Trans-boundary natural resources management in Southern Africa: local historical and livelihood realities within the Great Limpopo Trans-frontier Conservation Area

This report examines the impacts of local historical experiences with conservation and current livelihood complexities on efforts to implement the Great Limpopo Trans-frontier Park (GLTP) and the Great Limpopo Trans-frontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA). It particularly highlights the complexities involved in attempting trans-frontier conservation in an area with a history of dispossession and where livelihoods are perceived to be threatened by outside interventions. <br /><br />The author argues that the early 1990&rsquo;s saw not only the end of frontline states&rsquo; hostility towards the apartheid regime, but also new approaches to co-operation within the southern African region. Conservation has emerged as one area that could foster co-operation between countries of the region. By the mid-1990s, trans-boundary natural resources management, trans-frontier conservation, trans-boundary protected areas and &lsquo;peace parks&rsquo; had taken root as vehicles for regional economic integration, peaceful resolution of conflict and conservation of biodiversity. <br /><br />Key concluding points include: the ongoing claims to territory along the Madimbo corridor and conflicts over land use highlight the challenges post-apartheid South Africa has to deal with in pursuing the objectives of conserving biodiversity and meeting social and economic demands the continuing conflict over land use and territorial boundaries along the Madimbo corridor indicates a mismatch between local reality and the national geopolitical boundaries pursued in trans-boundary natural resources management (TBNRM) there has been a conceptual shift in security from the state militarised approaches of the Cold War period to forms such as human and environmental security understandings of security need to include concerns about livelihood continuities for local people and how these can be meaningfully combined with care of the environment. <br />