Saliem Fakir
A Second Look
There were great expectations about the appointment in March, by Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Pallo Jordan, of a board of investigation into the management of nature conservation. The board was headed by Judge Mark Kumleben.
It represented, symbolically at least, an avenue for conservationists both to chastise the government and to identify ways in which problems facing conservation could be dealt with in the future.
At present there are about 422 proclaimed conservation areas in South Africa, about 6% of the total land space. Not all of them have been set aside according to sound scientific criteria.
The history of protected areas in this country is a chequered one, with their creation often involving the displacement of communities. Given that conservation does not enjoy a clean political history, the question of its future is coloured by its past.
The board’s key terms of reference included investigating:
l the management of national parks in terms of the functions of the national and provincial governments;
l the institutional, legislative and financial measures required to support future conservation activities under the current Constitution; and
l identifying ways in which protected areas can assist local communities.
After months of submissions, the board recently released its report. Among its recommendations, it argues for the reassessment of the present protected areas on scientific grounds.
As to whether they should be in the charge of national or provincial authorities, the board said this should be decided according to who is best able to carry out the job. It recommended the minister appoint a committee of scientists and biodiversity specialists to assist in the process of reassessment.
It also said authorities should be encouraged to establish local community boards to integrate community issues into the management of protected areas.
While some of the recommendations are acceptable, the report does not say much more than what is already known.
For instance, it could have used the case of the Vaalbos National Park in the Northern Cape, which is in the process of being deproclaimed, as a case study. The failure of Vaalbos as a national park would have provided fertile ground to draw out the key problems of protected areas.
Conflicts involving Dwesa and Twebe in the Eastern Cape and the San in the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park illustrate the importance of land rights in conservation areas. But the board did not look at the nature of community conflicts around protected areas in depth.
The report, I believe, simply does not go far enough. The board should have taken a far stronger interrogative approach, rather than summarising the inputs it received.
The board went in with the assumption that conservation per se is not up for question, and in so doing did not test the validity of current conservation practices. It did not ask: is there a need for change, and, if so, where and how?
Does its suggestion that more money should be fed into conservation imply that it believes the way in which protected areas are being managed is efficient and cost- effective?
The report lacks a development and economic framework for conservation, and does not see protected areas as a competing land use. The fact that the inquiry did not address these issues perpetuates the general evangelical tendencies of conservationists, who pursue conservation at all cost.
Fundamental restructuring of the conservation sector has still to occur, although it is happening on a small scale in some places. Is there not a need for protected-area authorities to justify their existence?
One could legitimately ask whether scientific criteria are sufficient to arbitrate over issues that are also affected by social and political factors.
Why should conservation management be inseparable from other environmental issues? Is there a need for a distinction between “green” (mainly wildlife management) and “brown” (mainly pollution and urban squalor) issues?
“Brown” issues are inadequately financed in South Africa. Compared with “brown” issues, the conservation sector is fairly well off. Some provinces, like the North West, are integrating “brown” issues with their overall responsibilities in protected-area activities, even though their budgets are stretched.
The report does not make any serious presentation around the realities that govern community relations with protected areas. The issue is not about setting up local boards, but the continued prevalence of paternalistic attitudes to communities.
Blame for this should not be placed on protected-area managers alone, but rather on the fact that there is no coherent support at the political level for community-based projects in protected areas. While there is some political will, it still needs to be translated into policy objectives and linked to the financing of conservation projects.
Conservation, if it is to survive into the 21st century, needs a broader vision that includes society. Conservationists have not shown a great deal of innovation and leadership in dealing with this challenge.
Much of this vision has already been set out in the National Biodiversity Policy, which sets out a more integrated approach to the issues of conservation, sustainable use and the sharing of benefits that can be derived from biological resources. But, true to form, the Kumbleben report hardly made mention of this national policy.
Saliem Fakir is country programme co- ordinator of the IUCN-World Conservation Union