People, poverty
and natural resource management
A five week course: August - Sept 2003

Course background

In April 1993, IUCN, The World Conservation Union - Regional Office for Southern Africa (IUCN-ROSA), embarked on a project entitled, �Social Science Perspectives in Natural Resource Management� (SSPNRM). The project was based on a co-operative agreement between BMZ and the Southern African Development Community Environment and Land Management Sector (SADC ELMS). Implementation of Phase 1 and 2 of the project was done in co-operation with the Centre for Applied Social Sciences (CASS), University of Zimbabwe.

Implementation of the first course within Phase 3 has been the responsibility of the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape working in co-operation with CASS and IUCN.

A five week course commenced on 18 August 2003 and runs to 18 September 2003 at the Protea Hotel in Seapoint, Cape Town. The course was attended by 23 participants from several Southern African countries including Tanzania, DRC, Angola, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland and South Africa.


Ratidzai Takawira	Andrew Phiri	Kulthoum Omari

Course design and facilitation

Rick de Satg� and Webster Whande of PLAAS designed the course with inputs from an IUCN/CASS reference group. They developed materials and provided overall facilitation. Moeneiba Isaacs of PLAAS designed and facilitated the field work component in association with the Ocean View Development Trust.

Course structure

The course consists of five modules

	Module 1: Livelihoods, poverty and natural resource management
	Module 2: Resource tenure and access
	Module 3: Policy, legislation and institutional frameworks shaping natural resource management and governance
	Module 4: CBNRM in practice
	Module 5: Natural resource conflict risk assessment and management

Participants also spend four days in the field and complete a syndicate assignment designed to enable them to apply the knowledge and skills acquired on the course.

Module 1: Livelihoods, poverty and natural resource management

The first module was presented by Rick de Satg�. The module opened with participants analysing a video case study focusing on contested access to forest and marine resources at Dwesa Cwebe in the Eastern Cape and examining the contribution of natural resources to rural livelihoods.


Lemogang Molebatsi, Connex Mbewe, Tendai Mugara	Rick de Satg�	Garret, Dominic Mbanjwa and Ndumiso analysing household case studies

Group discussion	Herbert Mwalukomo and Tendai Mugara doing the 'impossible'	Japhet Kashaigili introducing a household livelihoods profile

Participants then applied basic livelihoods concepts to generate household case studies from different countries and natural resource management contexts drawing on selected course participants as key informants. Participants compared and analysed relative household well-being and the varying contributions made by natural resources to household livelihood security.
An introductory input provided background on key trends in CBNRM, examined different perspectives on poverty and vulnerability, surveyed socio economic trends in Southern Africa, explored the so called poverty environment nexus and the narratives associated with it and examined proposals that rights to land and access to resources are central to sustainable resource utilisation and poverty eradication.
Through a variety of activities participants critically engaged with the concepts of 'community', 'participation' and 'the household' examining relations of gender, age and power. Participants worked with prepared household profiles to develop a household typology and identify key features that differentiated households from one another.
An input introduced key livelihoods concepts, compared different livelihoods frameworks and reviewed the strengths and weaknesses and principle critiques of livelihoods approaches.
Participants worked through activities designed to explore intra household relations and examine gender dimensions of household activity and decision making. In the process participants critically examined the stereotyping and oversimplification often associated with crude gender analysis.
A session entitled Households, gender and age - Engaging with complexity provided more depth on thinking about households, comparative gender analysis frameworks and new thinking about gender. The module then examined factors in the local and external environments that either enhanced or undermined household livelihoods. Participants worked with video case studies from Zambia and Zimbabwe and drew on the household profiles developed earlier in the module to analyse key trends in the external environment and make horizontal and vertical linkages.

A session on policies, institutions and processes clarified concepts and examined how they impacted on local livelihoods, highlighting messy realities and examples of unintended consequences.

The final part of the module focused on the practicalities of livelihoods analysis and the various tools and methods used.
Overall Module 1 set out to lay the broad foundations for more in depth and focused explorations of the relationship between people, poverty and the management and governance of natural resources

Module 2: Resource tenure and access

Module 2 introduced key tenure concepts and examined frameworks for analysing tenure systems. It highlighted the importance of secure rights and access to land and natural resources as a precondition for sustainable utilisation.


Prof Ben Cousins introduces key tenure concepts	Dr Thembela Kepe discusses environmental narratives and governance in CBNRM	Kefasi Nyikahadzoi on the governance and management of freshwater fisheries

Participants discuss elements of a tenure rights enquiry process	Webster Whande	Machana Shamukuni makes a point

The module began with participants developing definitions of tenure and identifying key features of tenure systems. Prof Ben Cousins introduced key tenure concepts and tools to analyse tenure issues in different NRM contexts. Participants drew on his session to develop and apply tenure analysis frameworks for understanding the respective rights and obligations of different resource users in different case contexts

Dr Thembela Kepe revisited the debates around the 'tragedy of the commons' and the persistence of environmental narratives portraying the poor as degraders of the environment.

The focus then shifted to changing tenure and resource governance systems in Southern Africa. Participants analysed timelines depicting changing tenure and resource governance arrangements in Zimbabwe and Mozambique picking up on broad trends and policy shifts in the Southern African region. Dr Kepe deepened this analysis with an input on tenure in transition in Southern Africa.

Participants focused on common property resource management contrasting mainstream and emerging approaches. Webster Whande followed up with a session examining appropriate tenure arrangements for CBNRM.

Kefasi Nyikahadzoi set the scene for Module 3 with an input that examined policy, governance and management arrangements with respect to inland fisheries in Zimbabwe and Malawi which highlighted many of the features discussed in the module and the issues and complexities that surfaced in practice.