Suchergebnisse

To overcome economic injustices and spatial disparities inherited from the apartheid era, the Namibian government pursues regional development in the Zambezi region. Two popular policies are applied that build on the commodification of nature via wildlife tourism: growth corridor policy is envisioned to enable the coupling into global production networks (GPN) via increased connectivity and targeted investments into tourism. Similarly, community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) schemes are designed to attract foreign investments in the safari and hunting tourism sector to benefit rural communities. Despite the hopes that are set on international tourism, GPN theory indicates three threats connected with global market integration: first, emerging social inequalities and disarticulations in the host region, second, the appropriation of value by central nodes of the GPN and therefore limited value capture at the production stage and third, the alteration of human-environment relations at the production stage. Notwithstanding this, a conceptualisation of nature's integration into GPNs is still pending. Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to scrutinise the commodification of nature through wildlife tourism and growth corridor policy effect on regional development. To this end, value capture among the actors and localities of the tourism GPN was examined, the role of infrastructure for nature-based GPNs assessed and the mechanisms that lead to the integration of nature into GPNs revealed. A single case study approach was applied that comprehensively studied the effects of tourism development policies connected with the Walvis Bay-Ndola-Lubumbashi Development Corridor (WBNLDC) in the Zambezi region. A mixed-methods approach combined qualitative interviews, archival research and the review of existing scholarly and grey literature with a business survey, a traffic census and the analysis of quantitative data, inter alia a household survey. Findings reveal that infrastructure development and the expansion of nature conservation territories led to increased value creation from tourism in the region, but traffic census data indicates that extra-regional actors are able to capitalise on these opportunities. Nevertheless, conservancies as local institutions are able to capture roughly 20 % of the value, while tourism accrues to only 5.5 % of the income of rural households. Lastly, the institutional configuration on the local and national scale is crucial for determining how wildlife is economically utilised and who benefits from it. These findings highlight the role of local institutional actors in value capture, confirm the necessity to study the territoriality of GPNs and the role of infrastructure therein and call for a closer look at social-ecological relations at the production stage, since they are decisive for regional development.

Starting with the doi moi reforms, Vietnam has gradually been integrated into the global production network (GPN) of the oil and gas industry. However the mere integration into these global production processes does not guarantee regional economic outcomes; this depends, rather, on the exact position within the GPN. In these industries especially, states can play an influential role in the endeavours to enhance and capture value from GPN participation. This article aims to reveal whether, and if so how, the Vietnamese state has contributed to the inducement of such an upgrading process. Based on interviews with public and private actors of the oil and gas industries in Vietnam, as well as relevant secondary data, we portray the development of the Vietnamese oil and gas industries since the country's global integration. By these means we reveal the changing position of Vietnam in the oil and gas GPN and highlight the role of the state therein. Our empirical findings suggest a process of enhancement in Vietnam's oil and gas industries driven by the national corporate network Vietnam Oil and Gas Group. The development of domestic refining capacities, the increasing Vietnamese share in upstream projects and the outgoing investments of domestic companies reflect these shifting dynamics. Yet, in order to change the integration into the GPN substantially, crucial challenges still need to be addressed - namely the lack of efficiency of refinery projects and the low competitiveness of the downstream sector. Against the background of a currently low global oil price, striking a balance between the attracting of foreign capital while also maximizing value capture is of key importance. (Asien/Hamburg)

Community-based Conservation seeks to strike a balance between nature conservation and economic growth by establishing spatial and institutional settings that maintain and even regain biodiversity while simultaneously allowing for sustainable land use. The implementation of community-based conservation blueprints on communal, often agronomically marginal lands, is in many southern and eastern African countries encouraged by the national government. Despite vast academic literature on community-based conservation, it remains unclear how this re-shaping of resource governance has driven territorialisation in rural areas. To address this gap, this article compares the implementation of community-based conservation in Northern Kenya and Northern Namibia. By doing so, we intend to shed light on the question 'why does community-based conservation result in different forms of territorialisation negotiated between state agencies, non-governmental organisations and rural communities? We demonstrate how historical preconditions, contemporary project design, and the commodification of natural resources shape territorialisation in both cases in different ways. In Kenya, concerns for securitisation have been driving community-based conservation, while in Namibia it primarily aimed to benefit the previously disadvantaged rural residents. Furthermore, in both regions community-based conservation programmes serve as vehicles to articulate political claims, either to reify traditional authorities, to create ethnically homogenous territories or to define boundaries of resource use.