PCLG Digest
June 2018
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The June 2018 edition of PCLG digest features 38 newly published resources. There’s a call for abstracts to the Sustainability and Development Conference from the University of Michigan, and a call for session proposals Open Science Meeting 2019 - Transforming Land Systems for People and Nature – from the Global Land Programme.
Also, University of Cambridge are looking for a postdoctoral research associate to work on the Development Corridors Partnership project.
– Francesca (pclg@iied.org)
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Community-based conservation
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1. Hajjar R and JA Oldekopp (2018) Research frontiers in community forest management. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2018.06.003
The authors synthesise the findings across recent community forest management (CFM) studies and identify trends at the forefront of CFM scholarship. The first thematic trend is an examination of community forest enterprises as hybrid business models. The second is the increase of studies examining how REDD+ can contribute to the goals of CFM, and vice versa. The key methodological trend is the use of secondary data sets to determine outcomes of CFM policies at regional and national scales.
2. Giakoumi S et al (2018) Revisiting “Success” and “Failure” of Marine Protected Areas: A Conservation Scientist Perspective. Friontiers in Marine Science, DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2018.00223 (Open Access)
The authors identified common factors of success and/or failure of MPA effectiveness finding that stakeholder engagement is considered to be the most important factors affecting MPA success, and equally, its absence, was the most important factor influencing failure. The authors suggest the development of specific protocols for the assessment of stakeholder engagement, the role of leadership, the capacity of enforcement and compliance with MPAs objectives.
3. Major K, Smith D and AB Migliano (2018) Co-Managers or Co-Residents? Indigenous Peoples’ Participation in the Management of Protected Areas: a Case Study of the Agta in the Philippines. Human Ecology. DOI: 10.1007/s10745-018-0007-x
The authors examine levels of knowledge and involvement among the Agta, a hunter-gatherer population who co-manage the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, the largest protected area in the Philippines. They find that the Agta generally possess low levels of knowledge about the protected area they are supposed to co-manage. Participation in park management is hampered by several factors, including a lack of cultural sensitivity regarding the Agta’s foraging lifestyle among park officials.
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Conflict and conservation
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4. Castro AP (2018) Promoting natural resource conflict management in an illiberal setting: Experiences from Central Darfur, Sudan. World Development. DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.04.017
The author draws on experience with 2 projects carried out by the Near East Foundation that sought to promote recovery in Central Darfur through environmental peacebuilding. The author argues that even in extremely illiberal settings such as Darfur that it is still possible to carry out activities that widen the scope for action by local populations.
5. Pellis, A et al (2012) The Persistence of Tightly Coupled Conflicts. The Case of Loisaba, Kenya. Conservation and Society. DOI: 10.4103/cs.cs_17_38 (Open Access)
Contributing to the debate on the multidimensional nature of resource-based conflicts in political ecology, and building upon Niklas Luhmann's Social Systems Theory, the authors consider the persistent and shifting nature of conflicts as well as their dependencies on other conflicts in and around Loisaba conservancy. The authors characterise the relations between conflicts on a range from tight to loose couplings and introduce three related forms of coupling (overpowering, resisting, and resonating) to provide a more detailed understanding of how conflicts may interrelate.
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6. Bluwstein J et al (2018) Between dependence and deprivation: The interlocking nature of land alienation in Tanzania. Journal of Agrarian Change. DOI: 10.1111/joac.12271
Drawing on the case of Tanzania, the authors illustrate the analytical purchase of a comprehensive examination of dynamics of land alienation across multiple sectors – including conservation. They suggest that various localised processes of primitive accumulation contribute to a scramble for land in the aggregate, providing justifications for policies that further drive land alienation.
7. Cortes-Vazquez JA and E Ruiz-Ballesteros (2018) Practising Nature: A Phenomenological Rethinking of Environmentality in Natural Protected Areas in Ecuador and Spain. Conservation and Society. DOI: 10.4103/cs.cs_16_158 (Open Access)
The authors examine how people living in three different natural protected areas in Ecuador and Spain negotiate, incorporate, and contest different regulatory frames of conservation. With this analysis, the paper seeks to show that even if conservation makes the inhabitants of natural protected areas act and think differently, these people also have the capacity to manipulate these transformations via the creative use of different environmentalities and under the influence of their own interests, habits, affects, and situated forms of human-environment engagement.
8. Miller DC and KS Nakamura (2018) Protected areas and the sustainable governance of forest resources. Current Opinions in Environmental Sustainability. DOI: 10.1016/j.cosust.2018.05.024
The authors review recent literature to assess current knowledge on forest protected area (FPA) impacts, focusing on studies examining the governance dimensions of FPAs. They find that quantitative impact evaluations increasingly assess FPA networks and seek to link FPA governance to conservation and human well-being outcomes. A largely separate, qualitative literature provides detailed analysis of forest PA governance, but rarely connects it to these outcomes.
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Equitable / Just conservation
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9. Bennet NJ (2018) Navigating a just and inclusive path towards sustainable oceans. Marine Policy. DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2018.06.001
Proactive attention to inclusive decision-making and social justice is needed across key ocean policy realms including marine conservation, fisheries management, marine spatial planning, the blue economy, climate adaptation and global ocean governance for both ethical and instrumental reasons. This discussion paper aims to stimulate greater engagement with these critical topics.
10. Moreaux C, et al (2018) Can existing assessment tools be used to track equity in protected area management under Aichi Target 11? Biological Conservation. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2018.06.005
The authors evaluate whether existing PA Management Effectiveness (PAME) and social and governance assessment tools can be used to determine if Aichi Target 11 (AT11) meets equity goals. They conclude that available assessment tools do not provide a reliable way to track equity in PAs at global scale.
11. Rodríguez I and ML Inturias (2018) Conflict transformation in indigenous peoples’ territories: doing environmental justice with a ‘decolonial turn’. Development Studies Research. DOI: 10.1080/21665095.2018.1486220 (Open Access)
The authors discuss how conflict transformation theory and practice has a role to play in the process of decolonisation of knowledge and social relations. The authors draw on the Socio-environmental Conflict Transformation (SCT) framework elaborated by Grupo Confluencias. They propose that by strengthening the power of agency of indigenous peoples it is possible to build constructive intra and intercultural relations that can help increase social and environmental justice in their territories.
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Financial incentive mechanisms
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13. Bladdon AJ, et al (2018) Evaluating the ecological and social targeting of a compensation scheme in Bangladesh. PLOS one. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197809 (Open Access)
The Government of Bangladesh runs a food compensation scheme that aims to contribute to hilsa conservation by improving the socioeconomic situation of households affected by fishing bans. The authors find that the distribution of compensation is largely spatial rather than based on household characteristics, indicating political influence in the distribution process.
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14. Bluwstein J, et al (2018) A quasi-experimental study of impacts of Tanzania’s wildlife management areas on rural livelihoods and wealth. Scientific Data. DOI: 10.1087/sdata.2018.87 (Open Access)
The authors carried out a quasi-experimental impact evaluation of social impacts of wildlife management areas (WMAs). Their datasets permit research on livelihood and wealth trajectories, and social impacts, costs and benefits of conservation interventions in the context of community-based natural resource management.
15. den Braber B, Evans KL and JA Oldekop (2018) Impact of protected areas on poverty, extreme poverty, and inequality in Nepal. Conservation Letters. DOI: 10.1111/conl.12576 (Open Access)
The authors assess how Nepalese protected areas (PAs) influence poverty, extreme poverty, and inequality using a quasi‐experimental design. They specifically investigate the role of tourism in contributing to PA impacts and find that Nepali PAs reduce overall poverty and extreme poverty, and crucially, do not exacerbate inequality.
16. Gill DA, et al (2018) Values Associated with Reef-Related Fishing in the Caribbean: A Comparative Study of St. Kitts and Nevis, Honduras and Barbados. MARE Publication Series. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-76078-0_13
The authors explore the economics of reef-associated fisheries in three types of communities (heavily dependent on reef fishing, on reef tourism and on both) in three contrasting countries of the Caribbean (St. Kitts and Nevis, Honduras and Barbados). The results demonstrate the current socioeconomic benefits of reef-associated fishing to coastal communities as well as the diversity of economic values among Caribbean sites.
17. Homewood K and K Shreckenberg (2018) Sharing data from the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation programme. Scientific Data. DOI: 10.1038/sdata.2018.137 (Open Access)
This collection highlights a series of ESPA-funded projects interdisciplinary datasets and analytical approaches on social-ecological systems in Asia, Africa and Latin America. They cover ecosystems ranging from montane headwater catchments, through arid and semi-arid rangelands, mesic farmlands and wetlands, to coastal deltas, mangrove and island forests.
18. Llopis JC (2018) Down by the Riverside: Cyclone-Driven Floods and the Expansion of Swidden Agriculture in South-western Madagascar. In: Abbink J. (eds) The Environmental Crunch in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-77131-1_9
This book chapter shows the complexity of the challenges that environmental governance and poverty alleviation objectives face in the context of changing climatic conditions, based on a case study from a protected area south-west Madagascar. The research deepens into the diverging narratives deployed by the different actors involved in the management and use of the natural resources to enhance our understanding of the social-ecological processes taking place in an area historically bypassed by development projects.
19. Lonn P, et al (2018) Evaluating the Contribution of Community-based Ecotourism (CBET) to Household Income and Livelihood Changes: A Case Study of the Chambok CBET Program in Cambodia. Ecological Economics. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.04.036
The authors use a case study of the flagship Chambok CBET program in Cambodia to quantify the contribution of CBET to household income and livelihood changes for CBET and non-CBET members. They find no significant difference between the total income of member and non-member households. The inequality of income from CBET among the CBET members was higher than that from other income sources.
20. Munanura I, et al (2018) Understanding the Relationship Between Livelihood Constraints of Poor Forest-adjacent Residents, and Illegal Forest Use, at Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. Conservation and Society. DOI: 10.4103/cs.cs_14_83 (Open Access)
The authors explore the relationship between livelihood constraints and illegal forest use, for poor residents in communities adjacent to Volcanoes National Park, in Rwanda. The authors find that food insecure residents may not be the main driver of current levels of illegal forest use, supporting previous research questioning the narrative of poverty driven illegal forest use.
21. Woodhead AJ, et al (2018) Health in fishing communities: A global perspective. Fish and Fisheries. DOI: 10.1111/faf.12295 (Open Access)
This study presents the findings of a scoping review of peer‐reviewed literature that identifies the range of health issues and health determinants studied in fishing communities around the world. The findings reveal a wide variety of documented health issues, but with greater emphasis on physical health and occupational and behavioural factors, with limited attention paid to mental health.
22. Velho N, et al (2018) Aligning conservation efforts with resource use around protected areas. Ambio. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-018-1064-5
The authors surveyed households across four tiger reserves to test the paradigm that an increase in assets leads to reduced forest use and assess the effects of other socio-economic factors. They find that increases in assets may reduce Non-timber Forest Product (NTFP) collection, but may not necessarily reduce livestock numbers or use of wood as a cooking fuel.
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23. Johnson MF, Karanth K, and E Weinthal (2018) Compensation as a Policy for Mitigating Human-wildlife Conflict Around Four Protected Areas in Rajasthan, India. Conservation and Society. DOI: 10.4103/cs.cs_17_1 (Open Access)
The authors evaluate compensation as a mitigation policy for human-wildlife conflict (HWC) around four protected areas in Rajasthan. Using interviews with Rajasthan Forest Department officials and household surveys, the authors argue that compensation is a policy designed to conserve (internationally) threatened species and not to safeguard local livelihoods.
24. Marchini S and DW Macdonald (2018) Mind over matter: Perceptions behind the impact of jaguars on human livelihoods. Biological Conservation. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2018.06.001
The authors investigate how perceptions of the impact of jaguars on livestock and on human safety vary with experience of jaguars (including reported livestock loss), region, place of residence, attitudes towards jaguars, knowledge of the species, and perceptions of changes in jaguar abundance and the regional economic situation. They find that livestock loss act in combination with attitudes, knowledge and perceptions of the economic situation to determine how people perceive the impact jaguars have on their livelihoods.
25. Margulies JD and K Karanth (2018) The production of human-wildlife conflict: A political animal geography of encounter. Geoforum. DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.06.011
The authors review state discourses of human-wildlife conflict alongside the perspectives of rural agricultural communities about changes in human-wildlife interactions. The results suggest declining tolerance for injury and death of cattle by carnivores represents the cumulative impacts of a transformation of the livestock economy and more aggressive protected area management strategies.
Read a blog on the paper: Unpacking a crises of human wildlife conflict
26. Mpakairi K et al (2018) Ensemble modelling predicts Human Carnivore Conflict for a community adjacent to a protected area in Zimbabwe. African Journal of Ecology. DOI: 10.1111/aje.12526
The authors use ensemble modelling to explain predation risk and indicate that the key drivers of human carnivore conflict (HCC) in Matetsi Communal Area, Zimbabwe. The results illustrate that ensemble modelling explains predation risk with a true skill statistic of 0.9 for Matetsi Communal Area. This study provides the potential application of ensemble modelling in HCC management through identifying predation risk areas.
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Interesting methodological approaches
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27. Cleland D and RO San Jose (2018) Rehearsing Inclusive Participation Through Fishery Stakeholder Workshops in the Philippines. Conservation and Society. DOI: 10.4103/cs.cs_17_50 (Open Access)
The authors apply Iris Marion Young's theory of communicative democracy framework to a case study of fisheries stakeholder workshops in the Philippines, demonstrating its utility and cultural applicability. Based on analysis, and using concepts from Philippine psychology, the authors conclude that workshops have potential as 'rehearsal spaces' for inclusive deliberation, particularly when they encourage improvisation and humour.
28. Iwamura T, et al (2018) Considering people in systematic conservation planning: insights from land system science. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. DOI: 10.1002/fee.1824
The authors suggest that by incorporating insights from, land system science (LSS), on social processes (eg livelihood adaptation), systematic conservation planning (SCP) can enhance the legitimacy of conservation plans. This represents a necessary first step for SCP to reinvent itself as a decision‐support tool that helps to reconcile the long‐standing divide between landscape‐level species conservation and social needs.
29. Wanyonyi IN, et al (2018) Using Participatory Methods to Assess Data Poor Migrant Fisheries in Kenya. Human Dimensions of Wildlife. DOI: 10.1080/10871209.2018.1488304 (Open Access)
Spatial information is limited for artisanal fisheries management and almost entirely absent for migrant fishers. Here, the authors address this data gap for East African migrant fishers via participatory mapping methods working with 14 migrant fishing vessels operating from four fish landing sites in Kenya.
30. Zaehringer JG et al (2018) A novel participatory and remote-sensing-based approach to mapping annual land use change on forest frontiers in Laos, Myanmar, and Madagascar. Journal of Land Use Science. DOI: 10.1080/1747423X.2018.1447033
The authors propose an innovative approach to monitoring land use change that combines analysis of very-high-resolution satellite imagery with participatory mapping based on workshops and field walks. Applying it in Laos, Myanmar, and Madagascar, the authors have collected annual land use information over several decades.
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Payment for ecosystem services (PES)
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31. Alix-Garcia JM, et al (2018) Payments for environmental services supported social capital while increasing land management. PNAS. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1720873115 (Open Access)
The authors evaluate the social capital impacts of a large payments for environmental services program in Mexico. They find that conservation payments in Mexico increased land management activities, did not decrease prosocial work, and improved communal social capital. The authors provide evidence that conservation incentives can support social institutions, attitudes, and values while rewarding environmental stewardship.
32. Alves-Pinto HN, et al (2018) Economic Impacts of Payments for Environmental Services on Livelihoods of Agro-extractivist Communities in the Brazilian Amazon. Ecological Economics. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.05.016
To understand the household scale economic impacts of avoided deforestation under PES programs, the authors conducted interviews in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. The authors find that total income from PES programs, when added to the secondary forest manioc profit, were higher than the foregone production in primary forest areas. However, when they considered only direct cash payments, the authors identified potential trade-offs.
33. Dawson N, et al (2018) Barriers to equity in REDD+: Deficiencies in national interpretation processes constrain adaptation to context. Environmental Science and Policy. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2018.06.009 (Open Access)
The authors explored national policy processes for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) in Uganda and Nepal from the perspectives of ‘intermediaries’, state and civil society actors at subnational and national. Through think-tank meetings and semi-structured interviews with a range of intermediaries, the authors uncover that REDD+ implementation processes in both countries are dominated by international actors, applying a demanding administrative agenda and restricting space for deliberation.
34. Kariuki J, Birner R and S Chomba (2018) Exploring Institutional Factors Influencing Equity in Two Payments for Ecosystem Service Schemes. Conservation and Society. DOI: 10.4103/cs.cs_16_27 (Open Access)
Focussing on the role of formal and informal institutions, this article contributes to the emergence of work that reflects alternative conceptualisations to mainstream neoclassical understandings of PES. A qualitative research approach is applied analysing two Kenyan cases to illustrate how historical institutional processes influence present day equity outcomes. The study reveals that institutional interplay may influence the simultaneous achievement of different equity dimensions.
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Social impacts of conservation
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35. Chechina M, et al (2018) Balancing Conservation and Livelihoods: A Study of Forest-dependent Communities in the Philippines. Conservation and Society. DOI: 10.4103/cs.cs_16_182 (Open Access)
The authors investigate how land cover, land use, and protected area management affects communities around a forest reserve in the Philippines. The study provides a counter-example to other findings by showing that access to resources improves socioeconomic status for local communities while maintaining environmental protections.
36. Poudyal M, et al (2018) Who bears the cost of forest conservation? Peer J DOI: 10.7717/peerj.5106 (Open Access)
In the Ankeniheny-Zahamena Corridor - a new protected area and REDD+ pilot project in eastern Madagascar - the authors used choice experiments to estimate local opportunity costs. By analysing both the local costs of conservation, and the compensation distributed under donor policies, the authors demonstrate that despite well-intentioned policies, some of the poorest people on the planet are still bearing the cost of forest conservation.
Read coverage in the Independent – World’s poorest people bearing the costs of rainforest conservation
37. Reid-Hresko J (2018) Living in a Cage: The Intimate Geographies of Conservation in South Africa and Tanzania. Conservation and Society. DOI: 10.4103/cs.cs_16_165 (Open Access)
This article draws on comparative ethnographic research with men and women who are employed and reside inside protected areas in northern Tanzania and South Africa. Protected area management decisions regarding the migration, isolation, concentration, and living arrangements of employees combine with structural forces of relational material inequality and varied understandings of gender relations to produce geographies of intimacy that shape both perceptions and patterns of sexual and emotive behaviours in powerful, and potentially troublesome, ways among conservation actors.
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Wildlife trade (legal and illegal)
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38. Mkanda FX et al (2018) ‘The Giant Sleeps Again?’ Resource protection and tourism of Kafue National Park, Zambia. Parks. Available online (pdf). (Open Access)
The study investigates the phasing out of the Kafue Programme for securing critical habitats and species in the Kafue National Park. The authors find that while populations of key wildlife species continue to grow, and numbers of tourists and the associated revenue has increased, after the stoppage of the programme the amount of illegal poaching activity has increased.
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