Within the field of management of natural resources, this book focuses on the various approaches of policy formulation and implementation. The question central to this book is how to co-operate with people, the various categories of residents as well as non-residents, in the rural areas: in a top-down, a participatory or a contractual (co-management) way. On the basis of a comparative analysis of 12 case studies in the book, these three approaches are thoroughly discussed and their internal and external constraints examined. The book starts with an editorial chapter, discussing the recent administrative and political developments in Africa as well as the new opportunities, which they offer for policies in the field of environment, and development. The question is brought up whether the recent processes of decentralization, democratization, and empowerment of local organizations have indeed created new opportunities or that they have only superficially changed the political culture of the countries concerned. In the concluding chapter of the book, the approaches are contrasted to each other as logical models, each with its own potentiality and limitations. Conclusions are formulated why the top down approach must result in improvization to escape from failure, and why the participatory approach risks to end up into a mixed balance. Special attention is given to the conditions and the prospects for the contractual or co-management approach, which has been introduced into Africa only recently. Under certain conditions, this approach seems rather promising.

This publication contains reports of ten case studies of freshwater fisheries in southern Africa which were conducted in five medium-sized lakes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Five of the case studies focus on the biological and environmental effects of fishing while the remaining five are concerned with historical and sociological analysis.

What are the impacts of ethnically based, traditional political institutions on democratic state and nation building in Southern Africa and how do heterogeneous sources of legitimacy affect the prospects of long-term democratic regime consolidation? What are the impacts of "traditionalism" employed for purposes of party-political mobilization? An indicator for the political influence of traditional leadership in Southern Africa is the fact that a considerable number of democratically elected politicians in high office originate from aristocratic families, representing hereditary traditional leadership structures for centuries. This is evident for the charismatic founding president of the new South Africa; Nelson Mandela, as well as for his adversary, the prime minister-in-office, Mangosuthu Buthelezi. The careful reconsideration of this "state behind the state" has been identified as crucial, in this study, to make any realistic assessments of the prospects for sustainable democratization in Southern African countries in the near future.

This book comprehensively addresses the economic, social and institutional difficulties in conserving biodiversity and the ecosystem services that it provides. It covers a wide range of issues such as biodiversity, ecosystem services and valuation in the context of diverse ecosystems such as tropical forests, marine areas, wetlands and agricultural landscapes, non-timber forest products, incentives and institutions, payments for ecosystem services, governance, intellectual property rights and the protection of traditional knowledge, management of protected areas, and climate change and biodiversity. It also covers the application of environmental economics and institutional economics to different cases and the use of techniques such as contingent valuation method and game theory. The book spans the globe with case studies drawn from a cross section of regions and continents including the UK, US, Europe, Australia, India, Africa and South America.

African Floodplains in semi-arid areas are important for local livelihoods as they harbor many common-pool resources such as fisheries, pasture, wildlife, veldt products, water and land for irrigation. However, in many of these areas resources are under pressure. This book is presenting seven case studies from Mali, Cameroon, Tanzania, Zambia and Botswana based on anthropological fieldwork (2002-08) and explores how these common-pool resources have been managed in pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial times. The major focus of the study is how institutional change has contributed to resource management problems and offers a comparative analysis based on the New Institutionalist approach (Jean Ensminger, Elinor Ostrom), which is combined with a special focus on ideology, discourse and narratives while focusing on conflict and power issues. With a foreword by Elinor Ostrom. This book has received the Environmental Research Award 2011 of the University of Bern, Switzerland.

It is common knowledge that development without security is like a runaway horse. Yet, development in Africa has been plagued by insecurities since the extractive periods of slave trade and colonialism. In spite of political independence and the euphoria of sovereignty as states, Africa has failed to address insecurity, which continues to loom large and to threaten aspirations towards truly inclusive and sustainable development. A consequence has been Africa’s development naivety vis-à-vis the monopolisation of development by the predatory elite actors of the global North and their local facilitators. To salvage the continent from such predation and the insecurities engendered requires novel and innovative imagination and praxis. This book draws from both the haunted landscapes and bitter memories of past exploitations and from the feeding of the insatiable North with African resources and humanity. It brings together essays by a concerned generation of scholars driven by the urgent need for radical decolonisation of African development and its legacies of insecurities. It is handy to students and practitioners in economics, policy studies, political science, development studies, global and African studies.

What will tomorrow's Cape Town look like? This volume reflects a variety of aspects of urban development and restructuring efforts in Cape Town in the last years. A focus lies on the question if the "apartheid city" is reproducing itself. This leads to an evaluation whether current policies really counter societal imbalances. The essays presented here illuminate possible pathways towards the urban futures unfolding in a South African city in transition.

Humans and animals are not the only creatures that migrate. Plants also do. This book is a comprehensive and analytical account of the migration of an Old World plant, water hyacinth (also known to botanists as Eichhornia Crassipes) from the Amazon Basin and surrounding areas to Africa through human agency from about 1800 to the present. As an integrative work, which benefits from methodologies and conceptual approaches drawn from limnology, botany, biology, geography, history, ecology and other social sciences and humanities, the book further explores the political, economic, and ecological consequences of the spread of water hyacinth from its native habitat through European botanical gardens to Africa rivers, lakes, dams, and wetlands. In part, as a narrative of Western tinkering with African ecologies gone awry, the study has strong lessons for environmental historians, and social scientists as well as contemporary foundations, aid workers, development experts and African governments. Although it may appear to be a micro-history of a single plant, water hyacinth, it illuminates broader issues in the history of the modern environment in Africa and similar studies worldwide. This study is primarily rooted on the histories of colonialism, bioinvasion, environmental realities and experiences in Africa. The highly visible pathways of hyacinth’s spread across international frontiers along watercourses and communication networks means that not only is this a trans-boundary environmental affair, but one which directly involves bilateral relations between African states.