A Dynamic Perspective on Institutional Arrangements for Tourism, Conservation and Development in Eastern and Southern Africa

The emergence of novel institutional arrangements involves change agents; actors who respond to problems or opportunities in the field by developing new models, tools, practices and discourses, bring together actors who support these solutions, and promote these solutions as the way forward (Maguire et al. 2004). Our comparative analysis indicates that the launch of institutional arrangements in the conservation-development-tourism nexus cannot be attributed to a single individual or organizational actor, albeit some individuals have played an important role in the change process (see, for instance, Chaps. 6 and 9, this volume). Rather, it is a collective process involving multiple actors. Furthermore, we found that there are two main pathways along which this collective process can unfold. In the first pathway, institutional arrangements evolve top-down, with the national government as one of the main change agents (centralized approach). In the second pathway, institutional arrangements emerge from the experimentation of actors facing problems in the field in their day-to-day work (decentralized approach).

The first pathway is found in Namibia and Botswana, where the government, supported by NGOs, took the lead in developing and promoting conservancies. As a result, CBNRM in both countries is firmly rooted in national legislation. Contrasting developments are found in South Africa and Kenya, illustrating the second pathway. The PGR industry in South Africa emerged from the grass-roots level. Individual landowners allowed wildlife on their ranches and started to harvest this wildlife commercially to produce biltong. This started out as an illegitimate practice, as wildlife ownership did not reside with the individual landowner at that time (see Chap. 6, this volume). The institutional arrangement of TCEs also emerged from the bottom-up in Kenya. The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) pioneered this organizational form in response to the challenges experienced in the field that were hampering the organization in achieving its conservation mission (see Chap. 11, this volume). In both South Africa and Kenya, government policy thus lagged behind practice. Whereas the South African government responded by legalizing private ownership of wildlife in 1987, the Kenyan government has only recently become interested in regulating and encouraging community-related and wildlife-focused enterprises. This relative lack of attention from the side of the Kenyan government over the past two decades has provided room for experimentation and learning. Since there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to conservation-development challenges, this experimentation has played a critical role in allowing AWF and other NGOs in Kenya (see Pellis et al. 2014) to gain rich experiential knowledge on what works and under which conditions (AWF 2011; Elliott and Sumba 2010; Lamers et al. 2014; Van Wijk et al. 2014). Yet, the downside of each change agent deploying its own product and process standards is that there is a great variety in the estimated 250 community- and nature-based enterprises in Kenya. This diversity hampers the emergence of a coherent market category and effective monitoring of these enterprises, for instance on the extent to which they deliver their conservation and development objectives (see Chap. 11, this volume).

Besides the roles of government, private entrepreneurs, community leaders and NGOs, donors appear to have played a pivotal role in facilitating the emergence of the institutional arrangements under study (with the exception of PGRs in South Africa). Examples of such donors include the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), the Swedish Agency for International Development (SIDA), the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Nairobi, the British Department for International Development (DFID) and the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ). USAID, in particular, has played a dominant role in promoting CBNRM in eastern and southern Africa. For example, the Namibian LIFE Project, which started in 1993, is now in its third implementation phase (LIFE Plus). USAID’s COBRA and CORE projects stimulated the market-based approach to conservation in Kenya, with AWF acting as a key organization in realizing this approach. USAID became involved in nature conservation in Africa in the 1980s, driven by a coalition of members of the US congress, USAID, some environmental NGOs and the private sector that mobilized around international biodiversity conservation (Corson 2010).

While donor funding is critical for financing the pioneering stage of finding solutions to problems experienced in the field, it also constrains innovation, as it is earmarked for a particular time period, geographical scope and issue focus. Bologna and Spierenburg (Chap. 7, this volume) provide an illustrative example of this. They describe how the donor required the demarcation of a geographical area for the implementation of community capacity-building projects, thereby leaving out other settlements in the area. Such constraints, amongst others, are increasingly leading conservation NGOs to turn to other sources of funding, as we will highlight in Sect. 13.7.

The importance of the current transformation from ‘fortress’ conservation towards conservation approaches that include CBNRM and neo-liberal practices is well illustrated by the sometimes impressive growth in the numbers of such arrangements. In southern Africa in particular, CBNRM, through conservancies in Namibia and community-based organizations in Botswana, as well as private conservation through PGRs, have gained important ground. Inspired by the southern African examples, similar developments are now taking place in eastern Africa, such as the development of wildlife management areas in Tanzania, the growth of AWF’s enterprise portfolio, and the reintroduction of sport hunting in Uganda. Table 13.2 provides an overview of the diffusion of the arrangements studied in this volume over time. The table clearly demonstrates the momentum of the institutional arrangements, but it also raises the question of what their limits are, or where this will end. The increase in numbers also provides an indication of the scope of the impact of these arrangements across the African continent. Nevertheless, we should be aware that growing numbers are not necessarily synonymous with growing impact, as every case has its own context and is implemented in its own way (see also Chap. 12, this volume).

All of the institutional arrangements examined in this book have at least one thing in common: they aim “to give wildlife as high a value as possible (in both monetary and non-monetary terms), to ensure that these values are captured at the level of the landholder […] through an appropriate combination of rights, and to empower people with discretionary choice over wildlife – accepting that people, given such responsibilities, are normally responsible” (Suich et al. 2009: 429). Yet, the ways in which they aim to achieve this goal clearly differ per arrangement. Below, we summarize some of the main similarities and differences between the various arrangements (see also Table 13.3).

First, the arrangements differ in their institutional embedding in ‘legislative systems’. Whereas conservancies in Namibia, CBNRM in Botswana, sport hunting in Uganda and PGRs in South Africa firmly rest on national legislation, other arrangements lack such institutional support. TFCAs are grounded in memorandums of understanding signed by the governments involved, followed by international treaties (see Chap. 9, this volume). However, these agreements do not always provide clarity on which actor has the authority and legitimacy to make claims to cross-border space (see Chap. 10, this volume). TCEs are predominately based on a contractual agreement between three parties: the community, the private operator and AWF acting as a ‘neutral’ broker. These differences in the legal embedding are also evident in the degree of formalization of procedures and standards for establishing arrangements. For instance, CBNRM in Botswana is a highly developed approach with many concepts, tools and instruments, like the requirements for launching a community-based organization, the joint venture partnership model, the management-oriented monitoring system, and land-use zoning concepts such as wildlife management areas and controlled hunting areas. Although rights over wildlife in Namibia are clearly defined in the 1996 legislation, tourism rights are more ambiguous (see Chaps. 2 and 3, this volume). Despite this legislative ambiguity, the Namibian government has used a number of policies to recognize the general right of conservancies to develop tourism on their land and enter into contracts for lodge development with private tourism companies. PGRs in South Africa are administered through governmental regulations (e.g. permits for wildlife relocations and hunting law exemptions for fenced PGRs) and professional standards set by trade associations. This contrasts with TFCAs and TCEs for which no formal guidelines or standards have been stipulated (other than existing legislation on tourism, for instance). Yet, the change actors involved – the Peace Parks Foundation and AWF respectively – have formed their own guidelines, formats and milestones for developing these arrangements. This is not to say that such procedures and guidelines lead to uniform arrangements. As Lamers and colleagues (Chap. 12