Abstract
AbstractFew studies exist about the extent to which co-management in protected areas contributes to conflict prevention or mitigation and at what level of the conflicts such collaborative efforts are possible. Following varying degrees of conflict, Mole National Park, Ghana, embarked on a collaborative community-based wildlife management programme in 2000. Using Glasl's conflict escalation model, we analysed the contribution of co-management to mitigating and preventing conflicts from escalating. We conducted a total of 22 interviews with local traditional leaders, Park officials and local government officials, and 26 focus group discussions with farmers, hunters, women and representatives of co-management boards, selected from 10 of the 33 communities surrounding the Park. Our findings indicate that co-management can help mitigate or prevent conflicts from escalating when conflicting parties engage with each other in a transparent manner using deliberative processes such as negotiation, mediation and the use of economic incentives. It is, however, difficult to resolve conflicts through co-management when dialogue between conflicting parties breaks down, as parties take entrenched positions and are unwilling to compromise on their core values and interests. We conclude that although co-management contributes to successful conflict management, factors such as understanding the context of the conflicts, including the underlying sources and manifestations of the conflict, incorporating local knowledge, and ensuring open dialogue, trust and transparency between conflicting parties are key to attaining sustainable conflict management in protected areas.
Highlights
Protected areas are tools for conserving biodiversity but their objectives are often in conflict with other interestsULRICH SCHRAML Department of Forest and Society, Forest Research Institute Baden-Wuerttemberg, Freiburg, GermanyReceived September
We address three questions: ( ) How do actors in the Park perceive conflicts between Park authorities and surrounding communities? ( ) How have co-management initiatives helped to manage or prevent conflicts from escalating? ( ) How can co-management initiatives be improved to enhance conflict management? Our study is based on the propositions that actors perceive conflicts when they are excluded from decision making regarding protected area management, and involvement of key stakeholders, including surrounding communities, in the form of co-management has a significant impact on the prevention and mitigation of conflicts
Interviews with Park managers revealed that conflict management strategies were executed at the same time with all communities, which suggests that most conflicts might have occurred contemporaneously
Summary
Conflicts occur when two or more parties hold strong views over conservation objectives and one party tries to assert its interests at the expense of the other (Young et al, ; Redpath et al, , ). Such conflicts can occur when parties representing conservation interests try to impose restrictions on the use of forests and wildlife resources or displace and relocate local people from their abodes as a result of the establishment of protected areas (Vodouhe et al, ; Velded et al, ). Conflicts can occur when protected wildlife has impacts on people and their activities, such as predating farm crops and livestock, resulting in retaliatory killings (Dickman, ; Mateo-Tomás et al, )
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