Can Conservation and Development Really be Integrated?

Abstract

"Most biodiversity conservation projects in poor tropical countries also aspire to alleviate the poverty of local people. The results of these integrated conservation and development projects have often been disappointing. This paper argues that it would be impossible for both practical and ethical reasons for conservation programmes to ignore the needs of poor people who live in and around the natural areas that we seek to conserve. The problem is not whether we should attempt to integrate conservation and development but rather how we should attempt to do so. Recommendations are made for a number of principles that should underlie such programmes. It is argued that they should operate at the scale of landscape mosaics, they should be firmly rooted in local social processes and they should make the trade-offs between conservation and development explicit. Less effort should go into planning them and more into working with local stakeholders to explore options and find solutions that meet both local livelihood needs and global conservation goals."