ABSTRACT
Southern Africa has enjoyed much success in the biodiversity conservation sector with several important ecosystems secured and some endangered species having been saved from extinction. Financial success, however, has been largely limited to initiatives that have taken place on private land; innovation and success in the commercial and financial spheres has been rare in state-protected areas, despite the fact that many of these areas are the most important from a conservation perspective and offer some of the best commercial opportunities. Indicators of stagnation of the formal conservation sector include low employee morale and high staff turnover, low operational budgets and wages, few quality people being attracted into the industry (at least in comparison to other closely related industries), protracted and bureaucratic decision making, and sometimes, unfortunately, corruption. The consequences of stagnation have been a reduction in the size of the formal wildlife estate that is under effective management and the reversal of many early biodiversity conservation successes (as evidenced by declining wildlife populations in some protected areas). The resettlement of sections of parks and wildlife reserves by people and the consequent conversion of land use to subsistence agriculture is also an indicator of the failure of state-protected areas. Examples of such situations exist in Mweru Wantipa, Sumbu, Lusenga Plain, Isangano, Lavushi Manda, Blue Lagoon, Lochinvar, West Lunga and Sioma Ngwezi National Parks in Zambia; Zinave, Banhine and Limpopo National Parks in Mozambique; Kasungu National Park, Nkhotakota, Mwabvi and Majete Wildlife Reserves in Malawi and Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe. Although depleted and run-down protected areas can be rehabilitated, the process is usually prohibitively expensive, takes long periods of time and is fraught with social and political challenges. Ironically, the decline in status of state-protected areas has been occurring when the size and quality of the private (and in a few exceptional cases communal) conservation estate has been increasing. When innovations have occurred in the state conservation sector, they tend to have been dependent on individuals, rather than as a result of an institutional culture that encourages and rewards innovation. This chapter explores some of the reasons for this, and provides some early examples of management of protected areas by the private sector.
