Browsing by Author "Goldman, Mara J."

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Wildlife Management in Tanzania: Recentralization, Rent Seeking, and Resistance
    (2012) Benjaminsen, Tor A.; Goldman, Mara J.; Minwary, Maya Y.; Maganga, Faustin P.
    Wildlife management in Tanzania is currently undergoing a process of recentralization. While the Wildlife Policy of 1998 opened up for community participation and local benefits, the Wildlife Policy of 2007 and the Wildlife Conservation Act of 2009 re-focus on central government control of income from both sport hunting and safari tourism. The wildlife sector in Tanzania is marked by little transparency and accountability and with considerable rent-seeking behavior. In fact, the hunting business is generally considered one of the most corrupt sectors in a country with increasing public attention on corruption. Recentralization and rent-seeking are not, however, occurring without resistance from communities. Some villages have resisted being part of ‘Wildlife Management Areas’, which are promoted jointly by the State and international conservation groups as being ‘community-based’. Central to this opposition is the recentralization of revenues from safari tourism that previously came directly to villages. In discussing these issues, we draw on careful readings of new legislation as well as in depth studies of wildlife management practices at three locations in northern Tanzania.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Wildlife Management in Tanzania: State Control, Rent Seeking and Community Resistance
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2013-08-21) Benjaminsen, Tor A.; Goldman, Mara J.; Minwary, Maya Y; Maganga, Faustin P.
    Despite a decade of rhetoric on community conservation, current trends in Tanzania reflect a disturbing process of reconsolidation of state control over wildlife resources and increased rent-seeking behaviour, combined with dispossession of communities. Whereas the 1998 Wildlife Policy promoted community participation and local benefits, the subsequent policy of 2007 and the Wildlife Conservation Act of 2009 returned control over wildlife and over income from sport hunting and safari tourism to central government. These trends, which sometimes include the use of state violence and often take place in the name of ‘community-based’ conservation, are not, however, occurring without resistance from communities. This article draws on in-depth studies of wildlife management practices at three locations in northern Tanzania to illustrate these trends. The authors argue that this outcome is more than just the result of the neoliberalization of conservation. It reflects old patterns of state patrimony and rent seeking, combined with colonial narratives of conservation, all enhanced through neoliberal reforms of the past two decades. At the same time, much of the rhetoric of neoliberal reforms is being pushed back by the state in order to capture rent and interact with villagers in new and oppressive ways.