business planning progrcmme and there are ample opportunities toapply a similar approach to collective NR and wildlife enterprises.

An enterprise approach might also produce general insights linking with themore fruitful aspects of other recent development agendas and the

approaches stemming from them. NR, for example, might be conceived asthe assets of the enterprise, whether they are owned or subject to otherkinds of rights, like rights of access and use.

This example again highlights the importance of ownership and othercategories of rights (including rights of use), the potential fragility of'lesser' rights, and the need to define and develop these further.

Conceiving NR as assets of different kinds also makes it easier to link withsome of the more productive insights of a 'sustainable livelihoods'approach, thinking here of both individual/household assets and collectiveassets, and the nature of the relation between the two.

o Such an approach might also assist in the putting questions of the value ofNR and wildlife assets higher on the agenda of economists and policymakers: these values are often poorly appreciated,

o Of late the debate about the performance of CBC and CBNRM seems tohave got stuclg at least in part, on the question of community-basedapproaches vs. traditional PA approaches.

o Despite the practical diffrculties involved, I am not convinced that we haveexhausted all the possibilities and promises raised by different approachesto community ownership, if only we can bring ourselves to tackle theproblems involved from new angles.

o I also think that there are more opportunities for experimentation in CPRmanagement, and especially in the wildlife sector in Tanzania, than the fewidentified by Prof Shivji,

. Only time, as they say, will tell; and this should spur us on to treat thesematters with greater urgency. If we don't, then it's quite possible that we'llbe left with a much diminished resource base to manage, to the detriment ofeveryone who might otherwise benefit from the community ownership ofNR-based enterprises.

Thankvou.