Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nmvwc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-07T20:00:31.616Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Conflict, Peace, and the History of Natural Resource Management in Sussundenga District, Mozambique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Abstract

This article examines the nature of conflicts over natural resources in the postwar period in Sussundenga district, Mozambique, as contextualized within a broad history of natural resource management in Mozambique from the colonial period through the postindependence and war years to the present day. The evidence suggests that the notion of a simple transition from wartime conflict to postwar sustainable development needs revision. Instead, some patterns and practices of resource use predated the war and have outlasted it, some began and ended with the peace agreement, and others accelerated or were initiated after the end of armed hostility. Throughout these periods, there have been social conflicts between and within different groups of resource users at all levels. Armed conflict did change patterns of resource use in some respects, but the result was not entirely negative for the natural resource base; forest resources in some areas actually regenerated during the war years. These conclusions build on arguments in environmental history and political ecology demonstrating that there is no deterministic relationship between humans and the natural environment. Rather, there is a range of possible interactions depending on locally varying contexts as well as broader social and political structures.

Résumé:

Résumé:

Cet article examine la nature des conflits portant sur les ressources naturelles dans le district de Sussundenga, en Mozambique, pendant la période d’après guerre, mise en perspective dans une plus grande histoire de la gestion des ressources naturelles en Mozambique depuis la période coloniale, tout au long des années de post-indépendance et de guerre, jusqu’à nos jours. Les témoignages suggèrent que la notion de transition simple du conflit du temps de guerre au développement durable d’après guerre doit être révisée. Plus précisément, certains modèles et pratiques d’utilisation des ressources ont été établis avant la guerre et y ont survécu, certains ont commencé et fini avec l’accord de paix, et d’autres se sont accélérés ou ont été initiés après la fin des hostilités armées. Tout au long de ces périodes, des conflits sociaux ont éclaté entre et parmi différents groupes d’utilisateurs de ressources à tous les niveaux. Les conflits armés ont effectivement modifié les modèles d’utilisation des ressources dans une certaine mesure, mais le résultat ne fut pas entièrement négatif pour l’origine des ressources naturelles: les ressources forestières dans certaines régions se sont en fait régénérées pendant les années de guerre. Ces conclusions se basent sur des arguments en histoire de l’environnement et en écologie politique, démontrant qu’il n’y a pas de relation déterministe entre humains et environnement naturel. Il existe plutôt un champ d’interactions possibles dépendant de contextes variant au niveau local, ainsi que de structures sociales et politiques plus larges.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrahamsson, Hans, and Nilsson, Anders. 1995. Mozambique: The Troubled Transition: From Socialist Construction to Free Market Capitalism. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Alexander, Jocelyn. 1997. “The Local State in Post-War Mozambique: Political Practice and Ideas about Authority.” Africa 67 (1): 126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alpers, E. A. 1975. Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Anstey, Simon. 2000. “History Matters: Institutional Change and CBNRM in Sanga District, Northern Mozambique.” Paper presented to the International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP), Bloomington, Indiana.Google Scholar
Beinart, William. 1999. African History, Environmental History and Race Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bell, Richard. 2000. “Management Plan for the Proposed Nakaedo Biosphere Reserve, Chimanimani Trans-Frontier Conservation Area.” Vol. 2. National Directorate of Forests and Wildlife, Maputo.Google Scholar
Blaikie, Piers. 1995. “Understanding Environmental Issues.” In Morse, S. and Stocking, M., eds., People and Environment, 130. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Blom, Astrid. 1998. “Ambiguous Political Space: Chiefs, Land and the Poor in Rural Mozambique.” Copenhagen: Centre for Development Research.Google Scholar
Bourdillon, Michel F. C. 1982. The Shona Peoples: An Ethnography of the Contemporary Shona, with Special Reference to their Religion. 2nd edition. Gweru: Mambo Press.Google Scholar
Bowen, Merle L. 2000. The State against the Peasantry: Rural Struggles in Colonial and Postcolonial Mozambique. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.Google Scholar
Bruce, J. 1990. “Land Policy and State Farm Divestiture in Mozambique.” Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar
Bryant, Raymond, and Bailey, Sinead, 1997. Third World Political Ecology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cahen, M. 1987. La Révolution Implosée. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Castel-Branco, C. 1995. “Opções Económicas de Moçambique, 1975–95: Problemas, Lições e Ideias Alternativas.” In Mazula, B., ed., Moçambique: Eleições, Democracia e Desenvolvimento, 581636. Maputo, Mozambique.Google Scholar
Cravinho, J. 1995. “Modernizing Mozambique: Frelimo Ideology and the Frelimo State.” D.Phil, diss., Oxford University.Google Scholar
Dias, M. L. E. Filimão, and Mansur, Eduardo. 1998. “Comunidades e Maneio dos Recursos Naturais: Memórias da 1a conferencia nacional sobre maneio comunitário dos recursos naturais.” Maputo, Mozambique.Google Scholar
Fairhead, J., and Leach, M.. 1998. Refraining Deforestation: Global Analysis and Local Realities: Studies in West Africa. London: Roudedge.Google Scholar
Ferraz, B., and Munslow, Barry. 1999a. “Looking Ahead.” In Ferraz, B. and Munslow, Barry, eds., Sustainable Development in Mozambique. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Ferraz, B., and Munslow, Barry. 1999b. “National Environment Management Programme.” In Ferraz, B. and Munslow, Barry, eds., Sustainable Development in Mozambique, 97106. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Gengenbach, Heidi. 1998. “‘I’ll Bury You in the Border!’: Women’s Land Struggles in Post-War Facazisse (Magude District), Mozambique.” Journal of Southern African Studies 24, no. 1, (03): 736.Google Scholar
Gersony, Robert. 1988. “Summary of Mozambican Refugee Accounts of Principally Conflict-Related Experience in Mozambique.” Washington, D.C.: Department of State Bureau for Refugee Programs.Google Scholar
Howard, M., and King, J.. 1975. The Political Economy of Marx. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Isaacman, Alan. 1996. Cotton Is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938–1961. Portsmouth: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Leach, Melissa, Mearns, Robin, and Scoones, Ian. 1997. “Challenges to Community-Based Sustainable Development: Dynamics, Entidements, Institutions.” IDS Bulletin 28 (4): 414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDermott-Hughes, David. 1995. “Community-Based Forest Management in the Lucite (Rusitu) Valley: People and Policies of a Proposed Mozambique-Zimbabwe Transfrontier Conservation Area.” Maputo, Mozambique: World Bank.Google Scholar
McDermott-Hughes, David. 1996. “Disputed Territory and Dependent People: Rethinking Land Tenure on the Zimbabwe–Mozambique Border.” Paper presented to the International Association for the Study of Common Property, 06 5–8, Berkeley, California.Google Scholar
McDermott-Hughes, David. 1998. “Mapping the Hinterland: Land Rights, Timber and Territorial Politics in Mozambique.” Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California.Google Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmoud. 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Kampala: Fountain Publishers.Google Scholar
Manning, Carrie. 1997. “Beginning at the End: Democratization in Mozambique.” Ph.D. diss., University of California-Berkeley.Google Scholar
Mansur, Eduardo, and Nhantumbo, Isilda. 1999. “Community-Based Natural Forests and Wildlife Management.” The Common Property Resource Digest 52: 79.Google Scholar
Maughan-Brown, A. M. 1998. “Revisiting CBNRM: A Case Study of the Tchumo Tchato Project in Mozambique.” M.Env.Dev. thesis, University of Natal, South Africa.Google Scholar
Migdal, Joel, Kohli, Atul, and Shue, Vivienne. 1994. State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Murphree, Marshall. W. 1996. “‘Ex Africa semper aliquid novi?’ Considerations in Linking African Environmental Scholarship, Policy and Practice.” Paper presented to the Pan African Symposium on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and Community Participation, 06, Harare.Google Scholar
Myers, Gregory W. 1994. “Competitive Rights, Competitive Claims: Land Access in Post-War Mozambique.” Journal of Southern African Studies 20 (4): 603–32.Google Scholar
Myers, Gregory W., Eliseu, Julietta, and Nhachungue, E.. 1994. “Security and Conflict in Mozambique: Case Studies of Land Access in the Post-War Period.” Land Tenure Center Research Paper, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar
Myers, Gregory W., West, Harry G., and Eliseu, Julietta. 1993. “Land Tenure Security and State Farm Divestiture in Mozambique: Case Studies in Nhamatanda, Manica and Montepuez Districts.” Land Tenure Center Research Paper no. 110, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar
Newitt, Malyn. 1981. Portugal in Africa: The Last Hundred Years. London: C. Hurst.Google Scholar
Newitt, Malyn. 1995. A History of Mozambique. London: C. Hurst.Google Scholar
Nilsson, Anders. 1993. “From Pseudo-Terrorists to Pseudo-Guerrillas: The MNR in Mozambique.” Review of African Political Economy 58: 3542.Google Scholar
O’Laughlin, Bridget. 1996. “Through a Divided Glass: Dualism, Class and the Agrarian Question in Mozambique.” Journal of Peasant Studies 23, no. 4 (07): 139.Google Scholar
O’Laughlin, Bridget. 2000. “Class and the Customary: The Ambiguous Legacy of the Indigenato in Mozambique.” African Affairs 99: 542.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitcher, M. Anne. 1995. “From Coercion to Incentives: The Portuguese Colonial Cotton Regime in Angola and Mozambique, 1946–1974.” In Isaacman, Allen and Roberts, Richard, eds., Cotton, Colonialism, and Social History in Sub-Saharan Africa. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Ribeiro, António. 1999. “Institutional Development for Community-Based Resource Management.” In Ferraz, J. and Munslow, Barry, eds., Sustainable Development in Mozambique, 8896. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Serra, António, Black, Richard, and Schafer, Jessica. 2000. “Management of Natural Resources: Report of a Workshop in Chimoio, 28 September 2000.” Brighton, U.K.: School of African and Asian Studies and Centro de Experimentação Florestal.Google Scholar
Vail, Leroy. 1976. “Mozambique’s Chartered Companies: The Rule of the Feeble.” Journal of African History 17 (3): 389416.Google Scholar
Vail, Leroy, and White, Landeg. 1980. Capitalism and Colonialism in Mozambique: A Study of Quelimane District. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Vines, Alex. 1991. Renamo: Terrorism in Mozambique. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
West, H. G., and Kloeck-Jenson, Scott. 1999. “Betwixt and Between: ‘Traditional Authority’ and Democratic Decentralisation in Post-War Mozambique.” African Affairs 98 (393): 455–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Tom, and Hall, Margaret. 1997. Confronting Leviathan: Mozambique Since Independence. London: C. Hurst.Google Scholar