Pound, B., S. Snapp, C. McDougall and A. Braun (Eds). 2003. Managing Natural Resources for Sustainable Livelihoods: Uniting Science and Participation. Earthscan/IDRC.Management of local resources has a greater chance of a sustainable outcome when there is partnership between local people and external agencies, and agendas relevant to their aspirations and circumstances. Managing Natural Resources for Sustainable Livelihoods analyses and extends this premise to show unequivocally that the process of research for improving natural resource management must incorporate participatory and user-focused approaches, leading to development based on the needs and knowledge of local resource users.Drawing on extensive and highly relevant case studies, this book presents innovative approaches for establishing and sustaining participation and collective decision-making, good practice for research, and challenges for future developments. It covers a wide range of natural resources – including forests and soils, and water and management units such as watersheds and common property areas and provides practical lessons from analysis and meta-analysis of cases from Asia, Africa and Latin America. It offers insights on how to make research participatory while maintaining rigour and high-quality biological science, different forms of participation, and ways to scale up and extend participatory approaches and successful initiatives.This book will be invaluable for those professionally involved in natural resource management for sustainable development, and an essential resource for teachers and students of both the biophysical and social science aspects of natural resource management.

Vaughan, C., Mulonga, S and Katjiua, J.B. 2003. Cash from Conservation: Torra Community Tastes the Benefits. A Short Survey and Review of the Torra Conservancy Cash Payouts to Individual Registered Members. WILD Working Paper 15.Between January and October 2003, Torra Conservancy implemented the ongoing process of distributing N$ 630 to each of its registered members. Torra Conservancy Committee (TCC) allocated N$ 200,000 in total for the cash payout to individual registered members. The WILD Project in conjunction with the TCC and community members conducted a short questionnaire survey (67 respondents) and held a number of interviews with TCC, NGOs, MET and community members to review the payout. The research documents the experiences from the payout and provides options to support future payouts.Torra is a premier conservancy that is financially self-sustaining. It has generated considerable income (approximately N$ 1.2-1.5 million) from its joint venture with Wilderness Safaris at Damaraland Camp, trophy hunting and live game sales. The payout to individual registered members is a clear demonstration of the potential of the conservancy and CBNRM programme to make tangible livelihood benefits available to communal-area residents and stands as an example for other conservancies to follow. The majority of respondents were pleased with the payout and receipt of cash income. However, 97% of respondents were unaware of how the conservancy generated its income and 85% were unaware of the how the money was spent, which indicates a shortfall in terms of disseminating information, especially financial, to conservancy members. This limits the ability of members to make the link between income generated and wildlife conservation and tourism, and their awareness of alternative (i.e. financial) values for wildlife. The conservancy should disseminate more information, especially financial information, to its members to increase transparency, instil ownership, pride and awareness of income-generating activities and alternative wildlife values.Monitoring needs to be conducted into how receiving distributed cash acts as an incentive for living with wildlife. The community was not consulted in the decision- making process for the payout, not involved in setting the total amount for distribution, nor the amount allocated for individual members. The primary rationale for the payout was a response to community pressure to ‘taste’ the cash. The community was not consulted as to who (e.g. members versus non-members, or individuals versus households) should receive the payout or on the criteria used to confirm eligibility for receipt of the payout. There was minimal community involvement in setting the criteria and ‘rules’ for the process of the payment. In future, full community involvement should be incorporated to ensure transparency and accountability for decision-making over payouts. This could be achieved through publications, the radio, holding meetings on specific issues, and by conducting farm visits and action-orientated research.The payout was a positive step in Torra’s development and demonstrates the potential for conservancies to generate and distribute tangible and meaningful livelihood benefits to its members. However, key challenges remain for supporting inclusive decision-making, developing simple processes for monitoring and evaluating payouts, and promoting good governance. Most important is to understand and document the extent to which the payout was not a ‘quick fix’ to resolve community tensions, but the development of a foundation for supporting the long-term livelihood and conservation needs of Torra Conservancy

Borrini-Feyerabend, G. (ed. with D. Buchan). 1997. Beyond Fences: Seeking Social Sustainability in Conservation. (2 volumes: a process companion and a reference book. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK.

Vaughan, K. and Katjiua, J. 2002. An Overview of Community-based Natural Resource Management and Rural Livelihoods in ≠Khoadi //Hoas Conservancy. Kunene. WILD Working Paper 5.Peoples’ livelihoods within the ≠Khoadi //Hoas conservancy area comprise a dynamic mix of using and accessing a variety of resources and dealing with complex and diverse transforming processes (for example, different kinds of localised power relationships, rules, and institutions and the effects of national policy and legislation) People are critically dependant on the natural resource base, with drought being seen as the major influence on vulnerability. Water and grazing are the most critical assets and are directly related to livestock keeping activities. The importance of these assets varies depending on people’s primary livelihood strategies and their location within the conservancy. Some people live in population centres and can therefore be considered more urban based, and reliant on formal employment. Others live in the more rural areas and rely primarily on livestock farming. The numbers and types of stock owned differentiate people. Wildlife utilisation ranging from insects to small mammals plays a critical role in sustaining livelihoods, with some types of wildlife being seen as beneficial whilst others cause conflict with existing livelihood activities (for example predators killing livestock).The impacts of the conservancy programme on household livelihoods are both positive and negative with costs and benefits associated with impacts. Whilst the broader community appears to support the conservancy initiative the majority see little if any direct benefits and are in some instances still incurring costs associated with living with wildlife such as predator and elephant threats and damage. The community has so far seen limited and few tangible and direct benefits. At present those benefiting most are either directly employed through the conservancy, or are closely linked to conservancy employees and committee members. Greater levels of localised control on illegal hunting activities may have reduced hunting or made hunters change their behaviour away from commercial to more subsistence forms of hunting. Poorer and marginal households who have traditionally relied on wildlife utilisation to secure their household livelihoods especially in times of vulnerability and stress may have been unduly or adversely affected.

Vaughan, K., Kuvare, U., Long, S.A. and Murphy, C. 2002. The Khaibasen Participatory Research Group Livelihoods Workshop Report, 3rd to 8th December 2001. Grootberg multi-purpose training centre ≠Khoadi //Hoas Conservancy. Kunene. WILD Working Paper Series 2.As part of the WILD project’s first phase of field research, a participatory research workshop was held with community and conservancy members from the ≠Khoadi /Hoas conservancy. This report provides details on the findings of the PRA workshop. The workshop was held at the Grootberg MET Multipurpose Training Center between the 3 and 8 December 2001. The findings of this workshop aim to inform the further development of household-level research focused on the impacts of changing Natural Resources (NR) use and management for The purpose of the workshop was to conduct a livelihoods PRA with community and conservancy members to provide an understanding of local livelihood priorities in the context of changing natural resource use and management practice (including an understanding of existing institutional arrangements to support various aspects of peoples’ livelihoods). Additionally, the workshop aimed to establish and develop the PLA research-working group for ≠Khoadi /Hoas community and implement the first phase of the community-level livelihood research activities.

Vaughan, C., Katjiua, J.B. and Branston, N. 2003. Talking with Torra. Proceedings of a Participatory Livelihoods Workshop with Torra Residents. WILD Working Paper 17.People employ a highly diverse mix of livelihood assets and livelihood strategies depending on access. The majority of Torra resident’s have a primary dependence on the natural resource base and livestock farming to achieve their livelihood outcomes. Thus, people do not follow one singular activity but apply a mix of assets, resources and strategies to achieve livelihood outcomes.2. Participants reported 17 factors that made their livelihoods vulnerable and affected security. Other than sudden death or severe illness the next top factors were associated with drought, stock theft and predator damage to stock and livestock illness. They questioned whether the conservancy could not play an increasing role in supporting their livestock systems, including support for marketing and disease outbreaks and reducing predator damage.3. For livelihood problems participants identified 22 factors. The top five issues relate to a lack of employment and training opportunities, and access to cash income and financial support. A number of the key problems, e.g. lack of employment and financial income, are key priorities for Torra Conservancy Committee (TCC), while others fall outside the scope of their remit and capacity.4. Participants identified a variety of policies, institutions and processes affecting livelihood outcomes – both formal rules and regulations, and social norms or informal rules of the community. Participants stated it was unclear at times who was responsible for what, e.g. conservancy and elephants. A businessman who had applied for a Permission to Occupy (PTO) from the Traditional Authority, but had been refused by the conservancy gave another example. Participants stated the conservancy should provide information to clarify conservancies’ roles, responsibilities and actual jurisdiction and develop local conservancy policies with the community.5. Participants identified positive (good) and negative (bad) changes or impacts resulting from conservancy development interventions. The Conservancy Committee need to review further the costs and benefits of the conservancy and incorporate the findings into management plans.6. Participants identified over 25 potential community development options. The variety of options identified shows the community has a wealth of potential ideas about how Torra could spend its money. These options could be consolidated to a top ten (building on visioning work) and tabled at a series of special meetings, fed into the development of TCC action plans for benefit distribution and community development planning.7. Participants identified over 22 critical factors affecting a conservancy’s success. Topics included conflict within the community, lack of information, lack of clarity on decisionmaking and no financial support to members. TCC should review these factors together with the options for a successful conservancy process (below) to ensure strong community support.8. Participants developed options for a successful conservancy process. Top options centred on community involvement in decision-making and awareness of conservancy activities including transport for meetings, farm visits and transparency in management decisions. The conservancy and community need to identify ways to support conservancy successes by reviewing identified options.

Long, S.A., Murphy, C. and Vaughan, K. 2001. An Overview of Project Approach, Concepts and Methods. Windhoek, Namibia. WILD Working Paper 1.This document provides an overview of the Wildlife Integration for Livelihood Diversification (WILD) project in terms of aims and objectives; key concepts, framework and questions for the research and analysis; Methods; and outputs. It is aimed at a wide audience, from regional Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) and Non Government Organisations (NGO) staff in the field to members of the Project Steering Committee and other stakeholders based in Windhoek. It is organised around a simple overview of the project in terms of both concept and practice.The WILD Project operates as an applied, participatory research project that is development oriented. It addresses the following key questions:1. What are the implications for livelihoods of changing NRM activities and options within conservancies?2. Which critical factors affect these and how?3. Who within communities is affected and in what ways?Central to the research will be an analysis of livelihoods (current practice in the context of changing approaches to natural resource use and management). A comprehensive livelihoods analysis will include consideration of a range of critical factors including local institutional and political contexts, the interventions of service providers, policy and legislation, prices and markets etc. While many factors have shaped the livelihoods of communal area residents in different ways, perhaps the single most important change with respect to the natural resource use and management practices has come about through the implementation of a national programme of support to Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM). This programme concentrates on the development of conservancies as a means to achieving strong institutions for natural resource management and developing opportunities for communities to benefit from (among other things) tourism (consumptive and non-consumptive).

Garrity, D.P., V.B. Amoroso, S. Koffa, D. Catacutan, G. Buenavista, P. Fay and W. Dar. 2002. Landcare on the Poverty-Protection Interface in an Asian Watershed. Special Feature on Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM). Conservation Ecology. Vol 6(1). Other articles in the Special Issue on INRMSerious methodological and policy hurdles constrain effective natural resource management that alleviates poverty while protecting environmental services in tropical watersheds. We review the development of an approach that integrates biodiversity conservation with agroforestry development through the active involvement of communities and their local governments near the Kitanglad Range Natural Park in the Manupali watershed, central Mindanao, the Philippines. Agroforestry innovations were developed to suit the biophysical and socioeconomic conditions of the buffer zone. These included practices for tree farming and conservation farming for annual cropping on slopes. Institutional innovations improved resource management, resulting in an effective social contract to protect the natural biodiversity of the park. The production of fruit and timber trees dramatically increased, re-establishing tree cover in the buffer zone. Natural vegetative contour strips were installed on several hundred sloping farms. Soil erosion and runoff declined, and the buffer strips increased maize yields by an average of 0.5 t/ha on hill-slope farms. The scientific knowledge base guided the development and implementation of a natural resource management plan for the municipality of Lantapan. A dynamic grass-roots movement of farmer-led Landcare groups evolved in the villages near the park boundary, which had a significant impact on conservation in both the natural and managed ecosystems. Encroachment in the natural park was reduced by 95% in 3 yr. The local Landcare groups also restored stream-corridor vegetation. This integrated approach has been recognized as a national model for the local management of natural resources and watersheds in the Philippines. Currently, the collaborating institutions are evolving a negotiation support system to resolve the interactions between the three management domains: the park, the ancestral domain claim, and the municipalities. This integrated systems approach operated effectively with highly constrained funding, suggesting that commitment and impact may best be stimulated by a "drip-feed" approach rather than by large, externally funded efforts.