The Political Economy of the Landscape

Abstract

For landscapes to conserve and take care of needs of local communities, understanding the total local economy of the landscape is imperative. Hence, to know who is where and who has what stake in the landscape is so important. Equally important are the knowledge of types of natural assets present in the landscape and what asset contributes to fulfill what need. Weighting values of that stakeholder’s place on assets, finally, is also important to understand the dynamics of the landscape and how that would, ultimately, affect biodiversity. Assessing who is where and who has what weight in the Lake Tumba Landscape, the chapter describes an ensemble of 150 organizations located within the Lake Tumba Landscape with 69% made of national and local non-governmental structures and 13% of churches. The study identified 9% being international structures, including the UN Agencies, whereas the state was among the minority of structures. Power-wise, churches, particularly the Catholic Church, were the most important force; and lack of political leadership has also meant diminishing sense of purpose as a community at both the national and local levels. Traditional authority and the churches filled the vacuum left by the state in providing the sense of purpose for whole communities. Churches and ambulant merchants were found to possess most of the economic power: The message conveyed by the chapter is that to conserve biodiversity; these non-traditional biodiversity conservation actors have to become an essential part of the biodiversity conservation equation.