Twists and turns in conservation sub-contracting: Politico-ecological insights from Cameroon’s Dja Landscape

Abstract

For several decades, conservation landscapes in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have witnessed the intervention of diverse international conservation and development agencies in a bid to promote the conservation agenda. These interventions have seen the application of several models; while the outcomes of some have been sufficiently documented, the intricacies linked to conservation sub-contracting and the outcomes they produce, account for a very negligible fraction of the literature. This knowledge gap represents a constantly ignored but very important contributing factor toward conservation outcomes. To close the gap, this paper takes the case of the Dja Landscape of Cameroon to explore the political ecology of conservation sub-contracting. Specifically, it; (a) explores power manifestations in the conservation sub-contracting process between an international and a local NGO, (b) evaluates their outcomes in the frame of the sustainability of conservation interventions, and (c) examines the twists and turns of the conservation sub-contracting process between an international and a local NGO using a power lens. Qualitative data was generated using key informant interviews (n = 36), expert interviews (n = 7), and focus group discussions (n = 5) in four communities around the North and Western clusters of the Dja Landscape. Using directed content analysis and narratives, the analysis leads us to the following conclusions: Firstly, as a model, conservation sub-contracting holds promise to deliver efficient and relevant interventions, provided the terms of the contract are clear to the parties involved. The flip side is that it renders local NGOs significantly dependent on the former – creating a power dynamic of dominance by funding agencies. Secondly, in sub-contracting, unexpected shifts in the exercise of power occur; therefore, power acquisition and exercise in conservation sub-contracting is not static. Thirdly, conservation sub-contracting is flawed with the observed obscurity of the sub-contractor vis-à-vis the target communities. While the results provide new insights on the switching roles of the potentate and the subordinate in conservation sub-contracting, they call for further studies across SSA to explore the twists and turns linked to sub-contracting.