Defining common ground for the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor

WRI reports on the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor - an attempt to safeguard one of the world's biodiversity hotspots while meeting the social and economic needs of the region's people. The report finds that among people and institutions that are aware of the MBC, there are often different and sometimes conflicting expectations which reflect differences in values and a lack of understanding about the conservation, social, and economic roles of the project.

The authors recommend that identifying and employing strategies that build understanding and support for MBC among stakeholders should be a major goal of early implementation efforts. These efforts should assure people that the MBC will improve their livelihoods while preserving the region's biological richness and provide incentives. In addition, early measures to address important conservation priorities should reassure conservationists that the MBC will yield long-term benefits for biodiversity. One approach to help create this broad shared vision for the project would be for each of the Mesoamerican countries to develop a pilot participatory action plan. Adoption of this plan could include three major steps:

• First, a draft framework could be designed that would help guide the countries as they establish their pilot participatory action plans.
• Second, each country would select a proposed corridor pilot site where the government and stakeholder groups could develop a participatory action plan for the MBC.
• Third, after each country has implemented its pilot participatory action plan, the countries would meet to compare experiences.

[adapted from authors]