Rangeland Ecology & Management

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Policy, environment and development in African rangelands
Author
Homewood, Katherine M
Publisher
Environmental Science & Policy
Publication Year
2004
Body

Environmental policies in African rangelands affect development and welfare as well as environmental measures. Biodiversity is widely perceived as declining, and environments as undergoing degradation, through rural population growth and resource use. These assumptions are often underpinned by environmental discourses contesting control of natural resources, rather than by objectively measured trends and causalities. Orthodox biodiversity conservation policy advocates fortress conservation. Savanna species do better where they can disperse across wider landscapes with conservation-compatible rural land uses, rather than isolated in protected areas, but community-based conservation initiatives have been disappointing. Policies addressing land degradation, and their underlying assumptions, are subject to similar challenges. The paper outlines a natural experiment investigating biodiversity and land cover changes 1975-1995 for 100,000 km2 cross-border rangeland including the Serengeti-Mara conservation areas and their buffer zones. Ecological, ethnic and micro-economic continuities make it possible to control for confounding factors and identify main drivers of change. Privatisation of formerly communal rangeland, and its conversion to commercial monoculture, have driven drastic land cover and wildlife declines in Kenya. Population growth and agropastoral land use were not significant factors. The gap between natural and social science, and western versus local understandings, needs bridging to achieve more effective environmental policy.

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Journal Issue/Article
Journal Volume
7
Journal Number
3
Journal Pages
125-143
Journal Name
Environmental Science & Policy
Keywords
environmental policy
African rangelands
Environmental discourse
Kenya
Tanzania
Serengeti
Mara
land use
Land privatisation
Commercial cultivation
Biodiversity decline
policies
rangelands
biodiversity
degradation
management
decision support systems
pastoralism
system economics
Africa