Institutional rhetoric vs local reality: Burunge WMA, Tanzania

Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) are meant to promote wildlife conservation and rural development in Tanzania and enhance local livelihoods. In the paper, Institutional rhetoric versus local reality: a case study of Burunge Wildlife Management Area, Tanzania (2018) by Rose Kicheleri et al, published in SAGE Open 8(2), the authors found that the participation of local Burunge agropastoralists in establishing and managing the WMA was limited and rife with conflict. The local people saw neither value nor benefit of the WMA to their livelihoods. Their access to natural resources worsened, while private ecotourism investors and the central government gained financially. Top-down institutional choices have sidelined democratically elected Village Governments. Successive legislative adjustments disenfranchised and dispossessed them and their constituencies. Village governments must demand their legal rights to the resources on their land. The authors conclude that WMA approach to conservation and development needs to be democratised.

Posted on 25 June 2023 in Pastoralism & Natural Resources, Pastoralist Livelihoods & Nutrition