Conflict, Peace, and the History of Natural Resource Management in Sussundenga District, Mozambique

This article examines the nature of conflicts over natural resources in the postwar period in Sussundenga district, Mozambique, as contextualized within a broad history of natural resource management in Mozambique from the colonial period through the postindependence and war years to the present day. The evidence suggests that the notion of a simple transition from wartime conflict to post-war needs revision. Instead, some patterns and practices of resource use predated the war and have outlasted it, some began and ended with the agreement, and others accelerated or were initiated after the end of armed hostility. Throughout these periods, there have been social conflicts between and within different groups of resource users at all levels. Armed conflict did change patterns of resource use in some respects, but the result was not entirely negative for the natural resource base; forest resources in some areas actually regenerated during the war years. These conclusions build on arguments in environmental history and political ecology demonstrating that there is no deterministic relationship between humans and the natural environment. Rather, there is a range of possible interactions depending on locally varying contexts as well as broader social and political structures. Resume: Cet article examine la nature des conflits portant sur les ressources naturelles dans le district de Sussundenga, en Mozambique, pendant la periode d'apres guerre, mise en perspective dans une plus grande histoire de la gestion des ressources naturelles en Mozambique depuis la periode coloniale, tout au long des annees de post-independance et de guerre, jusqu'a nos jours. Les temoignages suggerent que la notion de transition simple du conflit du temps de guerre au developpement durable d'apres guerre doit etre revisee. Plus precisement, certains modeles et pratiques d'utilisation des ressources ont ete etablis avant la guerre et y ont survecu, certains ont commence et fini avec l'accord de paix, et d'autres se sont acceleres ou ont ete inities apres la fin des hostilites armees. Tout au long de ces periodes, des conflits sociaux ont eclate entre et parmi differents groupes d'utilisateurs de ressources a tous les niveaux. Les conflits armes ont effectivement modifie les modeles d'utilisation des ressources dans une certaine mesure, mais le resultat ne fut pas entierement negatif pour l'origine des ressources naturelles: les ressources forestieres dans certaines regions se sont en fait regenerees pendant les annees de guerre. Ces conclusions se basent sur des arguments en histoire de l'environnement et en ecologie politique, demontrant qu'il n'y a pas de relation deterministe entre humains et environnement naturel. Il existe plutot un champ d'interactions possibles dependant de contextes variant au niveau local, ainsi que de structures sociales et politiques plus larges. Introduction The end of three decades of war in Mozambique in 1992 brought expressions of hope from politicians and planners alike that would now be able to resume unimpeded. The elections held in 1994 were a symbol of a new political order, which purported to promote decentralization of power to the local level in order to make priorities and decisions on the utilisation of resources closer to the reality of Mozambican life (Abrahamsson & Nilsson 1995:176). The style of the agenda to be pursued in the postsocialist era would be the one that has been in fashion internationally over the last decades, namely sustainable development (Bryant & Bailey 1997:81 ).1 Explicit consideration of ecological issues was made for the first time in Mozambique in the 9 1990 Constitution (Ferraz & Munslow 1999b:99). Optimistic commentators held that the greatest single impediment to building a future of has been removed: war has been replaced by peace (Ferraz & Munslow 1999a:l

Archaeology · Conflict management · Development economics · Economics · Environmental resource management · Geography · Natural (archaeology · Natural resource · Natural resource management · Political science · Resource management (computing · African history and culture analysis · African history and culture studies · Computer Science · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Law

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