THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG

iodiversity change been altered, but causation, institutionalism and local decentarisation
policy intervention issues re-assessed. This evaluation is augmented by concerns over
technical solutions with regard to restructuring of production techniques and inputs at the
community level. 397 The debate about interventions and/or remedies now revolves around a
much larger degree regarding the complexity of local and wider community interactions. This
does not consider whether the point of departure is taken from above areas such as forest
buffer zone management or from below, in form of re-interpreting local change and local
resource needs. 398
Biodiversity, political decentralisation, and local participation in Kakamega District
While local changes, biodiversity and indigenous knowledge are increasingly emphasized, the
"local" discourse often remains at the level of the community, as for instance in the
Boserupian reinterpretation of conservation and intensification processes in West and East
Africa. 399 Subcommunity processes such as social differentiation, growing poverty, a diversity
of institutions and livelihood strategies, render such generalized community-level
interpretations insufficient for understanding how processes of biodiversity resource
conservation are sustained from top to bottom or bottom to top. 400
Therefore if we are to write about a conservation success story in Kakamega, we must have a
strong focus on the outcome of institutional interplay in the planning process for natural
resource usage between the district technocrats and the resource user groups as stipulated in
the national resource use policy. While we think of achieving this, attention must also be paid
to the critical issues of marginalization, institutional heterogeneity and poverty in the
conservation process in the district. However, due to heterogeneity within the rural
communities, seen in terms of access to and control over resources, conservation and
degradation may take place simultaneously within a smallholder community owing to the
diversity of household strategies.
The livelihood perspective is a way of studying biodiversity and likely changes from below as
a way of emphasizing resource actor diversity. This is an issue that has recently gained
importance. One example is when the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
toward the end of the 1990s, made environment and sustainable livelihood programs based on
the local decentralised development programs, as a focus area for poverty reduction and
diversification in rural economies. 401 Another example is when the British Department for
397
Benjaminsen, T.A. 1997. Natural Resource Management, Paradigm Shifts and Decentralisation Reform in
Mali. Journal of Human Ecology 25(1):121-143.
398
Oyugi, W. 2000. Decentralization for Good Governance and Development. Regional Development Dialogue
21(1): 3-22.
399
Netting, R. 1993. Smallholders, Householders-Farm families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable
Agriculture. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
400
Cernea, M. 1985. Putting People First: Sociological Variables in Rural Development. New York: Oxford
University Press.
401
UNDP.1999. Sustainable livelihoods. http://www.undp.org/sl/ 15/ 6/ 2006.
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