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Monthly Journal Digest
May 2015
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People and protected areas
Bonet-García, F.J., Pérez-Luque, A.J., Moreno-Llorca, R.A., Pérez-Pérez, R., Puerta-Piñero, C. & Zamora, R. (2015) Protected areas as elicitors of human well-being in a developed region: A new synthetic (socioeconomic) approach. Biological Conservation, Vol. 187: 221–229.
The socioeconomic impact of protected areas, crucial to conservation outcomes, has been investigated mainly in low-income, highly biodiverse, contexts. However, studies are needed on the impact of protected areas in high-income places managed for millennia. This paper looks at the links between protected areas and human well-being changes in a highly biodiverse area of southern Spain. The authors calculated well-being using an indicator that integrates information from 22 socioeconomic variables (which describe well-being according to the categories proposed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). The results reveal significant increases in well-being in Andalusian municipalities between 1989 (when these protected areas were designated) and 2009. This increase was significantly higher in municipalities within protected areas. These results highlight a spatial correspondence between protected areas and improvement of the well-being of local municipalities in areas with long histories of human management.
Science Direct - doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2015.04.027
Amin, A. & Koné, I. (2015) People and Protected Areas: An Assessment of Cost and Benefits of Conservation to Local People in Southeastern Ivory Coast. Society & Natural Resources, Vol. 0: 1-16.
The local socioeconomic context of protected areas (PAs) is not well documented, especially in Western Africa. This article presents research that measures the perceived costs and benefits of a conservation project on rural household welfare. The study uses the market price method along with contingent valuation methodology. The analyses provide empirical evidence that PAs reduce local welfare, and although there are locally valued benefits associated with conservation, these benefits are insufficient to offset the costs incurred by local people. While the results confirm that protected areas reduce local economic welfare in developing areas, the authors’ findings qualify the paradigm that states that “protected areas are bad for local people.”
Taylor and Francis - DOI:10.1080/08941920.2015.1014593
Mackenzie, C.A., Sengupta, R.R. & Kaoser, R. (2015) Chasing baboons or attending class: protected areas and childhood education in Uganda. Environmental Conservation, Published online 8 May 2015.
The influence of protected areas on childhood education is often assumed to be positive, and integrated conservation and development programmes (ICDPs) classically support childhood education by building schools, providing scholarships and improving education quality. This paper looks specifically at the impact of Kibale National Park (Uganda) on childhood education in villages bordering the park. Data from households and primary schools show that ICDPs interventions improved primary school enrolment and education for girls. However, boys had a lowered probability of completing four years of primary education as they were used to guard crops from Park-protected animals. These findings highlight the need to place additional focus on boys’ educational needs near protected areas by, for example, investing in crop-raiding defences.
Cambridge Journals - doi:10.1017/S0376892915000120
Bode, M., Tulloch, A. I. T., Mills, M., Venter, O. & W. Ando, A. (2015) A conservation planning approach to mitigate the impacts of leakage from protected area networks. Conservation Biology, 29: 765–774.
Protected area (PA) networks are designed to limit human pressure in areas of high biodiversity value. People living close to PAs, when denied access to the resources within the PA, will start looking for these resources elsewhere, therefore changing the pattern of human pressures on the landscape, a process known as leakage. The authors combined models of household utility, adaptive human foraging, and biodiversity conservation to provide a bioeconomic model of leakage that accounts for spatial heterogeneity. Leakage had strong and divergent impacts on the performance of protected area networks, undermining biodiversity benefits but mitigating the negative impacts on local resource users. When leakage was present, this model showed that poorly designed protected area networks resulted in a substantial net loss of biodiversity. However, the effects of leakage can be mitigated if they are taken into account in the conservation planning process. If protected areas are coupled with policy instruments such as market subsidies, this model shows that the trade-offs between biodiversity and human well-being can be further and more directly reduced.
Wiley Online - doi: 10.1111/cobi.12434
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Conservation organisations and poor people
Morrison, S. A. (2015) A framework for conservation in a human-dominated world. Conservation Biology, 29: 960–964.
Human impacts on the planet are profound, driving losses of biodiversity, and ecosystem services. Human population growth and climate change exacerbate these strains. Concern that conservation is not keeping pace has fuelled debate regarding the effectiveness of traditional conservation strategies and how conservation organisations should prioritise human well-being outcomes when allocating limited conservation funds. Perhaps spurred by such concern, and a recognition of the interdependence and inseparability of humans and nature, many large conservation organisations currently describe themselves as focusing on both “people and nature”. What is often unclear, however, is what that focus means in terms of how nature conservation organisations prioritise human outcomes. Are meeting the needs of people and wild nature coequal objectives? Or, is the primary objective to improve conditions for biodiversity, recognising the importance of providing cobenefits to people? Or, is the objective to improve conditions for people, recognising that conservation can be an important means to that end? Science-based conservation organisations need to clarify which ultimate objective they seek, as each leads to different priorities, strategies, and outcomes. Without such clarity, organisations cannot be maximally efficient and effective in meeting their objective—whatever it may be. The author proposes a framework for characterising the relationship between people and nature objectives in a conservation strategy, or theory of change of a conservation organsation.
Wiley Online - doi: 10.1111/cobi.12432
Charpentier, A. (2015) Insights from life history theory for an explicit treatment of trade-offs in conservation biology. Conservation Biology, 29: 738–747.
As economic and social contexts become more embedded within biodiversity conservation, it becomes obvious that resources are a limiting factor in conservation. This recognition is leading conservation scientists and practitioners to increasingly frame conservation decisions as trade-offs between conflicting societal objectives. However, this framing is often done in an intuitive way, rather than by addressing trade-offs explicitly. The author argues that knowledge coming from evolutionary biology theory, where the concept of trade-offs has been applied for a long time, can provide methodological and theoretical support to evaluating and quantifying trade-offs in biodiversity conservation, and support decision makers in the difficult task of choosing among conservation solutions.
Wiley Online - doi: 10.1111/cobi.12442
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Conservation interventions and local people
Cobbinah, P.B., Black, R. & Thwaites, R. (2015) Biodiversity conservation and livelihoods in rural Ghana: Impacts and coping strategies. Environmental Development. Available online 4 May 2015.
This article examines the impacts of a biodiversity conservation project – creation of Kakum Conservation Area (KCA) – on livelihoods of rural people in Ghana, in terms of experiences and adaptive capacity of local communities. The article reveals that the impacts of the KCA project on local livelihoods varied according to proximity to the KCA boundary and the type of crops cultivated, as well as the scale of previous dependence on resources in the KCA. The article indicates that the KCA project would benefit by: (i) understanding the socio-cultural and political contexts influencing rural residents; and (ii) providing alternative livelihoods for communities experiencing the impacts of the KCA. Policy implications are further presented.
Science Direct: doi:10.1016/j.envdev.2015.04.006
Isiugo, P.N. & Obioha, E.E. (2015) Community Participation in Wildlife Conservation and Protection in Oban Hills Area of Cross River State Nigeria, Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology, 6(2): 279-291.
This paper examines the nature and extent of Community-based Wildlife Management in Oban Hills sector, home to the Cross Rivers National Park, Nigeria. Community-based Wildlife Management (CWM) approach has been identified as an effective ethical way of integrating the goals of wildlife conservation with the needs of the rural poor in the tropics. CWM is premised on the notions that the stewardship over wildlife resides at the local rather than the state level, and that it is possible to improve rural livelihood, conserve the environment and promote economic growth at the same time. The Cross Rivers National Park (CRNP) located at Oban Hills, Nigeria, was created by the Federal Government in 1991. In depth Interviews, Key Informant Interviews and surveys were used to collect data. Findings from this research indicate that: community leaders play a key role in educating village members on the importance of wildlife and forest conservation; villages do not derive significant benefits from wildlife conservation efforts; laws prohibiting hunting and harvesting in the park and in forests in the buffer zone has negatively affected local livelihoods. In conclusion, neighbouring villages feel resentment towards the park, which in turn generated conflicts between members of the communities and rangers of the Cross River National Park. The authors argue that to improve the situation local institutions should be strengthened, and local communities should derive significant benefits from wildlife management in Oban Hills, Nigeria.
KRE Publisher - http://www.krepublishers.com/02-Journals/JSSA/JSSA-06-0-000-15-Web/JSSA-06-2-000-15-Abst-PDF/JSSA-6-2-279-087-15-Isiugo-P-N/JSSA-6-2-279-087-15-Isiugo-P-N-Tx[13].pdf
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Conservation and people's rights
Torpey-Saboe, N., Andersson, K., Mwangi, E., Persha, L., Salk, C. & Wright, G. (2015) Benefit Sharing Among Local Resource Users: The Role of Property Rights. World Development, Vol. 72: 408–418.
Unfair distributions of benefits from natural resources can generate conflict and threaten sustainability. This paper analyses how user-group property rights to harvest forest products affect the distribution of benefits from those products within user groups. The authors argue that groups with recognised harvesting rights share benefits more equally among group members than groups without such rights. They test this argument using data from 350 forest user groups in 14 developing countries. The results of this article suggest that securing harvesting rights for local user groups can contribute to more equal benefit sharing, especially in ethnically homogenous groups.
Science Direct: doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.03.005
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Our current journal watch list includes: African Journal of Ecology; Agricultural Sciences News; Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment; AMBIO; Animal Conservation; Antipode; Biodiversity; Biodiversity and Conservation; Biological Conservation; Conservation and Society; Conservation Biology; Conservation Evidence; Conservation Letters; Development and Change; Diversity and Distributions; Ecological Economics; Ecology; Ecology and Society; Ecosystem Services; Environment and History; Environmental Conservation; Environmental Ethics; Ethics and the Environment; Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment; Global Environmental Change; Human Dimensions of Wildlife; International Journal of Biodiversity Science, Ecosystem Services & Management; International Journal of Environmental Studies; Journal for Nature Conservation; Local Environment; Management of Environmental Quality; Natural Resources Forum; Nature; Oryx; PNAS; Science; Society & Natural Resources; The Journal of Environment & Development; Trends in Ecology and Evolution; Wildlife Research; World Development.
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