Global Environmental Governance and Community-Based Conservation in Kenya and Tanzania Ngeta Kabiri A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Political Science. Chapel Hill 2007 Approved by Advisor: Catharine Newbury Reader: Susan Bickford Reader: Arturo Escobar Reader: Stephen Leonard Reader: Julius Nyang’oro © 2007 Ngeta Kabiri ii ABSTRACT Ngeta Kabiri Global Environmental Governance and Community-Based Conservation in Kenya and Tanzania (Under the direction of Catharine Newbury) This study examines the possibilities of executing Community-Based Conservation (CBC) as a viable environmental governance regime. It focuses on the contestations over access and control of natural resources with specific reference to wildlife. These contestations emanate from competing claims over natural resources between the state and the local communities. The study frames these contestations within the context of a property rights paradigm. It inquires as to whether the state in Africa, as presently constituted, can devolve authority over national natural resource control to communities so as to engender a private property right consciousness that the CBC model is premised on. The study contends that African states as they currently exist are unlikely to devolve property rights to local communities in a way that would induce a private property right consciousness. It demonstrates that the interests of the African state in the distributional gains from national natural resources are perhaps too vested for it to devolve power if that devolution would cost it control of these resources. Moreover, there is the factor of the social forces that the state is embedded in and this complicates both its willingness and capacity to devolve wildlife property rights to local communities. Given such predicaments, the study shows that the state is capable of conceding in theory and defecting in practice, thereby undermining the institution of an environmental governance regime that favors CBC. The iii study thus suggests that accomplishing environmental protection through the CBC model is problematic given the nature of the existing African states. Nevertheless, in spite of the devolution predicaments, the study shows that communities can still accommodate a conservation regime that is not necessarily predatorial, thus suggesting that there may still be some hope for biodiversity conservation even in the absence of the desirable CBC. The study concludes by specifying the conditions under which devolution of property rights in wildlife to local communities could take place in order to engender the private property rights consciousness anticipated by the proponents of CBC. iv DEDICATION To the Memory of my Parents. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation is the culmination of a long academic journey. In the footprints of this endeavor is the contribution of many educators from my basic education through University in both Kenya and the U.S. Because the list is too long to tabulate, I seek the indulgence of all of you to allow me to say a big “Ahsante”! Nevertheless, I have to single out for mention those who executed the key acts in this last academic rite of passage. I owe a lot to my dissertation committee [Catharine Newbury (Chair), Susan Bickford, Arturo Escobar, Stephen Leonard and Julius Nyang’oro] for guiding this project from its conception, through preparation for fieldwork and the writing of the dissertation. I benefited from the various conversations that I had from the committee. I am particularly grateful to Catharine Newbury for agreeing to continue directing the dissertation even after relocating from UNC- Chapel Hill. And, for editorial assistance, I am grateful to Ben Davidson, Peter Githungo, Munyori Buku, and Mutiti Kariuki. In terms of institutional indebtedness, I would like to thank UNC-Chapel Hill, and specifically the department of Political Science, for giving me all the necessary support that led to the completion of my doctoral studies. I also thank the University Center for International Studies (UNC-CH) for giving me a summer pre-dissertation grant that helped lay the groundwork for this dissertation. My fieldwork was assisted by an award from the Social Science Research Council’s Program on Global Security and Cooperation. The governments of Kenya and Tanzania gave me research permits and I received assistance from government officers in Narok, Kajiado, Monduli and Loliondo districts. The following vi institutions offered me an opportunity to be affiliated with them. First and foremost was Inyuat e MAA (a Maasai NGO in Arusha, Tanzania) where I was, and continue to be, housed by a superb community-oriented down-to-earth team led by Isaiah Naini and after him, Jacob Porokwa. In Sand County Foundation-Tanzania, Fred Nelson introduced me to the world of conservation NGOs in Northern Tanzania. In Kenya, I was affiliated with the African Center for Technology Studies (ACTS) for which I owe the staff, and especially George Sikoyo and the Director, Judi Wakhungu, immense gratitude. At the University of Dar es Salaam, Prof Julius Nyang’oro placed me in the good hands of Prof. Daudi Mukangara who was kind enough to serve as my mentor. I would like to thank the Kenya Wildlife Working Group (KWWG) and the Tanzania Natural Resources Forum (TNRF) and the many men and women in the villages of Ol Molog and Soit Sambu wards, Olderkesi and Olgulului group ranches for the bulk of the data that I have used in this dissertation. These villagers, too numerous to mention here, obliged me with invaluable responses to my interviews. I am indebted to all of you in more ways than I can narrate. I was also exceedingly humbled by your generosity in responding to the intrusion of a stranger. I now know that I can call your villages my home. And I say the same of my “jamii” at Olasiti Gardens. While writing this dissertation I benefited from a summer internship at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), and I am grateful to the summer seminar participants, particularly Terry Anderson and Rose Emmett who served as my summer mentors. I completed this dissertation when I was a Dissertation Fellow at the department of Black Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. I express my gratitude to the faculty and staff, and especially the Chair, Claudine Michelle, for their immense support that enabled vii me to complete the dissertation. My other dissertation fellows: Daphne, Emily, Melissa, and Xavier were valuable companions and commented on some excerpts of the dissertation. Similarly, fellow graduate students at UNC, among them Hak-seon, Diego, Dustin, Juan (of whom more anon), Philip, Nyangweso, Sungmin, and Yong provided a supportive and collegial environment. Two invaluable friends, one in Kenya and the other at both UNC and Uruguay: Kimani wa Njogu and Juan Pablo Luna respectively, deserve special mention for their signal contribution to my doctoral project. I reserve special mention to both because they have in more ways than I can recount been present during crucial moments in this journey. Looking back, I owe a lot to their unflattering advice over the years that I have known each one of them. In a world where candid opinion has been obliterated by politically correct talk, it is invaluable to have friends like these who could be relied upon to tell what they think is the best thing to do as opposed to what one wants to hear. We had forthright reflections that made the rigors of the doctoral project tolerable and now, finally, a worthwhile venture. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I General Introduction I Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………1 II Statement of the Problem …………………………………………………………………3 III Literature Review ……………………………………………………..……………….….4 III Study Objectives and Hypotheses………………………………………………...……...11 IV Theory: Private Property Rights and the Conservation Impulse………… ….………....13 V Theoretical Framework: Actor-Centered Institutionalism…………………………..…...16 VI Field Methodology and Data………………………………………………………..…...17 VII Organization of the Study………………………………..……………………………...19 Chapter II Devolution of Property Rights in Wildlife: Bureaucratic Obstacles to Policy Implementation in Tanzania I Abstract…………………………………………………………….….………..………….21 II Introduction……………………………………………………….….…….……..………21 III The Wildlife Sector and Tanzania’s Socio-economic Development…………….………24 Empirical Evidence for the Capacity of the Wildlife Sector………………..…….…25 Wildlife Degradation and the Roots of CBC……………………...…………………26 IV Limitations of the Proposed CBC Model……………………….……………….………27 WMA Guidelines in Context………………………….……………………….…….28 ix Era of Changing Political Values: Rise of Civil Liberties…………….……..28 Inter-sectoral (but avoidable) “Liabilities”: The Land Question…………………………….……………………..30 Devolution in the Forestry Sector: Any Demonstration Effect? .........31 WMA Regulations: Betrayal of the Market as the Basis of the Crisis………...…….33 Control Over Investments in the WMA: Artificial Transaction Costs?...................................................................................................34 Uncertain Benefit-sharing Arrangement……...……………………...35 Criminalization of Pastoralism?...........................................................36 Penalties for Infraction……………………….……….……………...37 Balance of Power Politics……………………………………………38 From devolution to imposition of Property Rights?....................................................39