National park-local people relationships: Case studies from northern Benin, West Africa and the Grand Canyon, USA.

Abstract

Approaching the analysis and management of relationships between national parks and their local people from the perspective of environmental conflict management shifts the emphasis from the issues around which they interact to the process by which they interact. Studies at the Pendjari Biosphere Reserve complex in Benin, West Africa and the Grand Canyon National Park in the USA, suggest that these processes can be understood in terms of: underlying interests; the parties involved; their incentives to work together; their ability to do so; and the structural context of the relationship. Conflicts occur because of a fundamental difference in underlying interests. Parks are interested in conservation while local people are interested in their own social well-being. At the Pendjari relationships are defined primarily by economic concerns while at the Grand Canyon the main concerns are political and cultural. These differences are attributable to the level of national economic and socio-political development and sophistication. In both cases the power of the local people to adversely affect the achievement of park objectives, while pursuing their own, means that it is the parks, rather than the local people, that have the greater incentive to pursue active management of relationships. In Benin the very survival of the park is at stake, while at the Grand Canyon it is the autonomy of the park and its ability to influence the management of surrounding l and s. Strategies for management should include improving communication and building trust between all the parties involved, the use of social impact assessment, and giving local people real input into park policy making and management through local management committees. Structural barriers to local cooperation must be overcome and it is recommended that the national park concept be redefined to include a concern for local human welfare. Fundamental conservation requirements must be defined and safeguarded and there will be implications for the level of acculturation of indigenous groups. Active management of park-local people relationships might both mitigate some of the adverse impacts of parks on local people and improve the efficacy and efficiency of conservation both inside and outside parks.