Browsing by Author "Mandy, Lindsay Gail"
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- ItemWhy conservation fails: uncovering the wicked political nature of Southern Africa's fight against wildlife extinction(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-03) Mandy, Lindsay Gail; Lambrechts, Derica; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Political Science.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Since the dawn of Mankind, the extraction and ownership of natural resources has shaped our social development. Competition over who has control over what resources –particularly the shiny, sparkly and flammable ones buried deep within the earth’s crust –has governed political dynamics. This relationship between the earth’s depleting non-renewable resources, land and people has indeed occupied those in the Political Sciences and natural resource management (NRM) sectors. Although we became bipedal some time ago, we seem to have our heads in the sand when it comes to the renewable resources that play just as political a role. Particularly, our understanding of the management of wildlife has been left up to those within the Natural Sciences and confined to its scope which cannot cater for the sociopolitical complexities that influence the survival of endangered species, and which, in turn, influence the sociopolitical complexities of our present time. Bridging the gap in academia between politics and wildlife management, Wicked Problem Theory (WPT) provides a framework in which conservation problems can be analysed from a political perspective. In this theory’s view, policy problems involving the management of endangered species are wicked by nature and design, as human values, not the science of population decline, are at the core of the problem, and can therefore never truly be solved. Wicked problems cannot simply be solved through research, understandings and policies formulated within the scope of Natural Science, as they tend to do more damage than alleviate the problems they intend to solve. So, through the use of WPT, this study attempted to answer the broader question -Why is conservation in Southern Africa failing? For this task, African lions and vultures within the region are used as case studies to illustrate just how complex, fluid, political, and sticky designing and implementing wildlife legislation becomes.This study aimed to contextualise the complexities of conserving lions and vultures in Southern Africa, and to analyse the context through the wicked lens. In doing so, the analysis by no means attempted to clarify or solve the political problems of wildlife management, but rather to construct a political interpretation of the problem that illustrates just how complex the problem is. In taking the wicked argument to heart, it is unsurprising that the study’s findings reveal a situation in which the relationship between sacredness and science, policy design and implementation, and the dynamics between competing stakeholders governed by multiple agendas are simultaneously operating in the complex adaptive system we call NRM. So far, the political perspective on Southern Africa’s conservation, especially regarding vultures, has not been thoroughly voiced. By creating this missing link between the Natural and Political Sciences, such research has the potential to advance the way we look at, and underestimate, the political nature of conservation. Only when we give up the attempt to simplify such problems and accept their complicated nature will we ever stand any chance of healing the fundamental problems within the wicked nature of conservation.