Contesting Village Land: Uranium and Sport Hunting in Mbarang’andu Wildlife Management Area, Tanzania

Abstract

The continuing struggles for land in Africa and the recent and dynamic academic debates about conservation as land grabbing, calls for the critical analysis of the complexity besieging land deals that disempower local resource owners in different social-economic and political settings.  This article considers Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) in Tanzania as a new category of protected areas with potentially continuing effects on rural community land rights.  Using examples of uranium mining and hunting concessions in the Mbarang’andu WMA in Namtumbo District, the article demonstrates how WMAs have served to release village lands for different kinds of private sector investment in both nature-based and extractive industries.  Conceptually, the article draws from the body of literature on idle/waste land and the power relation of power work to the detriment of local land users.  Data was collected through qualitative techniques, both in Dar es Salaam and Namtumbo District.  The main argument of the article is that the change of village land into conservation has entailed an irrevocable change of land and other resources tenure.  Yet, the use of WMAs and the economic gains from investments in them are not determined by community members but the relations of power at higher levels – government ministries, investors (who are often foreign to the community ) and local elites.  In particular, the circumstances in Mbarang’andu suggest that the mining law lacks complete recognition of WMAs, which pre-empts any possibility of negotiations for community rights to mining investments or the associated social-economic impacts.  Instead of empowering local communities, WMAs may therefore continue to serve the interest of those with the necessary capital and political influence.  This engenders new social regimes of power and inequality.