12 September 2003

South Africa has launched guidelines to help communities reap economic benefits from conserving their environment.

The department of environmental affairs and tourism, in partnership with German donor agency GTZ, launched the Community-Based Natural Resource Management guidelines at the World Parks Congress in Durban on Thursday.

The project is about local people coming together to protect their land, water, animals and plants so that they can use these natural resources in a sustainable way to improve the quality of their lives.

Pam Yako, the department's deputy director for biodiversity and conservation, said the guidelines were informed by the principle of involving communities in managing and conserving natural resources - and by the need to address the issue of poverty. "It's about the improvement of people's lives, wise use and conservation of natural resources", Yako said.

The challenge now, Yako said, was to find financial resources to implement the guidelines.

GTZ has already injected R18-million to assist in the technical development of the guidelines. GTZ adviser Johannes Baumgart said a multi-stakeholder approach was needed from government and the private sector to ensure that communities were actively involved in the process of conserving their natural resources.

Yako handed over the guidelines to the Makuleke community leader Livingstone Maluleke and Richtersveld community leader Floors Strauss. Both communities were forcibly removed from their land during the apartheid years, but through the government's Land Restitution Programme have been able to get their land back and become part of the management of its natural resources.

"We are comfortable with these guidelines, since their formulation was done in consultation with communities", Maluleke said. "All we would like to see now is the implementation of the guidelines, to see community-based natural resources really working for the benefit of communities."

"I was part of the process, so really we at Richtersveld have started with the programme", Strauss added. "It's not really something new to us."

The guidelines define a variety of ways through which communities can benefit economically for sustainably managing natural resources on their land.

While acknowledging communities' different traditions and cultures, the guidelines state that as much power and control as possible must be given to the people who use and manage natural resources.

Source: BuaNews

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