Browsing by Author "Hoffman, David M."

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Do Global Statistics Represent Local Reality and Should they Guide Conservation Policy?: Examples from Costa Rica
(2011) Hoffman, David M.
"Recent analyses of global population change data have indicated accelerated human population growth near protected area edges in Latin America and Africa. The authors hypothesised that this growth is driven by opportunities created by integrated conservation and development. This paper highlights three Costa Rican protected areas that illuminate the problems inherent with the use of context-independent global statistics. This paper employs grounded, contextual data to suggest that hypotheses derived from global level analyses must be cautiously applied to conservation policy and praxis."
Institutional Legitimacy and Co-Management of a Marine Protected Area: Implementation Lessons from the Case of Xcalak Reefs National Park, Mexico
(2009) Hoffman, David M.
"This paper is an exploration of the relationship between a conservation intervention and the quest for local institutional legitimacy and conservation success through co-management. More precisely, this paper will employ the case of Xcalak Reefs National Park (PNAX) to illuminate the interaction between contextual and procedural elements of co-management implementation, how these variables affect the production of legitimacy in the minds of local resource users, and how resultant attitudes can subvert both management devolution and resource conservation. The failure to produce co-management will be related to the mismatch inherent in attempts to map co-management onto a histories and institutions that do not align with the morality and practicalities necessary for its implementation. The case reiterates the necessity for conservation managers and practitioners to have an understanding of local history and context. Lastly, Xcalak demonstrates the dangers for the success of conservation and development programs inherent in management processes that are inconsistent with built expectations. In so doing, this paper highlights critical assumptions made in the real-world application of co-management, as well as inherent conflicts found between local and extra-local moralities that guide conservation work."
Introduction: Human Migration to Protected Area Edges in Africa and Latin America: Questioning Large-scale Statistical Analysis
(2011) Hoffman, David M.; Fay, Derick; Joppa, Lucas
"The introduction to this set of papers highlights four challenges to the large-scale analysis of population growth at protected area edges in Africa and Latin America undertaken by George Wittemyer and colleagues in their 2008 paper published in Science. First, it raises questions about their sampling procedures, given national-level variation in systems of protected area designation and protected area estates. Second, it challenges the largely economic model of migration decisions that underlies their analysis. Third, it highlights the neglected variable of land tenure systems as a factor facilitating or impeding migration. Fourth, it points to the problematic politics of reducing human communities and polities to 'populations' subject to management from afar."