The role of public involvement in wildlife‐livestock conflicts: The case of Narok ranchers in Kenya
Abstract Economic activity associated with wildlife is an important source of foreign exchange in Kenya. Not surprisingly, the needs and interests of those involved in this sector are given due consideration. The exception is the farmers and ranchers who live among the wildlife and whose cooperation is necessary for maintaining this resource. As a result, farmers and ranchers have developed increasingly negative attitudes toward wildlife. On the basis of field study data collected in the Narok District of Kenya, the article argues that ranchers have in the past derived traditional and economic uses from wildlife and that their acquired negative attitude is a result of their exclusion from involvement in the design and planning of wildlife projects and policies. Four strategies for dealing with this potential conflict and incorporating ranchers and farmers into the wildlife economic sector are discussed: (1) involving the ranchers in planning and implementing wildlife projects, (2) strengthening wildlife e...
The social impact assessment model and the planning process
Abstract Social impact assessment developed along with environmental impact assessment during the early 1970s as a methodological tool with which to better understand the consequences of environmental alteration and as an input to environmental impact statements. The idea was that if adverse social, economic, and physical effects of development were known in advance, they could either be mediated or eliminated. For the most part, the assessment of biological and economic impacts has become a required input into every stage in the planning process. However, social changes are not always arrayed alongside economic, biological, and landuse changes in the matrix that leads to the final decision. The major difficulty in the application of SIA process has been in identifying and measuring the social impacts that occur with each project. Even if important social impacts were identified, few procedures have been developed for measuring their significance. When either social costs or benefits to local communities are arrayed against regional and national economic goals, social concerns generally finish a distant second. Social science research must establish that the effects on human populations alone are significant enough to alter the outcome of the decision process.
Social Impact Assessment and Monitoring
This systematic, critical review of more than 600 recent publications in social impact assessment (SIA) and related fields is based on the author's belief that SIA is a logical and timely response to our ever-growing need for more and better information to facilitate decision-making in an increasingly complex world. SIA falls within the broad range of policy analysis and the policy sciences. Topics covered include an introduction to SIA, social forecasting, quantification, SIA methodologies, socio-cultural effects, communicating and using SIAs, SIA in developing countries, public participation, community preferences, expert preferences, visual and landscape preferences, new and boom towns, energy developments, risk, environmental impact assessment, monitoring, cost benefit analysis, decision analysis, periodicals, and other bibliographies.