ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the broader political forces that shape people's lives, and examines the effect of national politics and economics and ‘macro’ forces on the many variables that shape the outcome of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in southern Africa. A number of case studies in Part 2 indicate how CBNRM programmes, generally highly decentralized and localized, are shaped by forces that derive from a broader political economy that operates from outside the context in which CBNRM occurs, and over which local people have no or little control. In fact, southern Africa's resource base – its wildlife populations, forests, water resources, protected areas and landscapes – has historically been shaped and scarred by war and conflict.
