Leadership and governance intricacies in Communally-Owned Protected Areas

Abstract

Protected area management in southern Africa has evolved from a preservationist and protectionist approach towards integrated biodiversity conservation management. Modern-day biodiversity conservation management has had to work in parallel with land reform objectives and acknowledge the need for ‘community’ beneficiation. Communally-Owned Protected Areas (COPAs) on restituted land have raised expectations of generating substantial benefits for the new dispensation of previously disadvantaged landowners. However, COPAs have also attracted scholastic interest and raised questions such as whether existing leadership and governance structures within COPAs serve the intended land reform and conservation objectives. This chapter presents the leadership and governance intricacies at Somkhanda Game Reserve (SGR) as a COPA established in 2005 after a successful land claim by the Gumbi community in northern KwaZulu-Natal. SGR is now a proclaimed protected area that is co-managed by the landowning Emvokweni Community Trust (ECT) and Wildlands Conservation Trust. This study was based on qualitative case study research on SGR wherein semi-structured interviews were used to solicit the perspectives and experiences of land reform beneficiaries, SGR employees, and the conservation management authority. The study found that a tripartite power struggle between the local iNkosi, the ECT, and the land-stripped former labour tenants created havoc and disorder in the management of SGR and the Gumbi community. The chapter concludes that a harmonious relationship between traditional leadership and community trusts is essential to the effective management of COPAs in rural areas.