ABSTRACT
Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) has a strong conservation and social equity agenda (see Chapter 1). It is, to a large extent, driven by the biocentric sentiments of donor agencies, non-governmental organization (NGO) workers, researchers and tax payers in developed countries, and by their sense of social justice. These role players, concerned about global biodiversity loss, see Africa as one of the last Edens, especially for the survival of larger species of mammalian wildlife. They are also aware that poverty in many rural parts of Africa can, if left unattended, have a negative effect on wildlife. However, many of these role players also consider the commercial use of biodiversity, and especially the hunting of charismatic mega-fauna such as elephant, distasteful. Some have raised concerns about the sustainability of consumptive use practices (for example, Patel 1998; Wainwright and Wehrmeyer, 1998). Inevitably, people engaged in CBNRM get confronted, sooner or later, with the constraints of using wild resources with a high international conservation value.
