**4. Vulnerability of community collective stewardship of the land as a strategy for promoting conservation and sustainable rural development**

#### **4.1 Corporate's grabbing of the community secured land**

Despite the Cubo community's success in legally securing its land rights and unconditional support from AWF and donors to develop a Conservancy, as a tool for diversifying its income opportunities and contribute to rural development, the Mozambique government through its local administration in Massingir District rescinded its decision to allow the community to develop 41,000 ha of its secured communal land for biodiversity conservation and wildlife-based enterprise development. The state instead signed a contract with a London-based Central African Mining Company (CAMEC), operating locally in partnership with ProCana for agrofuel production, with an estimated output of 120 million liters of ethanol [17]. This was intended to be produced from sugarcane that was to be planted over an area of 30,000 ha of the community land without any compensation for the community's loss of its land.

Sugarcane production was preferred despite speculation of serious water availability problems (http://www.osisa.org/node/10517) and the inability by ProCana to secure the requisite investment capital for ethanol production [17]. It is estimated that a liter of agro ethanol produced from sugarcane can use as much as 4000 l of water [18]. Therefore, for ProCana to produce its pledged volume of 120 million liters of ethanol, it would use at least 480 bn liters of water, which would deplete the available surface and underground water supply in Massingir District; hence from an environmental perspective, agrofuel production is not a sustainable venture in Massingir District. Additionally, the rationale that sugarcane growing, and ethanol production could create about 7000 local jobs was questionable, especially as similar ventures in Mozambique have failed to improve rural livelihoods. There is some evidence that levels of pay offered by agrofuel production ventures in Mozambique are so low that those employed are not any better off [19]. Furthermore, most agrofuel crops require little labor, mainly in the form of short-term work clearing the land to make way for the plantation and some work at harvest time, thus, there are few long-term jobs for local communities [20]. It is estimated that one permanent job is created for every 100 ha of agrofuel planted, and where mechanized farming methods are used, employment levels are even lower; for instance, a harvesting machine can replace 100 jobs [21]. Therefore, adopting agrofuel production based on pledges of improved employment opportunities needs scrutiny by governments in Africa.

For the community of Cubo, which lost its land and the opportunity to diversify its livelihood strategies through the development of a Conservancy and tapping into the wildlife economy, its dream was shuttered. The multiple benefits that could have accrued from non-governmental organizations and donor subsidized investments in biodiversity conservation, such as improved productivity of their savannah woodland through wildlife production, and marketing, would have increased opportunity for

#### *Community Collective Land Stewardship Contributions to Sustainable Rural Development… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104212*

entrepreneurship/small and medium enterprise development by increased potential for meat production from wildlife sustainable harvesting scheme; community capacity building and skills development in wildlife management and its associated businesses (e.g., participation in the ecotourism supply chain, and marketing with many spin-off benefits) were completely ignored by the state in weighing options for local economic development in Massingir District. The community's long-term benefits were ignored in favor of the unproven pledge of 7000 jobs that the proposed sugarcane and its associated ethanol production may have created. Considering the high illiteracy levels in Massingir District (56.2% among males and 83.8% among females [2], the benefits from the ethanol industry were unlikely to be substantial for the community members because they could only benefit from low-paid manual work, on an average earning about \$0.7/day, which is below the UN recommended threshold of US\$2/day [3].

Besides poor wages, the use of large areas of land for agrofuel production may result in a range of detrimental environmental impacts, which can include deforestation and loss of habitat, soil degradation because of inappropriate farming methods, water pollution from pesticide and fertilizer use, and the depletion of water resources—threatening biodiversity, carbon stocks, and land and water resources. While converting forests and rangelands to mono-cropping—a common phenomenon in the production of agrofuels reduces diversity in flora, fauna, and agrobiodiversity, as well as aboveground and subsurface carbon stocks [18].

Irrespective of all these negative social and potential environmental impacts, the Mozambique government denied the Cubo community an opportunity to directly benefit from its secured land and wildlife resources in favor of agrofuel production, which never materialized. 15 years later (in 2021) the land which had been alienated from the community proposed conservancy continues to be degraded by deforestation due to charcoal production and overgrazing. In addition, the Massingir District harbors some of the most notorious poachers in southern Africa, who have been involved in decimating the population of elephants (*Loxodonta africana*) and rhinoceros, both black rhino (*Diceros bicornis*) and white rhino (*Ceratotherium simum*) in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area. These are the environmental ills that the communities themselves wanted to mitigate.

The indifference and lack of community support to biodiversity conservation in the transfrontier conservation area (though not confirmed by any research), can in part be linked to Mozambique's government's denial of the community's opportunity to establish, develop, and manage its own nature Conservancy for the collective socioeconomic benefit of the community. The case of the Cubo community exemplifies the existence of high competition for land and other natural resources between local people and outsiders in Mozambique, and elsewhere in Africa, especially in areas perceived to be valuable for agricultural production or tourism development. The area where the Cubo community wanted to establish a Conservancy is one such area. Being part of the land, which is adjacent to the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area, it has high value as a productive asset, attracting a wide array of investors, including unscrupulous ones, both from within and outside Mozambique, who bypass or cursorily pay attention to legally prescribed procedures in accessing land for investment in agriculture production. Most of these land seekers are speculators who use their connections with senior political and government officials to secure land rights over large areas but many lack the financial resources to develop their concessions. It is unfortunate that the government disregards its own people's interest in favor of the private sector, irrespective of the latter's credibility.
