Cultural Values: a Forgotten Strategy for Building Community Support for Protected Areas in Africa

Since the 1980s, initiatives to encourage rural people tobecome an integral part of conservation efforts have at-tracted wide support (McNeely 1992; Ghimire 1994).Strategies for achieving this participation in Africa haveoften focused on the economic link between local com-munities and protected areas. The role of cultural valuesin building support for conservation has been noted (Mc-Neely & Miller 1984; Brownrigg 1985) but has beenlargely ignored in practice. Interest has remained rhetor-ical, and few initiatives exist that actively seek to inte-grate values relevant to local communities into conserva-tion programs and the management of Africa’s protectedareas. This is perhaps surprising, because in the Westthe relationship between culture, history, conservation,and protected areas has been the subject of considerableresearch and scholarship (Nash 1982; Adams 1996; Neu-mann 1998).The emphasis on economic incentives for conserva-tion stems, in part, from the linking of conservation anddevelopment (World Conservation Union et al. 1980;World Commission on Environment and Development1987; World Conservation Union 1991). Although pov-erty and environmental degradation often are closely re-lated, most of Africa’s protected areas do not and almostcertainly will not contribute significantly to reducing pov-erty. Conservation initiatives must recognize economicrealities. But the current focus on economic incentivesfor involving communities in conservation efforts re-sults, to a considerable extent, from the theory that mar-ket forces will conserve and protect the environment,lessening the need for government intervention. This as-sertion, a product of “neoliberal” economics, has stronglyinfluenced political and popular thinking in recent de-cades and has profoundly affected international develop-ment aid practices, including many internationally fundedconservation programs in developing countries (Struh-saker 1998). In poor countries, economic approachescan appear especially attractive, and their presentationas humanitarian in intention (Holdgate & Munro 1995)has guaranteed them almost universal acceptance.The intention to make wildlife and protected areas“pay for themselves” has stimulated a range of “commu-nity conservation” initiatives aimed at building a localconstituency for conservation. These include protected-area outreach programs with an emphasis on sharingrevenues, resources, and opportunities with local com-munities; collaborative management in which govern-ments and communities join to manage protected areasfor sustainable production; and community-based wild-life management aimed at economic development ratherthan conservation (Hulme & Murphree 1999). Integratedconservation and development projects also attempt toreduce pressures on protected areas by supporting lo-cal economic development. Calculation of the monetaryworth of wildlife, nature, and landscape through contin-gent valuation methods also contributes to the commer-cialization of conservation and the downplaying of cul-tural values.Despite the range of initiatives and investment of do-nor funds, it has proved difficult to provide tangible ben-efits from conservation to local communities in Africa.Although the political and economic regimes of manydeveloping countries aggravate the difficulties of chan-neling benefits to communities, most protected areas donot realize sufficient revenue to offset the costs to com-munities of retaining them (Mason 1995; Norton-Grif-fiths & Southey 1995; Emerton 1998). Hundreds of Af-rica’s conservation areas are unknown, inaccessible, andlacking in charismatic species or dramatic landscapes toattract tourists. Even where these exist in abundance(e.g., Uganda’s Mgahinga Gorilla National Park), tourismrevenues are not sufficient to meet community demandsand management costs and to subsidize operations inother equally important, although less attractive, conser-vation areas (Infield & Adams 1999). Although nature