Protection of CBNRM In Southern Africa: A Review of National Constitutions and Relevant Legislation on Food Security, Human Rights and Climate Change
Prof. Ademola Oluborode Jegede for Resource Africa
Climate change challenges biodiversity and food security that are central to the sustenance of the Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) approach. Yet the contribution of the approach in terms of adaptation and mitigation to address the challenges needs to be well understood. Also, the role of existing law and policy in aiding or undermining the CBNRM approach to cope with the new challenges of food security and climate change requires proper articulation.
This review focuses on CBRNM in eleven (11) countries in Southern Africa, namely, Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. and Tanzania. The purpose is to profile issues relating to human rights, food security and climate change which they face and assess the available legal framework which aids or undermines protection. For each of the eleven countries, the review sets out (1) a brief description of the country and CBRMN; (2) Threat to food security and human rights (3) Peculiar threat of climate change to sustainable use (4) Potential contribution of sustainable use to climate adaptation and mitigation (5) Legal and Policy environment.
In all, both optimism and challenges exist in the law and policy related to the CBNRM in the context of climate change and right to food. Therefore, all actors in the space, in particular CBNRM advocates and activists operating in the 11 South African countries under review, need to be equipped with appropriate information, approaches and legal response necessary to cope with the emerging concerns around food insecurity, climate change and their implications for human rights.