As part of CIFOR’s project¹ to identify the value of landscapes to local users the Tropical Resource Ecology Program (TREP) at the University of Zimbabwe was contracted to undertake a short term research project to establish the value of landscapes to local communities. A startup meeting was held in Harare, Zimbabwe on 29^th and 30^th of January, 2001, at which the TREP team² presented their suggested approach, and also suggested implementing the project in Gorongosa National Park (GNP) in Mozambique. The principal reason for electing to implement the project in the logistically more difficult Mozambican site, was the opportunity for...

Discussions were held between the TREP team and the Administrator of GNP to identify communities that would provide useful information for the development of the Park plan. The importance of community perspectives on the biophysical resources in the Park, and also their perspectives on resources outside of the Park but on which GNP was critically dependent,³ were discussed. Following these discussions reconnaissance trips were made to four different communities. The first of these potential sites was called Muaredzi and was entirely within the GNP (M - Figure 2). The second site (Nhanchururu) was on the western boundary of the GNP...

The primary thrust of the project was to develop a spatially explicit model of how community’s value their local landscapes, and then to collect field information from the two study sites in order to refine, update and confront the model. Data collection and model development were mutually interactive and informing. The model was initially cast as a general understanding of landscape values and then made increasingly specific as field data were collected.

The modelling and data confrontations were carried out using Bayesian probabilities. Given this approach to probability, the mode of enquiry adopted was that of an iterative search for...

Interpretation of Landsat images (Scene 167/73; 22 August 1999) and aerial photographs was done by carefully examining paper copies of the Landsat image and aerial photographs, as well as on-screen interpretation of the image. The study areas were initially demarcated on the image to form a 10×10 km square but were revised according to boundaries indicated by communities in the respective areas. Image and aerial photograph interpretation resulted in the production of preliminary vegetation associations evident from differences in colour and texture on the aerial photographs and images. This formed the basis upon which the vegetation was stratified and enabled...

An important output of this project’s activities was the production of maps in which the estimated local community valuation of landscape elements was overlain with the estimated conservation value of each landscape unit. This would enable both GNP management and the local communities to identify locations that were of high value to both groups and hence required special management attention and possibly the development of co-management arrangements. The greatest difficulty in achieving this objective was the production of maps by the local community. In Mauredzi this was feasible because the structure of the vegetation communities and hence the landscapes was...

The purpose of this section is to draw attention to the implications of our research findings as regards land use planning for the GNP region. The project included limited provision for feeding results into the ongoing planning process, in the form of reporting to relevant Mozambican authorities, as well as a small workshop. Rather more effective has been the direct involvement of one project member (Dr. T. Lynam) in the GNP planning process, through other projects. This has provided opportunity to interpret and make results directly available to planners.

The remainder of this section examines individually the four principal elements...