Introduction: The Politics of Natural Resource Governance in Africa

Abstract

The land is the economy, the economy is the land. Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) election slogan Wildlife is our oil. Tanzania National Parks official (quoted in Sachedina, 2008) Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Frederick Douglass, 1857 Few matters are more central to the daily lives of African societies than the use and governance of natural resources. The majority of Africa’s human population relies on the resources that grow or live on the land, and the ecological services which underpin agricultural and pastoralist livelihoods. Patterns of resource use are fundamental to rural and national economies, as well as to local and global concerns about environmental conservation. In the political sphere, the desire of Europeans to capture and exploit African resources played a key role in the transformative process of colonialism. Natural resource governance issues such as land tenure continue to underpin evolving relations between citizens and states in the post-colonial era.

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