Conservation, tourism and the challenges of community participation in Natural resource management: a case of Mount Kilimanjaro

Awareness and concern over environmental issues, problems and prospects have grown steadily over the past two decades. Internationally various reports have been published on the subject by the United Nations. Nation states have also embarked on numerous environmental strategies. Amongst the strategies is the new outlook that focuses on community participatory initiatives in the conservation of protected and reserved areas. Tanzania like other countries has embarked on a member of community participatory projects in its protected areas. Among those is community participation in the conservation of Mount Kilimanjaro. The purpose of this study was to analyse problems and complexities associated with community participatory initiatives in the conservation of protected areas .The initiative around Mount Kilimanjaro has been taken as a case study. Conventional and Participatory Rural Appraisal methodologies were employed during the course of this study. The former included literature review; open and close ended interviews and photographing. With PRA, observation and informal focus group discussions were carried out. Findings revealed that participatory community conservation initiatives rest on complex historical and social political processes which need to be addressed if the former are to bear the expected results. Conservation policies applicable today on Mount Kilimanjaro have been found to be part and parcel of colonial policies that disrupted the social political and economic system of the local communities. Among other things these processes had led to unequal access and control of resources at community and at household levels. It has been found that such policies had further led to unequal division of labour whereby women have been found to bear more work responsibilities. It was also found in this study that the reserved area around and including Mount Kilimanjaro is managed by three different government departments which include the Forest Reserves, the Wildlife Department and the Kilimanjaro National Park (KINAPA). The objectives of these conservation authorities are not necessarily antagonistics. However , given their mandated functions they attract different resources and as such they portray conflict of interests in carrying out conservation activities around Mount Kilimanjaro.