THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG

egimes. 46 Yet national regimes governing and regulating biodiversity usage in Kenya and
more particularly in Kakamega, are often in conflict with local institutions and practices, a
situation which leads to institutional conflict. This situation is borne out of the fact that, the
people around Kakamega forest have a myriad of social institutions (cultural attributes)
towards the forest. They incorporate these practices/attributes in their livelihood strategies and
this influences the way they perceive forest biodiversity and resource use priorities.
Persson and Tabellini put it that social institutions evolve as a means of understanding
systems that may result from a stream of benefits, derived from a resource regime. 47 For
instance, society has a distinct way it shapes individual knowledge in a given resource system.
This means that individuals in such a society carry with them specific ecological knowledge,
values, norms as well as other beliefs that originate from their society. 48 Therefore, based on
institutional theory, empirical inquiry and investigation, this study wishes to aid our
understanding on how local thinking shapes and structures biodiversity perceptions of the
people living around Kakamega forest. Similarly, we wanted to find out what happens when
such local thinking and state thinking interact.
1.5 Objectives of the study
With respect to the above sighted literature, it is expected that the respective thinking
regarding biodiversity at different levels is bound to differ. The difference in mindsets
regarding the forest resource usage is likely to produce varied ideas. Thus the general
objective of this study is to establish and ascertain whether there are conflicting notions of
biodiversity in Kenya and if there are, we are interested in finding out how such conflicting
positions are institutionalised.
The existence of a natural resource like Kakamega forest is associated with a lot of benefits. It
provides a high quality habitat for varied kinds of key ecological species, and it provides
social and economic opportunities for local communities living around the forest. In that
regard we want to investigate what constitutes locally relevant biodiversity notions in
Kakamega vis-à-vis the national biodiversity regimes.
Furthermore, we wish to point out that the usage of forest resources by local communities
normally produces several perceptions. Such perceptions are sometimes too powerful that
they are transformed into teachings, local rules, oral history, norms and beliefs. Therefore in
line with the above and more so in respect to Kakamega forest, we are interested in
46
Scott, W. R. 1995. Institutions and Organizations. Thousand Oaks: CA, Sage.
47
Persson, T. and G., Tabellini. 1995. Double Edged Incentives: Institutions and Policy Coordination. In a
Handbook of International Economics Vol 3, edited by G. Grossman and K. Rogoff, 1397-1444. Amsterdam:
North-Holland.
48
Oliver, C. 1991. Strategic Responses to Institutional Processes, Academy of Management Review 16:145-
179.
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