Mainstreaming participation in global conservation

Conservation organisations have changed their thinking about relationships between people and nature during the past forty years. In the 1960s, many organisations saw people as the threat to nature, and promoted their removal from National Parks. In the 1980s, it was realised that people could not be ignored. This prompted the development of various integrated conservation and development initiatives. Since the 1990s, organisations have promoted more participatory approaches to conservation.

Policy change is shaped by the situations in particular organisations. This research looks at WWF – one of the world’s largest conservation non governmental organisations – to better understand some of the factors that influence change. Analysis was based on a review of over 35 years of field and policy documents, a review of over 2000 projects since 1961, case studies from Brazil, Cameroon, Madagascar, Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, Latvia and Scotland, and interviews with a range of conservation staff.

The research found that:

• Staff at international conservation organisations have diverse values and view environmental problems and solutions differently. These differences result in contested meanings and competing conservation strategies. 
• There are also differences in perspectives between those who favour global approaches to conservation and those who focus on micro-scales and public participation.
• There are no definitive scientific answers to environmental problems. Conservation planning cannot be treated as a matter of ‘sound science’ alone.

Documents from the mid 1990s indicate that 75 percent of conservation projects had social as well as conservation objectives. Most projects had adopted some ideas of participatory development. However, a close look at how concepts such as ‘community’ and ‘participation’ were translated in practice indicated a poor understanding of what these terms meant. Few projects were based on locally defined needs or helped secure tenure and access rights for local people.

In the mid 1990s, WWF made use of the language of participatory natural resource management without significant changes in scientific approaches or strategies. The development of participatory approaches was often limited by contradictions between policies, the priorities of fundraising and organisational structures.

• Bureaucratic systems and organisational politics – reflected in decision-making structures and patterns of resource use – can maintain traditional models of conservation and suppress new ideas within organisations.
• Fundraising for conservation shapes strategies and may work against approaches that benefit rural communities. Organisations that rely heavily on public donations, like WWF, are very sensitive and responsive to the effects of negative publicity on income.
• Media images play a critical role in marketing conservation and have previously misrepresented the interests of rural communities. WWF has strategically employed ‘crisis’ images of people and nature. More recently, images of indigenous peoples used for marketing purposes have been widely criticised.

It is important to avoid further division between the views of conservation organisations. The future of conservation can be enriched by learning from diverse scientific and policy perspectives and by working towards constructive communication between groups. Successful conservation involves public values as well as expert opinions from many different forums. Leaving local people out of conservation planning is not an option. There is a need to build relationships between different organisations, conservation projects and rural people. In particular, conservation organisations need to give greater attention to differences between social groups in project areas. They must also consider positive discrimination in favour of women, landless and other marginalised groups, who often bear the costs of conservation projects but lack the power to represent their interests.

There are signs that conservation organisations are adopting broader social involvement, which traditional approaches have found hard to accommodate. This will continue to provide a base for international conservation in the future. However, the goal is not simply to make decision making more legitimate, but to help establish wider and more integral worldviews in conservation thinking.

Source(s):
‘People-oriented approaches in global conservation: is the leopard changing its spots?’ International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), UK and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK, 2002 Full document.

Funded by: Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGIS), Bundesministerium fur wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)

id21 Research Highlight: 23 February 2005

Further Information:
Sally Jeanrenaud
Special Assistant to Achim Steiner
IUCN HQ
28 rue Mauverny
1196 Gland
Switzerland

Tel: +41 22 999 0288
Fax: +41 22 999 0029
Contact the contributor: sally.jeanrenaud@iucn.org

International Institute for Environment and Development, UK

Institute of Development Studies, UK

Other related links:
'Buying and selling wildlife conservation in Kenya'

'Linking conservation and sustainable livelihoods'

'Bushmeat in Africa: protecting wildlife and livelihoods'

'Resettlement in Central Africa: balancing conservation and people'

'Land reform or wildlife? Balancing the interests of people and wildlife'

IUCN - The World Conservation Union

WWF - the Global Conservation Organization