The role of community organisations in integrated conservation and development projects: local perspectives from the Sahel region

Abstract

Vogelbescherming Nederland (BirdLife in the Netherlands) started a new project in 2011 to protect (migratory) birds in the drylands of the Sahel by promoting sustainable land-use practices that would contribute to habitat restoration and conservation as well as better livelihoods for local people. In the context of the project, NATURAMA (BirdLife in Burkina Faso) has been implementing site-based interventions through local conservation groups at three sites. Two of these organisations have been studied in depth and a further 15 community organisations were examined for comparative purposes. Field research was conducted by means of in-depth semi-structured interviews with the organisations’ members and leaders, and with other key actors. This paper considers local conservation groups and other community organisations in the context of decentralisation, participatory approaches and local empowerment.

Keywords:

• local conservation
• livelihood
• community organisation
• conservation approach
• Sahel
• Burkina Faso

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dick Foeken, Ton Dietz (ASC), Bernd de Bruijn, Barend van Gemerden (Vogelbescherming Nederland), Nana Adama (NATURAMA), David Thomas (BirdLife International), Adama Belemvire, Huub Hendrix and Joost Brouwer for their comments on the research and on earlier drafts of this paper. I appreciate all the assistance and hospitality I received in Burkina Faso from the Sourou and Higa LCGs and their members, particularly their presidents and secretaries. And I would like to extend my thanks to my research assistants Achille Ouédraogo, Idrissa Ouédraogo and Ibrahim Compaoré. My deep gratitude also goes to the late Georges H. Oueda (NATURAMA) for all his encouragement and support.

Notes

1. The Sahel is the semi-arid transition region between the Sahara Desert to the north and wetter regions of sub-Saharan Africa to the south. It has not been studied extensively to date (Agnew and Chappell 1999; CSELS 2010).

2. ‘Community-based conservation’ implies at least some of the following: local-level, voluntary, people-centred, participatory, decentralised, village-based management (Campbell and Vainio-Mattila 2003).

3. ‘A livelihood is defined as comprising the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living’ (Scoones 1998, 5).

4. ‘The approach is based on selecting a sample of local authorities, deconcentrating certain responsibilities before devolving them, and then extending this approach to other local authorities while gradually phasing in the effective devolution of selected responsibilities’ (Madiès 2013, 274). Dafflon, Madiès, and Ky (2013) argue that promoting grassroots development and strengthening local governance are the underpinnings of the Burkinabé decentralisation process.

5. For more discussion on the definition of empowerment, see Conger and Kanungo (1988).

6. Important Bird Areas: ‘(IBAs) are key sites for conservation – small enough to be conserved in their entirety and often already part of a protected-area network. They do one (or more) of three things:

• Hold significant numbers of one or more globally threatened species

• Are one of a set of sites that together hold a suite of restricted-range species or biome-restricted species

• Have exceptionally large numbers of migratory or congregatory species’. (BirdLife 2010b)

7. The following definition of conservation has been adopted in this study: it is the ‘preservation, protection, or restoration of the natural environment and of wildlife’ (Oxford Dictionary 2012).

8. According to Hodgson (2006: 8), these organisations are ‘special institutions that involve (a) criteria to establish their boundaries and to distinguish their members from non-members, (b) principles of sovereignty concerning who is in charge, and (c) chains of command delineating responsibilities within the organisation’. These criteria do only partly apply to local churches and mosques and these are not, therefore, included as community organisations.

9. Expertise pour le Développement du Sahel (EDS) is a research consultancy based in Burkina Faso. It recently changed its name to Etudes Action Conseils (EAC).

10. The area of operation of Higa LCG officially encompasses the whole of Tankougounadié Department (102,300 ha) but, in practice, it is mostly limited to the Tankougounadié community of the same name and the IBA area. Higa refers to these latter areas in this paper.

11. ‘The Ramsar Convention is an intergovernmental treaty that embodies the commitments of its member countries to maintain the ecological character of their Wetlands of International Importance and to plan for the “wise use”, or sustainable use, of all of the wetlands in their territories’ (The Ramsar Convention 2010).

12. Three bioclimatic zones (also known as biomes) correspond to a greater or lesser extent with the country’s three (differently named) climatic zones (Atlas de l'Afrique 2005).

13. Due to negative travel advice for the Sahel region in 2013, the main researcher was not able to travel to Higa. For this reason, Achille Ouedraogo, a biology Masters student in the Biology Department of the University of Ouagadougou and the author’s research assistant in Sourou conducted several interviews in Higa between 10–13 March 2013.

14. A cooperative organisation in Sourou is locally described as a federation of plot ‘owners’ on government-owned (agricultural) land that is for rent, while a union organisation is a federation of cooperatives or organisations.

15. This was done by randomly approaching inhabitants in their homes or fields, on the road or at the local markets.

16. Including during LCGs’ meetings and bird monitoring (training) activities.

17. That usually consisted of two interviewees, and included 60 interviewees in total.

18. These groups were tree nursery owners, local beer brewers, fishers, fish smokers, fish inspectors and forest exploiters. According to the LCG secretary, the forest exploiters only joined the organisation on paper and did not join in practice because they felt that their activities might be threatened by the LCG’s objectives. The fish inspectors also left the organisation, apparently because they thought the organisation did not provide sufficient benefits for them.

19. Founded in 1987, Eau Vive is a French NGO that was partly decentralised in Burkina Faso in 2008 (Eau Vive 2013).

20. All members are hunters but they do not hunt collectively. The organisation’s aim is to attend any celebrations where they can sing and shoot in the air, for which they receive money from the organisers of the event.

21. Like 68% of 211 LCGs in Africa (BirdLife 2010a).

22. The following two quotes illustrate the change in thoughts: ‘we (men) thought that women can’t work well in CO, but nowadays women are getting education, and we now think they can do the job too’ (CO member) and ‘maybe we will have women members in the future: in Africa there is a mentality to refuse women, but we now see this is wrong attitude’ (CO board member).

23. ‘Neo-patrimonialism is normally associated with the absence or inapplicability of bureaucratic norms that have been associated with the development of the state in the western world’ (Amadi 2009, 1). Amadi (2009, 1) states that ‘Neo-patrimonialism mainly takes the form of power concentration, provision of personal favours and misuse of public resources’. The provision of personal favours was particularly noted, especially in the form of designating functions to friends.

24. For example, at Lanfiera’s mayor’s public office, COs and Sourou LCG planted tree seedlings and protected them with baskets. However, after several months many of the baskets were lying on the ground next to the trees and were never put back over them to offer protection even though inhabitants, including CO and LCG members, indicated that the baskets were desperately needed to protect the trees from livestock. According to the director of the Sourou department of INERA (Institut de l'Environnement et Recherches Agricoles), lack of discipline is a major issue when it comes to the functioning of community organisations (INERA, personal communication, 2011).

25. COs in Burkina Faso have often been set up as a precondition to receiving credits and/or help from NGOs (Luning personal communication, 2013) as was the case in one of the COs studied and in Higa LCG.

26. Although three of the interviewed Higa CO presidents had a virtual monopoly on decision-making, while NATURAMA significantly influenced LCG objectives and activities.

27. This corresponds with an important characteristics of BirdLife’s LCG approach of working locally, namely contributing to a network of open, democratic, membership-based organisations (BirdLife 2011).

28. Note that LCGs have a larger number of members than most COs, although it is unclear what defines a member in Sourou LCG. Membership numbers thus vary.

29. A two-year-old local cultural-environmental CO did not know about Sourou LCG.

30. Divided into LCG (board) members, CO board members, non-members, key non-members, key actors and non-members from neighbouring communities.

31. Illustratively is the comment of one LCG Higa woman member: ‘all things that help development, we don’t really remember all objectives, is told many times, but difficult to remember’.

32. The secretaries generally knew more about LCGs and COs, while the president had more status in the community. This conclusion is shared by NATURAMA, which accordingly adapted its collaboration strategy. For example, they invite LCG secretaries twice a year for strategic meetings in Ouagadougou, while the presidents are only invited once a year (NATURAMA, personal communication, 2011).

33. Grootaert, Oh, and Swamy (1999) extensively researched local social organisations in Burkina Faso and found that only a minority of the respondents indicated being an active member of ‘their’ organisation(s).

34. Involvement of existing conservation-related organisations appears to be limited but an existing CO was transformed into Higa LCG.

35. Although a quote from the president of a women’s organisation suggests that a reluctance to collaboration might also play a role: ‘we do not work together with other CGs, because they did not come to approach us’.

36. The previously mentioned focus by (board) members on financial aspects regarding perceived weaknesses, opportunities, objectives and achievements could also be associated with this attitude.

37. Similar results were noted by Grootaert, Oh, and Swamy (1999) who undertook extensive research among local social organisations in Burkina Faso. Youth organisations and environmental organisations accounted for the smallest categories and the latter group was geographically limited to the northern Yatenga Province. Environmental organisations focus almost exclusively on erosion control and reforestation.

38. Some other conservation-related activities, including agro-forestry and the building of improved fire stoves, were not mentioned by LCG members and could be treated as NATURAMA activities in which the LCG (secretary) is partly involved.

39. As part of the Living on the Edge project, several additional activities were planned for both LCGs, including conservation-related activities, such as promoting the utilisation of butane gas and undertaking fish and hippopotamus surveys (VBN and NATURAMA, personal communication, 2011).

40. Most Higa LCG (board) members mentioned ‘creating or promoting development reasons’, while COs and Sourou LCG (board) members mainly had financial reasons for joining the organisation, while most of the non-CO/LCG members wanted to join an organisation for financial reasons.