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What is often referred to as participation in development can take on curious forms. It was a gray
winter day in 2003 when representatives of villages located inside the recently declared Limpopo
National Park in Mozambique assembled to discuss the problems they were having with park rangers.
The goal of the conflict resolution workshop was to address the concerns of local residents and try to get
to the bottom of some of the difficulties they were encountering – in particular, the problem of park
rangers beating suspected poachers. Park officials wanted to secure better local cooperation with their
anti-poaching program. But when everyone was gathered in the park’s offices in the town of Massingir,
the facilitator first called for a group activity. He asked everyone to stand, clasp hands with whoever sat
next to them, and hold their joined fists high above their heads. Then, he led everyone in a cheer until it
was repeated with sufficient volume: “We agree that there is to be a park in Massingir!” This after-the-
fact chant of ‘agreement’ was a puzzling way to begin a discussion with local residents who had not been
asked if they wanted a park before it was established, and in many cases, not informed of its existence
even after it was declared.
Why do efforts to engender local participation in conservation and development projects often
wind up marginalizing some local people and limiting the ways in which they can influence project
outcomes? While local participation has become orthodoxy in conservation and development projects,
the ways in which this can be effectively accomplished often remain obscured from view. Any
interaction with local residents is called participation and the word conjures up unconditionally positive
images – “The idea of citizen participation is a little like eating spinach: no one is against it in principle,
because it is good for you” (Arnstein 1969: 216). Deciding that participation is a good thing and
implementing it effectively, however, are not necessarily the same thing. Participation can be touted from
a number of viewpoints: For a development practitioner, participation may represent a way to minimize
local resistance to a project and to convince people that a given project is in fact a good idea – especially
if they are the ones who will bear most of the immediate cost of implementation through major changes in
livelihood strategies or even displacement. For a conservationist, participation may proffer the chance to
educate local people about sustainable natural resource use and management that will further the ends of
Convention