Chapter II. Concepts and Benefits of TBNRM

A. The concepts of TBNRM elaborated

Transboundary Natural Resource Management is but one subset of national natural resource activity—specifically those actions that go across administrative boundaries and that need cooperation from the authorities on all sides of those boundaries if that management activity is to succeed. But there is usually nothing exceptional about the management practices that take place within such TBNRM Areas (TBNRMAs). Patterns of resource sharing and community involvement, fire-fighting, tourism management, sustainable resource use, antipoaching, habitat manipulation, etc. are all very much the same—irrespective of whether they are in a transboundary context or whether they take place in the center of the country. The implication is that a country with a strong internal record of conservation and resource management will likely have strong transboundary practices. Countries with a poor record of resource management are unlikely to find cures in TBNRM. Strong regionalism is founded on strong national capacities.

The concepts of “transboundary natural resource management” and “transboundary natural resource management area” are gaining wider usage in environmental discussions and in the conservation literature, yet their precise meanings are rarely explored. Sometimes the terms TBNRM and TBNRMA tend to be used interchangeably. The absence of internationally agreed definitions of the concepts is a potential source of misinformation to policy, programs, and projects. The Southern Africa Study on TBNRM (Griffin et al. 1999) discussed the origins of the term “TBNRM-Areas” and described the policy framework in detail. However, what is needed now is a much broader analysis of TBNRM policies, processes, and programs, for these provide the broader enabling environment for the TBNRM Areas to be managed effectively. These concepts have evolved as a result of the growing recognition of the inadequacy of conservation efforts that are limited to the political, administrative, and ethnic boundaries typically found within and among countries. There is growing recognition that management regimes that are based solely on artificial boundaries will result in the fragmentation of ecosystems and often non-sustainable sectoral conservation approaches.

The concept of TBNRM refers to cooperative or collaborative efforts to conserve and or sustainably use natural resources that are shared across political, ethnic, or ecological (e.g., wetland-dryland or forest-grassland) boundaries. Such efforts may be from two or more countries, or by two or more ethnic communities that share the ecosystem with the resources. On the other hand, a TBNRMA is the geographical space or ecosystem in which the resource or resources are managed in a cooperative or collaborative manner. While TBNRM denotes processes with activities, actions and outputs, TBNRMA is largely about space. Both concepts articulate a holistic approach to the conservation of natural resources.

We argue in this review that there is need for much greater elaboration of these concepts, and that adequate field experiences and lessons learned must be built into a rigorous theoretical framework that supports both the concepts and putting them into implementation on the ground—i.e., the field programs. We explore this framework, and note with interest that other concepts and frameworks on regional approaches are under discussion at the present time. Several concepts interact with or call for TBNRM processes, e.g., The Ecosystem Approach, The Eco-Region and Bio-Region concepts, and the concept of Minimum Viable Conservation Areas (MVCAs). The UNEP concept of Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TBDA), originating from GEF guidance, is described as an analytical tool useful to identify transboundary problems. The origins of these concepts are described in Table 1.

B. Illustrative examples of TBNRM processes and TBNRM areas

Transboundary Natural Resource Management Processes (TBNRMPs) and Areas can range from traditional resource management at the local community level (e.g., shared grazing rights among pastoralist groups) to formal international protocols across national borders. A great range of options lies in between—at the site, sectoral, and international levels. Processes include the capacity building and information acquisition that are necessary to allow protocols to take place, as well as the negotiation and implementation of protocols.

The two boxes that follow illustrate the range of TBNRMAs that may occur across national boundaries in Eastern Africa (Box 1), and the range of TBNRMAs that can occur across “intra-state boundaries” within the countries of Eastern Africa (Box 2). Box 1 uses the Kenya-Tanzania border to illustrate 11 separate TBNRMAs of real or potential significance at national levels. These 11 TBNRMAs can be classified into 6 distinct sets of areas. The areas range from the classic peace park concept where two major national parks lie across a border (e.g., Serengeti to Mara, an area recognized as a peace park some three decades ago), to water flows across borders that need management to avoid ecological and political conflict.

Case studies of TBNRM within countries are less common in the literature. Case Study Two on the Kilimanjaro Heartland alludes to instances in both Kenya and Tanzania. Box 2 below provides some more specific examples.

There are at least four important features of an ideal TBNRM system,³ which are as outlined below:

• TBNRM is built on the need to manage the ecosystems and not the isolated species or resources in the particular site. TBNRM is supposed to take an ecosystem approach as opposed to sectoral approaches of the past. It thus articulates holistic management routines and rules. Sometimes the purpose of a TBNRM initiative could be a single-species focus, such as the Lesser Flamingo in east Africa. But even here management addresses the habitat (the lakes ecosystem)—not the species directly.
• TBNRM linkages can be informal or formal. Formal TBNRM is undertaken by formal institutions and largely involves collaborative arrangements with agreed policies and rules. These are often embodied in management plans and Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs).
• TBNRM is housed within a supportive policy environment, and all stakeholders have sufficient capacity to engage in the TBNRM process, with the ability to derive resource benefits that overcome costs.⁴
• TBNRM uses effectively the synergies that each of the collaborators or stakeholders could bring to the management process, Griffin et al (1999).

TBNRM takes place at several levels of sociopolitical governance: local, national (intra-state), bilateral, and multilateral levels. These different levels provide a number of distinct entry points for TBNRM. The programs are enabled by a broader set of policy instruments at global, regional, and national levels. Instruments at the global level include the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Regional instruments include the Algiers “Africa” Convention of 1973, which is about the conservation and management of natural resource conservation. TBNRM also draws legitimacy from such sub-regional instruments as the Lusaka Protocol for Wildlife cooperation.

C. A Typology of TBNRM processes and areas

This discussion leads to a working typology of TBNRM. We first describe the main layers within a country (national and intra-state); and then among countries (bilateral and multilateral).

At the intra-state level, TBNRM involves cooperative or collaborative management by two or more groups (which could be ethnic, institutional, or economic) based and operating within a particular site in a country. It is about the management of a resource or resources across an intra-state boundary. Such a boundary may largely be administrative or ethnic. This form of TBNRM is sometimes not based on central government policies and laws; instead it derives its existence from traditional practice and local government by-laws and related administrative measures. It can be based on informal understanding and collaboration of groups with shared concerns and values to manage shared ecosystems and resources.

The second form is the inter-state level. Here TBNRM is based on formalized arrangements by two nation states to manage jointly a shared (cross-border) resource or, in a broader context, an ecosystem. It is formalized through the harmonization of national policies and laws of the participating states to establish and ensure the management of shared resources, joint programs for the management of ecosystems, and administrative mechanisms involving various groups at the site level (TBNRMA). Box 1 above provided several examples of bilateral (inter-state) TBNRM. These bilateral agreements can be extended to multilateral systems, which involve more than two states cooperating to manage a shared resource or ecosystem. Multilateral systems are about managing ecosystems that transcend more than two political and administrative national boundaries. Examples of such ecosystems are Lake Victoria and the Nile basin, both of which cross several boundaries.⁵ This form of management involves some level of harmonizing national policies and laws, the formulation and implementation of regional programs and projects, and the establishment of regional treaties or conventions.⁶

The typology separates cooperative processes that work at broad enabling levels (globally and regionally) from those processes that address cross-border sites directly. Global processes include the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and CBD. Regional processes include the EAC and the Lusaka Protocol. National ratification of these conventions and agreements provides a binding commitment from those states to follow the articles contained therein (see, e.g., Ntambirweki 1996). In most cases the conventions provide specifically for cross-border cooperation. These borders can be defined in three ways:

• Political borders, set up for administrative purposes—e.g., state or district borders;
• Ecological borders, across which resource transfers may take place; and
• Sectoral borders, where different sectoral administrations have jurisdiction.

The typology categories provide examples of TBNRMAs at national, sub-national (i.e., district), and village levels (Table 2), and across ecological and sectoral borders.

A different level of typology addresses issues rather than boundaries. We present such a typology in Box 3, first developed by Frank Turyatunga in Uganda (1995), assessing types of regional action within an early regional GEF project (see Rodgers 1998). This typology is based around the concept of regional cooperation in a larger sense.

D. Benefits from TBNRM and TBNRMA

TBNRM and TBNRMA offer a variety of ecological and socioeconomic benefits. These include the reestablishment of “key ecological functions previously disrupted by artificial limitations imposed by political, administrative and ethnic borders” (Griffin et al. 1999). As we discuss below, the countries of Eastern Africa are largely divided by boundaries that were created for colonial interests. However, this is a simplistic description. Most boundaries were set around the spheres of influence of colonial powers in the 1880s and 1890s. Such spheres of influence came from “historical agreements” negotiated with local chiefs and kings, such as that by the Germans with the Wa-Chagga tribe, or the British with the Buganda. Borders then were based on ethnic lines, and because ethnic borders sometimes followed ecological systems, borders at the time were ecological as well. However disruption comes not so much because of a border per se, but where policies and/or interventions from separate administrations differ significantly on either side of that border.

There are sociopolitical benefits that TBNRM can generate. Such benefits include enhanced stability and peace, which would be acquired through bilateral and multilateral frameworks, and decreased cultural isolation (Griffin et al. 1999). TBNRM also offers a basis for solving potential conflicts among communities and/or between adjacent nation states as it can provide a locus of common concerns. Competing, and sometimes conflicting, interests can be made more passive and thus can be managed through cooperative or collaborative efforts. TBNRM stimulates and mobilizes diversity of management values and techniques. Actors in the TBNRM process bring with them diverse values, norms, and technologies that would constitute a common regime. As a result of this diversity of approaches, innovations emerge—largely evolving out of stakeholder efforts to make their resource management interventions meet basic management plan formats and standards that were agreed on.

TBNRM enhances respective actors’ capacities. People, agencies, and countries involved in TBNRM efforts share experiences, generate new knowledge and tools, and learn from each other. Institutional capacity building is a benefit of TBNRM—even though most TBNRM processes and area projects do not articulate this as one of their main goals.

TBNRM contributes to economic change and growth by facilitating easier flow of goods and services across borders. TBNRM can be a carrier of economic capital across and between two countries. Such economic benefits are also linked to ecological benefits, particularly land-use practices that aim at generating profits from such resources as wildlife, forests, and minerals. There are also social benefits that TBNRM generates. These include the enlargement of social capital through marriages, exchange of cultural values and associated traditional knowledge, and sharing of genetic material for improved agriculture and livestock.⁷

3. The Kilimanjaro Heartland case study in this volume describes 13 essential parameters for an effective TBNRM process.

4. Such an emphasis on capacity and enabling policy environments was a major outcome of the TBNRM workshop in Victoria Falls in April 2001. For further information see the main volume of this series, Beyond Boundaries: Transboundary Natural Resource Management in Sub-Saharan Africa (van der Linde, Oglethorpe, et al. 2001).

5. We discuss Lake Victoria and the Nile Basin TBNRM in Chapters IV, and V.

6. We discuss regional regimes for multilateral TBNRM in Chapter V and VI of this Regional Overview. It is also crucial to note that bilateral TBNRM often uses or invokes broader regional conventions or treaties.

7. This description of economic, social, and ecological benefits came from a USAID Regional Centre for Southern Africa workshop on the Four Corners TBNRM site, (Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) held in 2000.