Factors affecting ecoagriculture for integrated farming and biodiversity conservation in a transfrontier conservation area inSouthern Africa

Abstract

The transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs) concept appears well-timed and appropriate to Southern Africa but the role of local communities in these enterprises is not defined. A framework that fully integrates agriculture, biodiversity conservation and livelihoods, known as ecoagriculture, provides opportunities for achieving TFCA goals through bottom-up means. The aim of this study is to investigate the feasibility of planning and managing ecoagriculture in the Lubombo TFCA spanning across the borders of South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland. The study area is a biodiversity hotspot and is inhabited by poor people who need to meet their livelihood needs through utilising local natural resources. There is thus a need for initiatives that balance biodiversity protection and utilisation. Methodological triangulation including transect surveys, participant observation, key informant interviews, household questionnaire surveys and participatory approaches is employed. The study involves stakeholder identification and consultation, participatory landscape performance assessment, evaluation of the community’s future visioning and the analysis of policy and governance mechanisms impacting on ecoagriculture implementation. ii The study revealed a unique combination of stakeholders with varying degrees of importance and influence in the TFCA communities under focus, a situation which cannot be expected in an ordinary communal farming area. Potential conflicts of interest were evident among certain stakeholder groups but the stakeholder roles and interests were largely complementary. Key informant interviews pointed towards a high feasibility of planned ecoagriculture implementation in the area. The questionnaire survey showed an overwhelming willingness to plan the integration of biodiversity and farming. According to the participatory evaluation of the landscape’s performance the area’s overall performance score was 2.97 out of a possible score of 5, which implied a performance in the middle of the range. There were significant differences in the scores for the landscape dimensions (p-value < 0.01) but there were no significant differences in scores across the landscape (p-value = 0.37). The area is a mosaic of unplanned ecoagriculture with a good potential for transformation into systematically managed agriculture-biodiversity integrated approaches. Biodiversity-agriculture integration elements are evident in the Mathenjwa community vision, reflecting the community’s consciousness of its future in the TFCA. None of the Lubombo TFCA countries has an explicit ecoagriculture policy but ecoagriculture aspects are implied in existing legislation. Weak transboundary collaboration makes the Lubombo TFCA to exist as a treaty on paper rather than on the ground. Conflicts between customary norms and public legislation create policy enforcement challenges and pose a barrier to ecoagriculture implementation. Existing conditions could be improved to allow stakeholder-driven integrated landscape management. Innovative efforts (like policy harmonisation, capacity building and campaigns to raise awareness of the benefits of agriculturebiodiversity integration) are recommended for ecoagriculture to become a systematic landscape management practice in the area. The contributions of this study include: (i) a suggested framework for local community involvement in TFCAs which improves their resilience to climate change impacts, (ii) a suggested ecoagriculture feasibility index (EFI) for a specific landscape, (iii) a proposed landscape evaluation tool that practitioners and researchers can adopt, (iv) a methodological contribution to landscape studies involving the use of participatory processes and (v) contribution to the literature on the subject and practice of ecoagriculture.