Land-Use Planning, Digital Technologies, and Environmental Conservation in Tanzania

• DOI: 10.1177/1070496518761994
• Date: 01 June 2018
• Published date: 01 June 2018
• Author: Chris Huggins
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Land-Use Planning,

Digital Technologies,

and Environmental

Conservation in Tanzania

Chris Huggins

1

Abstract

Participatory land-use planning (LUP) is often promoted as a solution to various

environment-related challenges. In Tanzania, planning processes often represent a

stage in the conversion of village lands to different uses, such as wildlife conservation

or large-scale farming. LUP in Tanzania is frequently dominated by powerful local,

national, or international elites, resulting in loss of rights over village land despite the

opposition of many villagers. Contemporary planning involves digital technologies

such as global positioning system units, which enable easier storage and sharing of

geospatial data. Using assemblage theory, and based on key informant interviews

conducted in Arusha and Kilimanjaro Regions of Tanzania in 2015, this article

shows that LUP, particularly when it involves digital technologies, is used to not

only to change land uses but also to strengthen linkages between different organiza-

tions, reinforce certain narratives of environmental change, and legitimize particular

forms of external intervention.

Keywords

land-use planning, transnational assemblages, wildlife conservation, Tanzania, digital

technologies, environmental management

Local-level land-use planning (LUP) is often promoted as a means of simulta-

neously achieving multiple objectives, such as land dispute resolution, environ-

mental conservation, improvements in land tenure security, and identif‌ication of

areas for commercial agricultural investment. There has been considerable

Journal of Environment &

Development

2018, Vol. 27(2) 210–235

!The Author(s) 2018

Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/1070496518761994

journals.sagepub.com/home/jed

1

School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa,Ontario, Canada

Corresponding Author:

Chris Huggins, Assistant Professor, School of International Development and Global Studies, University

of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Email: chuggins@uottawa.ca

investment in participatory LUP processes in developing countries since the

1980s (Kaswamila & Songorwa, 2009), and there is currently renewed focus

on LUP due to increased foreign direct investment in land (the ‘‘global land

grab’’), impacts of climate change, food security shortfalls in some areas, and the

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDDþ)

process (Carmody & Taylor, 2016; Harnesk & Brogaard, 2017; Hultman,

Sulle, Ramig, & Sykora-Bodie, 2012; Kweka, 2010; Massay & Kassile, 2014;

Rudel & Meyfroidt, 2014).

Village land-use plans (VLUPs) in Tanzania were originally envisaged as

participatory mechanisms for ‘‘bottom-up’’ planning and community-based

development. However, over time, regulatory and policy frameworks for

VLUP have become complex, making it dif‌f‌icult for village councils to produce

them without signif‌icant external f‌inancial and technical support (Alden Wily,

2011). Scholars have demonstrated that this has often led to the VLUP process

being instrumentalized by external actors and oriented toward objectives that do

not necessarily ref‌lect the priorities of most villagers (Kweka, 2010; Moyo,

Ijumba, & Lund, 2016; Ramutsindela & Noe, 2012). In many cases, VLUPs

have been conducted as a mere step in order to achieve a particular goal: for

example, creating a conservation area or issuing land rights documents.

Recently, the widespread availability of af‌fordable digital technologies, such

as handheld Geographic Positioning Systems (GPS) units, GPS-enabled smart-

phones, and af‌fordable digital cartography software, has opened up new possi-

bilities for LUP. These possibilities include greater citizen participation, more

ef‌fective sharing and storage of information, and adaptation of information

products for dif‌ferent end uses (e.g., adding layers of data onto existing digital

maps). LUPs, which tend to involve many actors from dif‌ferent sociopolitical

scales (local, national, regional, and global), potentially become more complex

when they involve such digital technologies and are networked into various

databases. Complex processes can be conceptualized through the notion of

assemblages, derived mainly from the work of Foucault (2008) and Deleuze

and Guattari (2004). This article deploys the assemblages concept to examine

the ways in which ‘‘participatory land-use planning’’ has been used within envir-

onmental conservation projects in Tanzania and to demonstrate that use of

digital technologies in the planning process is signif‌icant not necessarily in

terms of assuring greater local ‘‘participation’’ but in terms of the use of digital

information to link dif‌ferent elements of the environmental conservation

assemblage.

Despite increased interest in VLUP in Tanzania from various actors, pub-

lished case studies of particular LUPs are rare (Travers, 2015). This article

provides examples from Arusha and Kilimanjaro regions, which have long

been af‌fected by tensions and disputes over competing perceptions of the envir-

onmental impacts and economic potentials of customary resource-based liveli-

hoods, commercial wildlife conservation activities (linked to international

Huggins 211