Transboundary Natural Resources Management (TBNRM): Conservationists' Dreams or Solid Means to Achieve Real Benefits for Real People

摘要

This presentation draws on the author's assessment of seventeen trans-boundary protected areas in Southern Africa (see Griffin et al. 1999) and his continued discourse with transboundary practitioners around the world. In many places in southern Africa, people living near international borders have been practicing numerous forms of transboundary cooperation and management for a long time. It is THEIR local reality. TBNRM is essentially the co-operative or collaborative management of resources by a group of stakeholders on both sides of a boundary, who enter into various forms of partnerships with each other. The success of TBNRM depends on the extent to which stakeholders can establish and sustain effective partnerships. TBNRM can be a solid means to achieve "real benefits for real people" if there is a positive answer by stakeholders to the question "what is in it for me?" The value-added synergies of "going transboundary" have to outweigh the significant transaction costs, and participants in theprocess need to share a sense of interdependence. TBNRM can improve regional ecological management, increase economic opportunities, decrease cultural isolation, foster peace, and provide a basis for further collaboration in other, more politically charged, areas. There is not an "incongruous mandate" for conservationists, between top-down (regional) goals using bottom-up (local) approaches, but rather a common mandate. There is a need, however, to broaden the transboundary discourse to be inclusive ofNRM initiatives beyond traditional park to park partnerships to include different mixes of park, community and private sector collaboration. TBNRM is about facilitation, conflict management, group process consultation, negotiation and large systems change processes. To achieve the collaboration required, enhanced organizational development skills are needed amongst traditional conservation practitioners.