Conclusions and recommendations: What we have learned from a decade of experimentation

This book has presented a critical overview of the way in which community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) programmes in the past decade have evolved and been implemented in southern Africa. A basic question threads through the synthesis and case studies: ‘Has the movement described in the book reached the point of failure or is it merely in need of a number of adaptations?’ Or, to use a phrase that was repeated by the editors during the planning sessions for the book: ‘Has the CBNRM brew been burnt on the fires of experience or does the recipe need some tinkering with?’ Our answer has been consistent. The question is methodologically and chronologically inappropriate. We argue there is not linear movement from inception to success or failure. Both the movement and the individual projects that comprise it go through cycles, long and short, that involve experimentation and adaptation. In the process, lessons are learned that can help cement the ‘epochal’ articulation between traditional and formal, communal and private, that is being forged as CBNRM proliferates and unfolds on the subcontinent.