Contested Floodplain

Tobias Haller, Ph.D in Social Anthropology University of Zurich, Switzerland (2001) is now Associate Professor at the Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern, Switzerland and lecturer at the ETH Zurich. He did fieldwork in Cameroon and Zambia and has specialized in economic and ecological anthropology (common pool resource management, New Institutionalism and local perception of environment, peasants and agro-pastoralist, fishermen, oil exploitation, protected areas, and community based natural resource management). He teaches courses in economic, political, and ecological anthropology on topics such as sustainable use of natural resources, environmental perception, conservation and protected areas, land tenure issues, and anthropology of mining. He has published People, Protected Areas and Global Change (NCCR Bern, 2008) and Fossil Resources, Oil Companies and Indigenous Peoples (Lit) as well as in journals such as Human Ecology, Environment and Development, Development Southern Africa, Food Policy, Human Organisation, Journal of International Development.

• Foreword: by Elizabeth Colson, Professor Emeritus, University of California, BerkeleyChapter 1: Introduction: the role of institutions in the management of common pool resourcesChapter 2: The Kafue Flats Ecosystem: A rich floodplain in a semi-arid environmentChapter 3: A “fierce” people. Ethnography of the Ila, Balundwe and BatwaChapter 4: From Lozi raids to ineffective state control: the political economy of Southern Province and ZambiaChapter 5: Transformations in a pastoral commons: Institutional change of cattle and pasture managementChapter 6: We will throw the Lozi into the water“ Institutional change and conflict in the fisheriesChapter 7: From hunting to poaching: Wildlife management from Common Property to de facto open accessChapter 8: Irrigation for the poor – cattle for the rich? Contesting the institutional design of the floodplainConclusions: Institutional change, bargaining power and conflicts

Environmental management in Africa suffers from a dearth of deep scholarly study. Fusing Elinor Ostrom's institutional analysis, Fikret Berkes's "traditional ecological knowledge," and Jean Ensminger's theories in economic anthropology, Haller (anthropology, Univ. of Berne, Switzerland) seeks to explain why common pool resources in central Zambia are under threat of overuse and mismanagement. He presents lengthy introductions on the ecology, the people, and the history of the area before moving into the heart of his analysis. This is important, as his analysis portrays a complex web of power structures, authority figures, and ideology. Without the first several chapters, the reader would be easily lost. Fortunately, Haller's mixed qualitative and quantitative approach to moving through various levels of power successfully shows how a changing economy, legal regimes, and the environment itself threaten local management strategies. The book is written at an advanced level. Haller covers an important topic and presents a strong case study. Summing Up: Recommended.