Integrated natural resource management: from theory to practice

Abstract

Highlands worldwide are important repositories of biodiversity as well as water towers for vast lowland and urban populations. The highlands of eastern Africa are no exception, with the Eastern Arc mountains home to a host of endemic species and a globally renowned biodiversity hotspot (Burgess et al., 1998). Yet while the ecological importance of highland areas cannot be underestimated, neither should their cultural and economic importance. Surrounded in most eastern African countries by semi-arid lowlands, the highlands have historically been home to disproportionately large human populations attracted by good rainfall, relatively good soils, and—in some locations—the potential to develop vast irrigation networks (SCRP, 1996). In the past four decades, the eastern African highlands have seen rapid population growth and unprecedented land-use changes (Zhou et al., 2004), heightening the challenge of sustaining the resource base while providing for a growing population heavily dependent on natural resources for their liveli- hoods. Population growth and inheritance practices have contributed to very small household landholdings, reducing incomes and food security and in turn undermining farmers’ capacity to invest in conservation activities, often char- acterized by delayed returns. Population pressure has also caused people to expand into marginal hilly areas, increasing soil and water loss, and destroying unique habitats (Amede et al., 2001; Stroud, 2002). The erosion in collective action traditions and traditional authority structures at a time when interactions among adjacent landscape units and users are ever more tightly coupled has undermined coop- eration in natural resource management and led to increased incidence of conflict (German et al., 2009; Sanginga et al., 2007, Sanginga et al., 2010)