Browsing by Author "Nielsen, Martin Reinhardt"

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Improving the Conservation Status of the Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania? The Effect of Joint Forest Management on Bushmeat Hunting in the Kilombero Nature Reserve
(2011) Nielsen, Martin Reinhardt
"This study examines the effect of Joint Forest Management (JFM) in a component of the Kilombero Nature Reserve recently gazetted to improve the conservation status of high biodiversity forests in the Udzungwa Mountains of the Eastern Afromontane biodiversity hotspot. The evaluation is based on a temporal comparison spanning seven years of JFM and establishment of a Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA) ranger station, using bushmeat hunting as an indicator. Results reveal that the number of active hunters had declined, primarily due to TANAPA's patrolling. But hunting effort had been displaced from hunting with firearms in the grassland to hunting with traps and dogs in the forests, thus increasing the threat to endemic species. Hunters perceived few benefits from JFM, and the new opportunities were largely unused, inaccessible and communal in nature. Suspicions of embezzlement of JFM funds, and high village development contributions were important drivers of continuing hunting. Dissatisfied with JFM, most inactive hunters actually preferred that TANAPA manage the forest instead. Considerable attention to correcting these problems is required before this model of JFM should be scaled up and implemented in the remaining villages surrounding the Kilombero Nature Reserve."
Seeing White Elephants? The Production and Communication of Information in a Locally-based Monitoring System in Tanzania
(2012) Nielsen, Martin Reinhardt; Lund, Jens Friis
"The literature on locally-based monitoring in the context of conservation displays a great deal of optimism about the prospects of involving local people in the systematic gathering of information about the condition and use of natural resources and conservation areas to inform management decisions from local to national levels. This study challenges this notion based on a case study of a collaborative forest management and locally-based monitoring project that has been considered a successful showcase example in Tanzania. It does so by comparing information from locally-based monitoring of forest condition and financial transactions, as presented by community management institutions to higher authorities, with forest transect surveys and an audit of financial accounts. The results reveal that the information produced and communicated under the locally-based monitoring system contradicts trends in wildlife densities and human disturbance observed in the forest and under-represents actual financial flows. Interviews and observations further indicate that communication of this information takes place under conditions of ongoing power struggles over access to benefits of collaborative forest management. This study serves to caution that the information produced and communicated under the locally-based monitoring system may be shaped by the incentives and power struggles surrounding the particular context within which the system is based and therefore cannot be taken at face value."