• Background

Background

This paper looks at possibilities existing within the indigenous knowledge systems, community structures, institutional management agencies and other resource users for sustainable mountain and site-based resources conservation. The author gives particular reference to Kenyan policy instruments and management systems.

A number of emerging issues are identified

• The government has very little capacity for management of important mountain regions. Manpower and equipment are in short supply.
• There is a need to establish mechanisms at policy level for partnerships and local collaboration between government agenices and communities. Community initiatives around Mount Kilimanjaro have been effective and such local initiatives should be encouraged and supported by the government.
• Non-governmental organisations could also team up with mountain communities to promote alternative life support systems
• The different institutions that are stakeholders in the mountain ecosystems should also form collaborative networks and lobby for comprehensive overhaul of existing management systems.
• There should be alternative planning approaches, with a view to setting up new initiatives that are responsive to peoples needs. Policy should be defined from local to international levels, integrating theoretical and methodological components that would be further enhanced by field experience of some of the formulators.

The author goe on to recommend that any new initiatives should be aimed at broadly filling the following four gaps:

Knowledge gap: lack of scientific data and understanding about environmental and human variables that contribute to biodiversity loss in mountain areas and related lowlands. Their interactions and dependencies need to be characterised, and the linkages to be understood.

Information gap: there is a lack of reliable data about policy instruments relevant to implementing and managing these environmental systems, especially about variables that influence conservation, community issues and biodiversity enhancement.

Technical assessment capability gap: there is a lack of permanent centres with inter-disciplinary capacity trained in biodiversity assessment, participatory methods, institutional analysis, geographical information systems and database development.

Institutional gap: there is a lack of collaborative mechanisms and institutional networks to share information, knowledge, data, discoveries, expertise and new initiatives so as to avoid duplication and expand world-view. This may also ensure that the existing sporadic transfer of findings into planning measures can be amended into a better model.

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