D OES COMMUNITY - BASED TOURISM BRINGS CONSERVATION AND PLANNING CLOSER TO THE

As the word itself suggests, community-based tourism should mean communally based planning. However, decentralisation in community-based tourism and wildlife management has potentials and risks. It is an opportunity because it is often easier to integrate conservation into the regional land-use planning systems at the local level than at the national level. When this is done at the national level there are more stakeholders and the process is tedious. However, at the local level the process is less costly and can be a ‘guided change’ while under implementation.

Removing the protectionism approach that some governments still uphold could be a challenge but has been achieved to some extent in Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe (Songorwa et al. 2000, 642; IIED 1994). Change from central government on the other hand is a danger in itself. The discrepancy lies between what is required of the central government by international conventions and the prevailing situation within the local authority. Many times there are no community-based planning strategies and measures in place to correspond with projects like Salambala.

In addition, the local authorities do not always have sufficiently trained personnel to take on these responsibilities. In fact, it may become virtually impossible for decentralised regions to fulfil international conventions and obligations set by the central government. Thus, protected areas would be put to test by the availability of resources. Secondly, in some areas, e.g. southern Africa and South Asia, the local communities may not always appreciate the international importance that NGOs and governments attach to the ‘God-given-asset’ within their vicinity. They may not even know what conventions are in existence, why they are in existence and how they should be implemented and monitored. For a more detailed discussion see Hangula (1998), Corbett and Daniels (1996), also Hugo et al. (1997) and Munyaradzi and Johnson (1996). Ideally, CAMPFIRE should bring conservation, and its planning, closer to the

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people because the people are its main and basic resource. It will require the approach to be as comprehensive as possible in kind and in degree.

6.1.5 Does community-based tourism generates funds to finance communal projects?

According to CAMPFIRE, both community-based wildlife management and community-based tourism generate funds. They generate revenue that is used for community projects or to supplement household incomes. In 1993 for example, twelve districts involved in CAMPFIRE with an estimated population of 400,000 earned US$1,516,693 from trophy fees (CAMPFIRE Internet page, Fact Sheet No.12).

However, if the funds were indeed distributed they would not be proportional and become insignificant whether in consideration of the number of people in the household or not. When not distributed per family, then it is even more advantageous only to those working in the project and/or to the influential few.

In Salambala, about N$40,000 was to be distributed among 19 communities, each village getting N$2000. While it is indeed better than nothing, the investment is unlikely to prove to be an economic boost to households. While Salambala itself may be a successful community project, with the high tendency in large communities to ‘free ride’, or what is called the tragedy of the commons, more questions than answers arise.

Previously there were other different projects, but they failed because of fewer educated community members available to work. In the view of one of my respondents sometimes information is not well but even wrongly circulated and we felt cheated, and when I realised that I changed my mind and everything collapsed (Interviews). What, is then, the role and benefits of the community in managing wildlife and finance derived thereafter? The response should address both conservation and rural economics, which as a matter of principle should not prevent innovations. There is no question that CBT generates finance, the concern is how and what must be done with the money in order to enable the community to be as self-sufficient as possible.

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6.1.6 Does community-based tourism improves communal land-use management?

Communal land-use management can be said to be one of the very few aspects in which the CWM and the CAMPFIRE are successful. With the help of the University of Zimbabwe and the country’s Ministry of Agriculture’s extension officers and the local community, grazing and thatching schemes have been put in place in the Bulilima Mangwe district of southern Zimbabwe (CAMPFIRE Internet page, Fact Sheet No.10).

As a result of that arrangement, cattle sales became more profitable for communal farmers. However, it is not the communities that are designing the land-use plans. Nor do they effect the management of such plans. It is the government’s extension officers and the University of Zimbabwe that are deployed in the supposedly community-based projects. The question then is: What can be said to be economically emancipating rural communities? Are they even happy with the restrictive management plans?

In Salambala Conservancy not only do the community members have little idea of the Conservancy boundaries but also the authorities have no management plans on paper.

Bearing in mind that the Conservancy was only made into a legal entity in 1998, it is perhaps untimely to expect it to deliver and to be without problems. Nevertheless, management plans are necessary for the success of the Conservancy. CAMPFIRE insists that success will depend on the acceptance of hunting as a wildlife management tool by the international community and placing economic value on wild species (CAMPFIRE Internet page, Fact Sheet No.6). Secondly, by exploring different ways of wildlife management such as wildlife tourism, trophy hunting and game ranching, rural development can be achieved without conflicting with nature, rural communities and conservation authorities (ibid.).

It is still to be established whether forests, nature conservation and tourism are compatible with one another. Community-based tourism, in this sense, is seen as away of aiding rural development and conservation. Collaborative management is, however, crucial to their achievement. This kind of tourism has its own advantages, challenges and potentials. If planning is well facilitated, community-based tourism can yield several opportunities for the local people. On the other hand, communal land cannot be privatised as it is meant for the whole community to use and own. This does not only

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challenge the perceived economic returns but also the very concept of management (Howitt 2001, 157), let alone the communities’ concept of what management is.