Author: 3sc

Eviction for Conservation: A Global Review

Displacement resulting from the establishment and enforcement of protected areas has troubled relationships between conservationists and rural groups in many parts of the world. This paper examines one aspect of displacement: eviction from protected protected areas. Opinions about the natures and scale of this problem are divided. Some authors have stated that the literature on evictions from protected areas offers ‘a massive cataloguing of past, recent and ongoing abuses’, while others assert that ‘to date little empirical evidence exists to substantiate the contention that parks are bad for local people’. We believe that the truth lies somewhere between these two positions. There are many cases of displacement which the latter authors are ignoring. But the first statement exaggerates the quality, extent and order of knowledge. Our grasp of the subject is simply not as good as they claim.

We carried out a global review of protected area evictions, looking for as many as we could find in published literature. The reports we collected covered only 184 protected areas. Many were scant or poor quality often giving no details at all (such as dates, numbers of people, reasons) about the moves. It is highly likely that much has gone unreported. But we can get some inkling of the geography of evictions from these studies. Evictions have been most common in Africa, South and South East Asia and North America; relatively few are reported in this literature from South and Central America, Australia, Europe, the former Soviet Union and most of the Caribbean and the Pacific.

We also learnt something of the history of eviction. Most protected areas from which evictions have been reported were set up before 1980. This is not a global trend, but the consequence of the strong patterns in North America and Sub- Saharan Africa which are well represented in the cases we have studied. In some regions (Central America, South and South East Asia) the opposite trend is apparent, with more protected areas for which evictions are reported established after 1980. Regardless of the trends in establishment, we should not infer the timing of evictions from the date of establishment. In many cases laws providing for the removal of people from a protected area were not established until long after it was set up.

But there are remarkably few studies published on eviction before 1990, and a surge of publications thereafter. The surge does not appear to have been driven by a spate of recent evictions. Rather they were mainly the result of a spate of historical investigations. This has characterised a number of investigations of protected areas in Southern Africa and Eastern Africa. It has been a particularly strong feature of scholarship emerging from North America. In other regions (such as South America) the relative lack of historical re-examination, and the general paucity of eviction cases, suggest that the practice has been relatively rare.

Where eviction is still prevalent, it is often bound up with other debates about environmental change or degradation (Tanzania), ecosystem services (Thailand), or the appropriate development strategy for undeveloped people who live in parks and who need to be moved out so that they can become proper citizens (Botswana). Large conservation NGOs were not generally prominent in eviction operations.

Eviction remains one of the techniques conservation requires to achieve its goals. The issue is how it is carried out, and with what consequences to local people. Unfortunately many of the important players in conservation circles are yet to come up with a coherent response over how to handle evictions humanely.

Given the preliminary nature of this review, and the poor quality of the literature which we were dealing from with, we are hesitant to use it to describe the state of eviction from protected areas, but we have suggested a number of hypotheses which we hope other studies of this phenomenon will test. Perhaps most importantly our review also showed that there were far more important things going on than just eviction. It remains the most dramatic and devastating impact, the most violent thing a state can do to its lawabiding citizens. But it is not the most prevalent problem that many people face in and around protected areas and there is a real danger that a focus on eviction will divert attention away from more pressing issues.

Originally published as:
Brockington, D. and J. Igoe. 2006. Eviction for Conservation: A Global Overview. Conservation and Society 4(3): 424–470.
Dan Brockington Author
James Igoe Author
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Quantifying the Compromise: Developing the Road Map and Protecting the Forest Network

Conservation policy is necessarily imperfect, as it always targets a compromise between the contrasting needs of nature and society. A frequent source of conflict is how to develop a traffic network while trying to minimise its negative effects on the connectivity of natural habitats. Roads must be frequently considered as impenetrable barriers for many species, while migration is important for these species, if not the only remaining key to their survival. Both the traffic system and the landscape inhabited by various species may be regarded and analysed as large-scale units. Network analysis provides various tools for providing quantitative, measurable compromises. It helps in setting conservation priorities objectively by ranking each forest patch according to a measure of importance.


The reason why connectivity is essential for many species is that isolated populations face a number of dangerous effects, including genetic and demographic mechanisms, that could possibly lead to extinction. Connectivity can guard against extinction due to genetic or demographic causes by ensuring the possibility of migration, and thus, gene flow. After all, this is the major mechanism counteracting the loss of diversity—first at the level of the genes, then at the level of species.


In a recent study, the expected effects of a planned highway were assessed from the viewpoint of how the connectivity of a forest habitat network will be reduced. The highway would connect Hungary and Ukraine, forming a strategically important transport route in the European system. The forest network was evaluated based on ground beetles, typical and representative members of forest communities.


The present structure of the forest network was characterised and the importance of forest patches in maintaining connectivity was quantified by network analysis. Then, the authors compared the effects of the three planned tracks on forest connectivity and suggested a fourth, less deteriorating solution. Of course, many viewpoints must be considered when a traffic network is designed. Legal, logistic, and financial analyses are unavoidable. Yet, protecting nature calls for one more aspect: studying the landscape ecological effects of highways. Network analysis offers a tool for comparing different solutions objectively, from a large scale perspective, in a quantifiable way. It can only be hoped that decision- makers will also consider this very biological aspect.


Originally published as:
Jordán, F., T. Magura, B. Tóthmérész, V. Vasas and V. Ködöböcz. 2007. Carabids (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in a forest patchwork: a connectivity analysis of the Bereg Plain landscape graph. Landscape Ecology 22: 1527-1539.


 
Ferenc Jordan Author
Tibor Magura Author
Béla Tóthmérész Author
Vera Vasas Author
Viktor Ködöböcz Author
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Shifting Livelihood Options and Changing Attitudes of Communities in the Garo Hills, Western Meghalaya

The Garo hills in western Meghalaya in India comprise gentle undulating forested slopes at the edge of the country, adjacent to the Bangladesh plains. Although a significant portion of the state is reported to be under forest cover (ca. 70 %), ownership of over 65 % of land in the state by autonomous councils, shifting cultivation, and intense hunting pressure are some of the factors that thwart traditional conservation themes here. Further, in the last decade, mining and monoculture plantations (e.g., cashew and citrus orchards), have replaced past occupations of communities in the Garo hills, such as paddy and shifting cultivation.

The Garos belong to the Tibeto- Burman stock; they drifted into eastern India through Tibet in 5,000 B.C. in search of fertile lands to cultivate. More than thirty villages, locally called akings are interspersed between the Balpakram National Park (220 sq. km) and the Baghmara Reserve Forest (44.4 sq. km) in the South Garo Hills district (Khan et al. 1997). The landscape is mottled with patches of shifting cultivation fallows at varying stages of succession, active farms, settlements, orchards, paddy fields in the valleys, and waterbodies. The forests in the South Garo hills are significant for many reasons —they harbour species such as the tiger (Panthera tigris), clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), Himalayan yellowthroated marten (Martes flavigula), hoolock gibbon (Hoolock hoolock), serow (Capricornis sumatraensis), Asian elephant, Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla), the stump-tailed macaque (Macaca arctoides), and have high levels of endemic floral diversity. It is therefore imperative to conserve these lands to provide a buffer and corridors for wildlife in the adjoining protected areas.

Jhum cultivation

Shifting cultivation, also called forest agrarian system or jhum cultivation in India, is a form of cultivation that has been practised across the world since the neolithic epoch to the present age. Although this method of farming may seem ecologically destructive, since it involves slashing and burning of forest, it provides subsistence livelihoods for at least 300-500 million people worldwide. Essentially agriculturalists, the Garos have been practicing shifting cultivation for a few thousand years to grow rice, ginger, millets, tapioca, chillies, yam, and other vegetables in the biodiversity-rich tropical forests of the region. Research indicates that for jhum cultivation to be at least economically viable, if not ecologically sustainable as well, the fallow cycle (period within which land is re-cultivated) should not be less than a decade. For ecological recovery following shifting cultivation, a minimum period of 25 years for birds, 30 years for frog and lizard communities, and 50 years for plants has been envisaged from jhum fallows in Mizoram (Raman et al. 1998; Pawar et al. 2004). However, in the Garo hills, fallows are re-cultivated within 4-5 years due to increasing human population and unavailability of sufficiently old fallows, making the practice unsustainable for both people and biodiversity.

A relatively recently proposed model in this respect is to amalgamate jhum cultivation with agronomical inputs, to assuage its impacts on biodiversity as well as to improve productivity (Malik 2003). In the neighbouring West Garo Hills district, it has been demonstrated that apart from rice, all the needs of a few families can be adequately met from homestead agriculture. Home gardens—plots ranging from 0.5 to 2 ha per family, used for cultivation of vegetables, medicinal shrubs and herbs, and trees for firewood—have also been recommended.

Orchards—Monoculture plantations

The impacts of shifting cultivation can be considered to be relatively benign compared to the impacts of monoculture plantations on biodiversity as well as people. Many studies have shown that monocultures of economically important species such as teak, rubber, areca nut cardamom and coconut harbour low animal diversity, comprising mostly ubiquitous species, in comparison with natural vegetation types. In terms of the socio-economic impacts of plantations, cultivating orange orchards has not improved the income of people in the region, as the plantations fruit only for two to three years and precious habitat for wildlife is lost to such conversions. Often, people clear larger tracts of land the following year anticipating better profits. In the year 2004, encouraged by the North Eastern Council-funded Citrus Rejuvenation Programme, several households in the neighbouring West Garo Hills district abandoned jhum and established citrus orchards. The decision was a disaster, and the following year 51 households reembraced their traditional practice of jhum cultivation. Similar projects have been planned or initiated for cultivating areca nut and rubber in the region.

Mining

The state is estimated to contain about 600 million tonnes of coal reserves and about 5,000 million tonnes of limestone. The detrimental impacts of coal mining on the environment and people have been documented from Jaintia hills in the eastern tip of the state. Among other impacts of rat-hole mining for coal, such as soil erosion, pollution of air and water, and loss of biodiversity, the region has also become perilously vulnerable to earthquakes. In the South Garo hills, the issue appears to be intensifying as each year the hills in the area are strip-searched for coal. This is a particularly serious issue near the Siju Wildlife Sanctuary where the coal residue is deposited in the Simsang river, which provides valuable fish and water resource for the communities further downstream. The sulphur in the coal residues renders the water acidic, thereby affecting the fish-catch and the productivity of agricultural lands. The major obstacle to mitigating the impacts of coal mining in the area is that the livelihood of thousands of people is linked to the vocation. And the consequence of these lands being community-owned is that the Government is left with few avenues to abate the damage.

Hunting

Systematic studies on the hunting practices of the Garos are largely lacking. During the last two years, Samrakshan Trust has been working with the communities in an attempt to improve livelihoods and get an idea of the human-wildlife and the human-elephant conflict in the landscape. Hunting is likely to be relatively higher in the villages adjoining the Balpakram National Park, where gunshots were often heard and the skin of a Chinese pangolin and a pet stump-tailed macaque were encountered by the author.

Human-animal conflict

The Garo hills harbour one of the densest populations of Asian elephants as well as humans (about 53 persons /sq. km in the South Garo hills; Census of India 2001) in the country. Data on crop-raiding by elephants collected by Samrakshan Trust personnel between 2005 and 2006 in six of the akings indicate a twin-peak, one in the months of July-August and another in November-December. These peaks correspond with the harvest of summer and monsoon rice, respectively. The Garos supposedly revere elephants and affectionately refer to them as mama dalgipa (big uncle) and plead with them not to raid their crops. However, five carcasses of elephants were recorded by Samrakshan Trust from various akings within a year 2 and recently the Garos have started consuming elephant meat. Since not all elephant deaths get reported, this is indicative of the high intensity of human-elephant conflict in the region. A fact that complicates the situation is that the Forest Department has been lax in disbursing compensation for crops raided by elephants; INR about 40 crore is the outstanding amount to be compensated till the year 2002.

Some feasible options

A majority of the conservation issues in the Garo hills seem to have their roots in the lack of environment friendly livelihood options for the communities. Some of the practical alternate livelihood options for the communities are:

  • Several interesting trails along the Simsang river, along the Siju Wildlife Sanctuary, to the Chutmang peak (tallest peak in the South Garo Hills district: 1,023 msl) and other parts of the Balpakram National Park are available and can be accessed from the villages in the landscape. Promoting responsible eco-tourism on these routes, employing locals as guides, and ensuring that the economic benefits of such endeavours reach the communities will alleviate livelihoods of at least a section of the communities.
  • Sustainably marketing pottery, textiles and basketry handicrafts, which the Garos are adroit in producing, can also help improve the abject conditions of the communities of akings that are remote and bordered by the Balpakram National Park.
  • According to the management plan of the Balpakram National Park, inclusion of land from villages present beyond the south-western boundary of the Park is still pending. This land, if acquired, can provide an important supplement to the Balpakram National Park and bolster its protection. A relocation programme that adequately addresses the socio-economic and cultural issues involved will not only provide the people from isolated villages better amenities but will also ensure better protection of the Balpakram National Park.

Acknowledgements:
I am thankful to Samrakshan Trust and the staff at the Meghalaya field office for sharing information, for the book-resources and the camera. Opinions expressed in the article are the author’s and do not reflect the views of Samrakshan Trust. I also thank the Garos for being exceptionally hospitable—for cutting chicken for me after only a few visits!

References:
Khan, M.L., S. Menon and K.S. Bawa. 1997. Effectiveness of the protected area network in biodiversity conservation: a case study of Meghalaya state. Biodiversity and Conservation 6: 853-868.
Malik, B. 2003. The ‘problem’ of shifting cultivation in the Garo hills of northeast India, 1860-1970. Conservation and Society 1(2): 287–315.
Pawar, S.S., G.S. Rawat and B.C. Choudhury. 2004. Recovery of frog and lizard communities following primary habitat alteration in Mizoram, Northeast India. BMC Ecology 4: 10.
Raman, T.R.S., G.S. Rawat and A.J.T. Johnsingh. 1998. Recovery of tropical rainforest avifauna in relation to vegetation succession following shifting cultivation in Mizoram, north-east India. Journal of Applied Ecology 35: 214–231.
This article has been written by Karthik Teegalapalli for Current Conservation.
Karthik Teegalapalli Author
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No Roads, Only Directions

Social scientists and indigenous advocates have critiqued conservation organisations for displacing local people in order to create protected areas (PAs). By pointing out that some protected areas, including Yellowstone, the model for the modern concept of national parks, were established by expelling local people, the critique shines a harsh light on conservationists and can undermine the moral arguments for protecting biodiversity. The competing ethical positions of those defending wildlife and wild places and those defending the rights of people living in the same area has led to a tortured, ideological standoff with no obvious solution and little documented positive experience to inform it.

Protected areas now cover approximately 20 million sq. km of the globe. While this may suggest that a lot of wild areas are protected, less than 9 % were established to conserve biodiversity in the absence of human use. This means that most protected areas have people living in them, engaged in a full range of human activities, and therefore do  not fully conserve biodiversity.

In some of the stricter protected areas, there is no doubt that local communities have been displaced. However, there is little documented evidence that this is a systematic and widespread problem. Even in protected areas that are not supposed to have human inhabitants, it is not clear to what extent enforcement was the cause of displacement. Some critics of protected areas have amplified their argument by claiming that protected areas have displaced tens of millions of people. However, published numbers are often speculation based on disparate case studies or include assumptions of human population densities applied across diverse regions.

At the same time, conservation organisations are not helping to alleviate the potential for human displacement. For too long, conservationists have failed to clearly identify the conservation goals for each protected area. In the absence of a clear articulation of targets and conditions, it is impossible to determine if, and how, local human populations threaten conservation goals. Such planning would help determine to what extent displacing local populations should even be considered. Toward that end, the Wildlife Conservation Society has developed landscape-scale conceptual modelling to define conservation targets and evaluate the relative importance of the actions of people living in or near a park.

The debate between allowing people full access to a protected area versus prohibiting access results in ideological skirmishes. Yet reconciling academic disciplines will do little to alleviate the struggles between poor people and endangered species conservation. A more careful study is required at the scale where humans and wildlife live out their activities and needs – not in the abstract. Conservation organisations must work to fill the information, knowledge, and policy gaps, while conservation and human development organisations should work on interdisciplinary engagement tailored to specific sites. Unfortunately, we do not have an ethical court to evaluate the rights of the of the resident people. Nor does our political and economic system assign a value to the protection of the biosphere upon which we all depend. Nevertheless, we must secure the guarantees of public servants and private actors that they will act with the respect and care due to the world’s remaining wildlife and to the rural people who co-inhabit these under-served areas.

Originally published as:
Redford, K.H. and S.E. Sanderson. 2006. No Roads, Only Directions. Conservation and Society 4(3): 379–382.
 
Kent H. Redford Author
Steven E. Sanderson Author
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Displacement and Relocation Redux: Stories from Southeast Asia

Displacement and relocation from protected areas is an important concern in Asia. Policies to create new parks or strengthen enforcement in existing ones, nationa-lise forest reserves, and implement stricter conservation rules on private lands under the guise of biodiversity or watershed management, have been resulting in significant relocations and dislocations of people.

In Thailand, for example, more than half a million hill-dwellers have been blamed for deforestation and damage to watersheds and threatened with relocation. Smaller scale resettlement projects, such as those around local protected areas, often affect hundreds to thousands of people every year in countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.

However, it is important to ask whether there is any evidence that relocation actually has a positive effect on the conservation of protected areas. Examples from Vietnam show that, in fact, relocation does not necessarily provide the grounds for better biological integrity. This is primarily because relocation of local populations has often entailed their being replaced by other groups—hunters and poachers, immigrants, or other business interests—that have a far greater negative impact on protected areas than the original populations. An example of this process can be seen at Cuc Phuong National Park in North Vietnam, where around a thousand people (members of ethnic minorities, mostly Muong ) were relocated out of the park in the 1980s because they were perceived to be a threat. In 2000, the government decreed that a new national highway running north-south linking Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City would be built, and that it would need to bisect Cuc Phuong. The road was planned to run straight through some areas of the park that had previously been ‘saved’ by the relocation of Muong villages. Despite protests from park managers, environmentalists, and even some politicians, the plan was approved and construction commenced.

There are numerous other examples from Vietnam where resident local (often indigenous) peoples were either excluded from park resources or resettled, only to be replaced by others. For example, around the Song Thanh Nature Reserve in central Vietnam, indigenous Katu have been losing their traditional hunting and forest product collecting grounds as reserve borders are increasingly being enforced. At the same time that the Katu are being excluded, recent reports indicate that large numbers of ethnic Vietnamese hunters from outside the province have moved in and are bribing guards to let them hunt, while in another part of the reserve a gold mining company has been given a license to operate. Park rangers often turn a blind eye to the hunters and gold miners because they can be bribed to do so, while the Katu, who enter the park to obtain subsistence goods, do not have the cash to pay the guards. The Katu then become the target of interdiction, and perhaps further resettlement in the future.

Resettlement is presented as a ‘solution’ to perceived localised threats to protected areas. However, I argue strongly that there is very good evidence, particularly from Vietnam, that blaming internal populations for threats to parks, rather than external economic and political factors, is misguided. Resettlement is frequently used as a tool to disempower (often minority or marginalised) local people who occupy valuable lands or strategic places, while empowering stronger actors such as local governments, state agencies, and private development interests. These processes have long existed, but now often come under the name of ‘conservation.’

Originally published as:
McElwee, P.D. 2006. Displacement and Relocation Redux: Stories from Southeast Asia. Conservation
and Society 4(3): 396–403.
Pamela McElwee Author
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Displacement and Relocation from Protected Areas: International Law Perspectives on Rights, Risks, and Resistance

Mahesh Rangarajan and Ghazala Shahabuddin, in their paper on government displacement of people from Project Tiger reserves, published in Conservation and Society (2006), connect the dismal results and frequent injustices of current policy on conservation and displacement in India to a fundamental incoherence in the very framing of this policy. Towards the end of their paper, the gloom of their accounts of the recent and the distant past is alleviated by the hopeful conjecture that the broadening of participation within Indian democracy may soon propel the adoption and implementation of policies, on these issues, that are more holistic, comprehensive, rational, and just. Our paper addresses the issues they raise from the standpoint of international law and institutions.

Since no global social bargain exists under which proposed tradeoffs between conservation and displacementcan be evaluated and disadvantaged interests compensated, human rights normative texts have frequently embodied a deontological rights model. According to this model, rights provide particularly powerful or weighty reasons, which override social aims or reasons of other sorts, as illustrated in Ronald Dworkin’s metaphor of rights as ‘trumps’. The World Bank practice on displacement presents a risk model as an alternative to the rights model prevalent in human rights institutions. Indeed, this terminological shift (from rights to risks) may attenuate the focus on the rights of the displaced persons. Nevertheless, neither the rights model favored in human rights law, nor the risks model favored in the World Bank for operational purposes, have proven very effective in safeguarding the rights and interests of persons threatened with conservation induced or development-induced displacement. Rights models tend to degrade into subjective balancing formulas at the point of application, producing erratic outcomes that may protect neither people nor conservation areas. Risks models with their instrumentalist calculations may better reflect operational considerations but tend to degrade the deontological importance of human dignity.

These difficulties often lead to a characteristic legal ‘solution’—to focus on procedures through which policies are determined and implemented, rather than on normative language and substantive values. These procedural guarantees include ex-ante requirements of opportunities of full participation, access to information, notice, fair hearings, reasoned decisions with opportunities to seek review, and fairness in rule-making and decision- making processes. They also include basic norms such as non-discrimination, non-arbitrariness, and independence of decision-makers. Ex-post, they require mechanisms of accountability, and effective remedies. Procedural approaches drawing on administrative law principles, currently being assessed in the ‘Global Administrative Law’ research project, can act as an instrument of resistance and change.

Legal institutions such as courts, when faced with the challenge of actually implementing a human rights normative framework in the context of development induced displacement, have frequently focused on more procedural issues, and have adopted a balancing approach. The Supreme Court of India’s 2000 ruling concerning the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) illustrates this tendency. Rather than first establishing the boundaries and essence of the fundamental rights of the tribal people that were at stake and then assessing the extent to which these rights could properly be infringed because of conflicting public interests advanced by the SSP, these public interests were viewed as competing  values within the scope of the rights in question, potentially restricting their legal vindication.

Whether it is desirable to juridify the political process, with courts using a procedure-oriented global administrative law approach and balancing among conflicting interests, is a hotly contested issue. It is possible that participatory and procedural requirements will help open up the deliberative space and shape outcomes in the ways Rangarajan and Shahabuddin hope, but this is likely to differ depending on precise politico-institutional circumstances, including the presence of flourishing social movements, and an open institutional culture in which the various critiques are heard and seriously considered. Should human rights advocates strive to challenge the setting altogether and take up a position outside it? Conversely, should they follow the strategy of initial resistance—triggering some eventual change in attitudes among the establishment institutions— but then eventually reengage in these institutions? And if so, to what extent should it be embedded in a democratic setting, one in which the process of translation is bound to democratic constraints of accountability, transparency and participation and informed review? As the experience in the Indian context attests, human rights advocates often try to mobilise to win on the balancing ground, by proceeding cautiously, experimentally, guided by local knowledge rather than grand design. Such attempts might change the institution or strive to challenge the balance of force as it is embedded in current power relations in the field. Does the move of NGOs from resistance to institutionalised petitions and briefs signal a narrowing down of the political space? The Global Administrative Law paradigm does seem, in some cases of development-induced or conservation-induced displacement of people, to have provided NGOs with the essential ‘took-kit’ to become the watchdogs of international institutions such as the World Bank, and to have enabled these NGOs to exercise some influence through domestic courts. At the same time, cases such as the Narmada controversy bring to the fore the price of the institutionalisation and juridification of the struggle.


Originally published as:
Lustig, D. and B. Kingsbury. 2006. Displacement and Relocation from Protected Areas: International Law
Perspectives on Rights, Risks and Resistance. Conservation and Society 4(3): 404–418.
Doreen Lustig Author
Benedict Kingsbury Author
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The Sundarbans: Whose World Heritage Site?

The article, ‘The Sundarbans: Whose World Heritage Site?’ uses the Sahara India Group’s advertisement of their project on ‘virgin islands’ to discuss how representations of the Sundarbans have always tried to do away with humans. The piece argues that one needs to address the omission of people from images of the Sundarbans because such images, whether for wildlife preservation, in bids at rebranding the place for global marketing, end up increasing the alienation between the inhabitants of the Sundarbans and its wildlife.

The Sundarbans have often been portrayed as devoid of people. They were first perceived as a repulsive place; the British later thought of them as a ‘wasteland.’ The British gazetteer-writer, Hunter, in 1875, devoted an entire book to the Sundarbans. In this, after writing at great length about the forest and wild animals he only mentioned the people in passing, referring to them as a ‘few wandering tribes’ and classifying them after long lists of wild animals and plants. This attitude of those in power towards the inhabitants of the Sundarbans region as ‘unimportant’ or even ‘disposable’ took a tragic turn in 1979 when the 30,000 to 35,000 East-Bengali refugees, who had sought refuge on the island of Morichjhanpi, were brutally evicted.

They had come with the hope that they would be allowed to stay (as the Communists had suggested when they were in opposition). But the fact that it was a Tiger Reserve (since 1973), was the excuse to turn out the refugees. The refugees who refused to leave either died of starvation or cholera, or were killed. The Sundarbans islanders often referred to this episode as ‘the massacre of Morichjhanpi’; it marked for them the beginning of a politics of betrayal by both the urban elite as well as tigers. They argued that even the tigers, taking their cue from the Government’s treatment of them as lesser mortals, had started feeding on them.

Thus, for the Sundarbans islanders, while the tiger’s image was gaining prominence and was being used to frame ethical debates around the issue of wildlife parks by various trans-national animal based charities in bids to obtain funding, the very animal was turning, like their Government, into an alien. The islanders started to see the state’s investment in tourism and wildlife sanctuaries as instituting an unequal distribution of resources between them and wild animals.

The matter took an ironical twist in 2000 when the Government proposed setting up a nuclear power plant on the island of Jharkhali and then again i 2002 when the Supreme Court ordered the eviction of fishermen from the island of Jambudwip in view of the proposed Sahara project.

What appears ironical to the islanders is that although refugees were evicted from Morichjhanpi on the grounds that the forest needed protecting, the Government now wants to install a power plant and a large tourist project. They argue that while the world is shrinking and people from outside the Sundarbans are increasingly interested in their tigers, their own options of making a decent livelihood are disappearing, and their very presence is seen as illegitimate or even criminal in what has become a trans-national World  Heritage Site.

Originally published as:
Jalais, A. 2007. The Sundarbans: Whose World Heritage Site? Conservation and Society 5(3): 335–342.
Annu Jalais Author
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Ranchers & Jaguars

One of the most extraordinary wildlife recovery stories in recent North American history first broke out in 1996, when rancher Warner Glenn captured the first photos ever taken of a wild jaguar in the United States of America. The encounter, which occurred while Glenn was hunting mountain lions near his home in the Arizona- New Mexico borderlands, was the first documentation of jaguars in the USA since the early 20th century. Subsequently, further sightings and the use of infrared camera traps in the region have revealed the regular occurrence of a handful of male jaguars in southern Arizona and New Mexico. All of these animals are long-range wanderers from the northernmost population of jaguars, a group of about 120 animals, which resides in Mexico’s Sonora region.

With the re-discovery of the Americas’ largest felid in the USA, at least as transients, a range of new cross-border conservation initiatives have emerged during the past decade. While some environmental organisations continue to campaign for stricter habitat protections for the jaguar in the USA borderlands under the United States Endangered Species Act, the fate of this sub-population primarily hinges on developing effective conservation strategies in the animals’ northern Mexico home range.

The Winter 2007 edition of PERC Reports, published by the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana, contains an article1 describing the emergence of several conservation initiatives using collaborative and incentive based strategies to conserve this jaguar population. Efforts in Sonora, Mexico have been spearheaded by a coalition of Mexican and American conservation organisations, most notably the Defenders of Wildlife, the Northern Jaguar Project, and the Naturalia.

The Northern Jaguar Project has been at the heart of efforts at the ground level, leading efforts to purchase 45,000 acres of land in the heart of the jaguars’ range in Sonora, Mexico. More creatively, the project has initiated a Wildcat Photo-Survey Contest on other private ranches surrounding the new reserve. Ranchers are paid between USD50 and USD300 for photographs taken by infrared camera traps positioned on their land, creating a direct economic incentive for ranchers to allow jaguars on their property.

Across the border, in Arizona and New Mexico, the Malpai Borderlands Group is one of the most prominent community-based conservation initiatives in the USA. A coalition of ranchers manage a mosaic of private and federal lands at the ecosystem scale, working to reintroduce fire as a tool to recover degraded rangelands and developing collaborative strategies for endangered species conservation. Other innovative ideas that are being floated, according to the PERC Reports article, include marketing and labeling beef from ranches that agree to permit jaguars to live on their property as ‘jaguar-friendly beef ’, and efforts to channel private sport hunting revenues to landowners in Sonora, Mexico.

For more information visit:
https://www.northernjaguarproject.org/ (Northern Jaguar Project)
https://www.malpaiborderlandsgroup.org/ (Malpai Borderlands Group)
Endnote:
1 ht tp : / / w w w.p e r c . o r g / p e r c .php?id=1016

Originally published as:
Fred Nelson. January 26, 2008. http:/the-back-forty.net/2008/01/26/return-of-the-jaguar/ (fnelson@habari.co.tz).

Author
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The Burden of History and the Mirage of Permanent Boundaries

In the summer of 1999, approximately 750 sq. km. of territory in the Western Himalayas, in the district of Kullu in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, was declared closed to local populations and notified as the Great Himalayan National Park. Following the procedure laid down in the Indian Wild Life (Protection) Act, the rights of any claimants to the resources inside the Park were extinguished; out of the more than 15,000 users, a small compensation was ordered for those whose names appeared in the records that were consulted to determine legitimate users.

Curiously,this legitimacy was derived from records dating to 1897, from the first forest settlement in the region that determined and codified the nature and extent of rights in all of these forests. Following the notification and the extinguishing of rights, local populations immediately organised themselves to lobby their political representatives for redressal. Through a combination of claims to a moral economy and electoral arithmetic, local residents were successful in securing access to the legally denied resources inside the Park, circumventing the restrictions and threats posed by the Forest Department and the law. This result resonates with a similar effort in the 1880s, when the Forest Department attempted to reserve large tracts of forest in the same region and was frustrated in similar fashion.

In 1876, a team of three high-level forest officials led by the Inspector-General of forests, Dietrich Brandis, surveyed the area and provided detailed suggestions for the demarcation of the best forests in Kullu. They estimated that of the total area of approximately 1,200 square miles (~3108 sq. km.), only about 400 could be said to be under forest. In their report, they suggested that about 150 square miles (~ 388 sq. km.) be demarcated and subsequently managed for timber production. They also emphasised the need to separate the lands that could be made available for the expansion of cultivation from those to be maintained permanently as forests. Over the next two decades, actors at the local, provincial and national levels interpreted the report differently in light of the brand new Indian Forest Act of 1878. The legal categories were deliberated, interpretations were disputed and fault lines emerged within the state apparatus. A strict application of the legal categories prescribed in the 1878 law was thwarted by the provincial Revenue Department through a characterization of Kullu as anomalous. Besides the Forest Department-Revenue Department rivalry, there emerged a strong local bureaucratic response to central direction, in interaction with the resistance of the local populations to the proposed restrictions on forest use. As the debate moved from an inter-departmental conflict, through the centre-local tensions, to the formulation of a compromise during 1882-86, overt peasant resistance in the late 1880s again foiled attempts to implement and enforce the new boundaries around permanent forests.

The case throws light on historical contingencies in the evolution of property rights in forests, and their influence on the success of current conservation policies. The three dimensions of conflict – between departments, between centre and states, and between conservationists and local populations – continue to define the contours of debate around conservation in India today, as evident in the case of the Great Himalayan National Park and numerous other protected areas.


Originally published as:
Chhatre, A. 2003. !e Mirage of Permanent Boundaries: Politics of Forest Reservation in the Western Himalayas, 1875–97. Conservation and Society 1(1): 137-159.
Ashwini Chhatre Author
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2008 Jun
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Satellite-tracked Migrations by Galápagos Green Turtles and the Need for Multinational Conservation Efforts

Over the last two decades there has been a dramatic increase in the application of satellite telemetry to track the movements of threatened and endangered species. Among the taxa that have benefited the most from these efforts are sea turtles. Every few years, adults of most sea turtle species undertake long-distance migrations between nesting sites and foraging areas; satellite telemetry is an ideal tool for determining where these areas are, and the migratory routes followed by adult turtles as they move between them. More importantly, for conservation purposes, this tool provides a better understanding of the amount of time turtles spend in international waters and economic exclusive zones (EEZs) of various nations, and thus can highlight the potential susceptibility of sea turtles to human impacts (i.e., fisheries bycatch and hunting) that occur in these areas. This understanding is critical for improving conservation measures and maintaining healthy sea turtle populations.

In a recent study by Seminoff et al. (2008), the movements of 12 green turtles (Chelonia mydas) were tracked by satellite telemetry after nesting in the Galápagos Islands. Turtles were tracked for up to 100 days (mean = 64 days) and moved between 75 and 1540 km away from their nesting sites. Three distinct post-nesting migratory strategies were observed, including residency within the Galápagos migrations to Central America, and movements into oceanic waters southwest of the Galápagos.

Green turtles occupied international waters as well as EEZ of Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Nicaragua. In two cases, green turtles apparently reached coastal foraging area destinations (in Nicaragua and Panama). As the first-ever satellite telemetry research on Galápagos green turtles, novel insights gained about this insular nesting stock will be useful for the justification and implementation of conservation measures throughout the region. For example, with 10 of the 12 tracked turtles departing the Galápagos after nesting, the results of this study indicate that threats to the Galápagos nesting population, such as bycatch in high-seas fisheries gear, may be much more substantial in overall impact to the population than previously considered. These wide-ranging movements (see Fig.1) underscore the need for conservation efforts to be multinational in scope and multidisciplinary in action.

While no single law or treaty can be 100% effective at minimizing anthropogenic impacts to sea turtles in these areas, there are several international conservation agreements and laws in the region that, when taken together, provide a framework under which sea turtle conservation advances can be made. In addition to protection from the Galápagos Marine Reserve (GMR), green turtles may benefit from the following:
1) the ETP (Eastern Tropical Pacific) Marine Corridor (CMAR) Initiative agreed to by the governments
of Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador, which is a voluntary effort to work towards sustainable use and conservation of marine resources in these countries’ waters;
2) the Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape Program managed by Conservation International that supports cooperative marine management in the ETP, including implementation of the CMAR;
3) the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC) and its bycatch reduction efforts that are among the world’s finest for regional fisheries management organizations;
4) the Inter-American Convention for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles (IAC), which is
designed to lessen impacts on sea turtles from fisheries and other human impacts; and
5) the Permanent Commission of the South Pacific (Lima Convention), which has developed an Action Plan for Sea Turtles in the Southeast Pacific.

The conservation of green turtles in the ETP will require successful implementation and greater integration among the region’s international instruments and accords. New legislation and enforcement of existing laws that curb the flow of turtle products in the region’s coastal communities is also necessary, although it is increasingly clear that any such instruments will only be effective if the underlying human social drivers, such as local demand for sea turtle products or increasing fleet sizes despite lower target species catch rates, are also addressed. By implementing both new and existing conservation measures in an integrated manner, management efforts may be more effective at providing habitat protection that extends from nesting beaches and inter-nesting habitats within the GMR to far off coastal and offshore foraging areas, thereby conserving all life-history phases of green turtles in the ETP.

Originally published as:
Seminoff, J.A., P. Zárate, M. Coyne, D. G. Foley, D. Parker, B.N. Lyon, P.H. Dutton. 2008. Post-nesting migrations of Galápagos green turtles Chelonia mydas in relation to oceanographic conditions: integrating satellite telemetry with remotely sensed ocean data. Endangered Species Research 4: 57–72.
Jeffrey A. Seminoff Author
Patricia Zárate Author
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2008 Jun
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Parks and Poverty: The Political Ecology of Conservation

In 2004, the government of Ethiopia moved 500 people out of the Nech Sar National Park in the south of the country, before handing it over to be managed by the Dutch NGO,African Parks. The following year, African Parks signed another contract to manage the Omo National Park. The issue of evictions in these parks quickly became the subject of intense lobbying by international human rights NGOs. Such problems have been reported from many countries as the area protected has risen, doubling in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. By 2005, over 100,000 protected areas (PAs) covered more than 2 million sq. km., or 12 per cent of the Earth’s land surface. Systems of protected areas existed in every country, wealthy and poor alike. The place of people in protected areas has been much discussed by academic researchers and human rights activists. For whom are parks set aside? On whose authority?At whose cost?

Debate about people and parks is typical of much wider questions about the social impacts of conservation on human welfare, including the compatibility of conservation and poverty alleviation and the feasibility of ‘win-win’ policy strategies. Action to conserve biodiversity, particularly in the creation of protected areas, is inherently political. Yet most writing about conservation draws, to only a limited extent, on an explicit understanding of the political and economic dimensions of conservation policy. There are various reasons for this. One is the profound and long-standing disciplinary gulf that exists between predominantly natural science-trained conservation planners and predominantly social science-trained critics of conservation. The field of political ecology offers productive possibilities for developing that engagement. Political ecology is a diverse and trans-disciplinary field. It first emerged in the 1970s, and developed through the 1980s, particularly in work by Piers Blaikie on the problem of soil erosion.

Political ecology views the environment as fundamentally social and political. The use, overuse, degradation, conservation and restoration of the environment are inherently social and political processes. Political ecology considers the interactions between ecology and the politics and impacts of social action affecting the environment. It takes from ecology a concern with environmental dynamics and change, and from political economy a concern with the control of resources and labour. Moreover, in recent formulations (notably the work on ‘liberation ecology’ by Richard Peet and Michael Watts) it takes from social theory an interest in the way nature is understood and represented. It recognises the power of science and policy discourse to channel the way people combine to control the environment, and each other. Therefore not only does the actual state of nature need to be understood as the outcome of political processes, but the ways in which ideas about nature are formed, shared and applied are also inherently political, even those ideas that result from formal scientific experimentation.

The political ecology of conservation is now recognised as important in a variety of ways. A key issue is the social impacts of protected areas, particularly on people displaced (either through physical removal or denial of access), and the impacts of the ways such displacements are organised, particularly the issue of involuntary displacement and coercion. A related set of problems concerns the social impacts of conservation regulations (e.g., controls on hunting, fishing or forest use). Third, there are important political questions about the way the economic benefits of conservation activities (e.g., the revenues from tourism) are shared between people. This leads on to a fourth set of issues concerning the links between poverty and conservation, the debates about possibility of ‘win-win’ strategies that both conserve nature and reduce poverty. Behind all of these lies the issue of the power of ideas about nature to dictate the way conservation is thought about and practiced (for example, in the concept of wilderness as a way of describing areas of forest or savanna with low human population densities).

Conservation has become a powerful political force, at least in the rural districts of poor developing countries. Large international NGOs have undertaken sophisticated exercises in conservation planning (such as Conservation International’s ‘hotspots’). Through such science and the funds they raise from supporters in developed countries, conservation organisations can wield considerable influence with governments and donor organizations. They can both initiate and drive forward conservation programmes on the ground with profound social and economic significance for rural people.

An understanding of the politics of conservation is vital if policy is to be effective and any potential harm is to be minimised. To achieve this, better dialogue is needed between conservationists (who are mostly trained in natural science) and critics of conservation, many of whom are social scientists. The emphasis of political ecology on the links between political economy and the actual state of the environment offers some potential to improve their conversation.

There is no doubt that politics matters for conservation. In December 2007, African Parks (now called the African Parks Network) withdrew from Nech Sar andOmo National Parks in Ethiopia, citing the unresolved issue of resettlement. The rights and needs of the many people resident in these parks could not be wished away. Such issues are fundamental to conservation planning. The political ecology of conservation offers a way of considering the conceptual and material place for human society within, and not outside, nature.


Originally published as:
Adams, W.M., and J. Hutton. 2007. People, Parks and Poverty: Political Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation. Conservation and Society 5(2):147-183.
William Adams Author
Jon Hutton Author
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A New Conservation and Development Frontier: Community Protected Areas in Oaxaca, Mexico

Most protected areas in the world are inhabited by people. Recent figures suggest that around 11.5% of the global terrestrial area is under some form of protection but about 90% of these protected areas are in IUCN categories III-VI that allow degrees of human presence and use. In addition, some 11% of forests globally have been devolved to local communities to varying degrees by governments.

Thus, the vast majority of protected areas in the world have human presence in them, although frequently with unclear rights to forests and their products when they are present Mexico is at the forefront of countries where local communities have direct ownership rights of their forests, with an estimated 56-80% of national forests directly owned by communities, within which extraction activities are regulated by Mexican environmental law. This process of devolution occurred as a result of a sweeping agrarian reform that took place through most of the 20th century. One outcome of this devolution has been that Mexican forest communities have gained decades of experience in managing their forests for the commercial production of timber. A recent study suggested that an estimated 2300 communities have commercial logging permits with varying degrees of vertical integration and sustainable forest management.

However, not all Mexican forest communities have commercially valuable forests and others have forest areas that are mostly inaccessible. Further, the dominance of community ownership of rural lands means that there are few opportunities for expansion of Mexico’s public protected areas that do not conflict with pre-existing community ownership. These realities have led some communities to become pioneers in taking advantage of a new policy opening from the Mexican government, the possibility of officially recognized protected areas on community owned lands. According to government figures, 34 community protected areas have been recognized by the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) since 2003. Of these 34, 13 are in indigenous communities, and 12 of these 13 are in the state of Oaxaca, with several clustered in the Sierra Norte region. Further, a recent study by one of the co-authors and his colleagues found that Oaxacan communities are, in addition, informally protecting 236 ‘voluntary conservation areas’ (an area of about 240,000 ha). The authors, in varying combinations, have been supporting community efforts and conducting research in a subregion of the Sierra Norte known as the Chinantla for many years. The Chinantla region is home to the Chinantec indigenous peoples. The Chinantecs have resided here for at least a thousand years and have historically been isolated and marginalized. Our present work is with six Chinantec communities that have a total population of 2,039 inhabitants. The communities together occupy an area of 33,921 ha, with some of the largest intact tracts of montane tropical forest and cloud forest anywhere in Mesoamerica. These forests were first described by Mexico’s most distinguished botanist, the Polish-born Jerzy Rzedoski, and are well known for their unique floristic associations and endemic species.

The community of Santa Cruz Tepetotutla, the only one of the six communities which is accessible by road, has emerged as the leader of a six-community organization, the Natural Resource Committee of the Upper Chinantla (CORENCHI). The micro-political history of Santa Cruz is of particular note. This community has spent most of its many centuries in existence far from the nearest road, achieving direct communication with the outside world only in 2003. Since the 1980s, there have been intense micro-political struggles amongst different factions in the community over land-use policy connected to varying economic interests. More recently, this has led to the emergence of new conservation- oriented institutions and rules.

In the 1990s a coalition of community reformers rose to dominance in the community. This group had been inspired by its association with ecologists who had conducted vegetation surveys in the region, and by other factors, and began to push for very conservation-oriented community land-use policies. As a result of this process, new regional management institutions are beginning to emerge, and a remarkable portfolio of sustainable land use practices and projects has been assembled. In recent years, some community members have made the transition to growing organic coffee and have banned hunting except for pest animals that attack their corn fields. Four of the communities have been certified by the government as placing over 20,000 ha of their lands in community protected areas, with additional areas in the other two communities in the process of certification. They also
successfully competed for a Mexican government program for payment for hydrological services for the period 2004-2008 that covers 7,860 hectares. The National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR) also recently approved a 5-year renewal of the hydrological services program for nearly 1.5 million dollars for the six communities of CORENCHI. In addition, CORENCHI is also in discussions over hydrological service payments with Mexico’s largest brewery, which depends on water generated by this watershed; the brewery is also currently co-financing the construction of a research and ecotourism centre in Santa Cruz. CORENCHI has received significant support over the years from several non-governmental organizations, the Oaxaca-based NGO, Geoconservación, currently being the most important.

Among other alliances, Geoconservación has recently joined with the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Integral Regional Development (CIIDIR-Oaxaca), Florida International University (FIU), and the Global Diversity Foundation, to conduct research, build capacity, and carry out training projects in support of CORENCHI’s efforts to sustainably and profitably manage the lands they have protected. With funds from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granted to Geoconservación, the CIIDIRFIU program is currently working with students documenting the history of how Santa Cruz came to adopt remarkably conservation-oriented land use policies, analyzing community attitudes towards wildlife, carrying out camera-trapping surveys of wildlife, particularly jaguars and their prey, and studying potential habitat for jaguars. It is also beginning studies of interactions between emigration, land use, land-use and land-cover change, vegetation mosaics and landscape ecology.

The Global Diversity Foundation (GDF), a UK-based charitable organisation, has received funding through the British Embassy in Mexico to build local capacity to manage the CORENCHI community conserved areas. Under the program, which is part of the UK government’s Sustainable Development Dialogues, British and Mexican specialists will offer training for community members on the sustainability of non-timber forest product extraction, scientific tourism, participatory video, and legal frameworks for community conservation. The effort will foster collaboration between local people and outside researchers at the community biological station and refuges that are being established. One result of the project will be participatory biodiversity registers that will assist communities to defend their traditional resource rights and to identify plant resources of potential economic value. Selected community members will be able to broaden their experience by participating in cross-visits with other communities in Oaxaca that are also working on community-based conservation and scientific tourism.

We will be exploring the issue of establishing a carbon sequestration project in voluntary markets in this region. Under the Kyoto Protocol, the forests of the Chinantla, although of great value for a variety of ecosystem services, do not qualify for carbon credits because they are both intact and unthreatened due to community protection. Under current Kyoto rules, carbon credits can only be given for “additionality”, i.e., new forest plantings, or, possibly in the future, for “avoided deforestation” projects that reduce the risk of deforestation.

The forests of CORENCHI, the larger Chinantla region, and others like them throughout Mexico and elsewhere present a challenge for the world community. Here we have intact forests with high biodiversity value, which are owned and actively protected by poor indigenous peoples. Yet these people are being told that the forests have no value in terms of carbon maintained in standing stock, because of the requirement of additionality and avoided deforestation. This is a situation of carbon storage and biodiversity protection being provided free of charge by poor rural people, and raises issues of environmental justice in the context of carbon markets. This case underscores the need for more creative thinking about mechanisms to collectively address global warming, forest and biodiversity conservation, proverty alleviation, and environmental justice. One possible response is that of receiving payment for ‘environmental services’ for the protection of the region’s unique biodiversity or payments for ‘pure preservation’ now being developed by the Chicago Climate Exchange. The communities of the Chinantla of Oaxaca, through their own efforts and the efforts of outside supporters, have placed themselves in a leadership role in forging solutions to these and other dilemmas of the emerging planetary crisis.

This article has been written for Current Conservation

David Barton Bray is a Professor at the Department of Environmental Studies, Florida International University, as well as Director, Institute for Sustainability Science in Latin America and the Caribbean (ISSLAC), Florida International University, USA (brayd@fiu.edu).
Elvira Duran is a researcher with CIIDIROaxaca in Oaxaca, Mexico (eduran3@hotmail.com). Salvador Anta, is Manager for Oaxaca and Guerrero with the National Forestry Commission of Mexico (CONAFOR) (santa@conafor.gob.mx).
Gary J. Martin is Director of the Global Diversity Foundation (gmartingdf@gmail.com).
Fernando Mondragón is Director of Geoconservacion, A.C. (geoconservacion@prodigy.net.mx).
David Barton Bray Author
Elvira Duran Author
Gary J. Martin Author
Fernando Mondragón Author
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2008 Jun
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Bird Migration and Climate Change

Climate changes expose organisms to novel environmental conditions with the potential to affect the life history and demography of individuals. If they are to stay alive and reproduce, organisms must be able to cope with such environmental changes—not least with (changing) environmental stochasticity. The expression of individual traits in variable environments provides a mechanism that links variable environments and parameters such as survival and reproduction. After all, how well a species is able to cope with environmental changes depends on its potential to adapt to new environmental conditions.

Some of the most striking examples of rapid changes in life history traits due to climate change are found in migratory birds, especially in the timing of migration and breeding. The combined effect of the public’s fascination for birds, a general interest in the phenomenon of migration, and the long history of systematic recording of arrival and departure of migratory birds have generated a wealth of potentially valuable data that can shed light on how bird-migration patterns are affected by climate change and variability. The general picture emerging shows that, for many species breeding in the northern hemisphere, spring arrival has advanced during the second half of the 20th century and similar patterns have recently been described in Australia. The direction of the observed changes is in agreement with global changes in spring temperature; however, detailed data revealing the underlying mechanisms have rarely been available.

In the recent contribution of Working Group II to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, it is stated with high confidence that ‘Ecosystems and species are very likely to show a wide range of vulnerabilities to climate change, depending on imminence of exposure to ecosystem- specific, critical thresholds’. The wide range of vulnerability, as highlighted by the IPCC, is mirrored by the inter-specific variation in changing phenology patterns shown by migratory birds in the last few decades. Focussing on arrival time only, there is considerable variation among species despite the general trend towards earlier arrival. Moving beyond the simple demonstration of earlier spring migrations, more systematic studies are required if we are to understand the nature of variation both within and between species. In order to identify the ways in which birds can adapt to climate change, we need to investigate such issues as the extent to which adaptation differences reflect systematic differences between the migration strategies, food preferences or taxonomic grouping of birds.

A special issue of Climate Research, on Bird Migration and Climate Change (Vol. 35, No. 1-2) includes 13 contributions on various aspects of bird migration and climate change. Collectively these papers add significantly to our understanding of how climate change affects migratory birds. To begin with, Pulido demonstrates that we are still lacking conclusive evidence for evolutionary change despite selection for earlier arrival and the presence of genetic variation in the timing of migration, and Gienapp et al. point out that we need to investigate to what extent existing changes in phenology are consistent with evolutionary explanations. Among the contributions is also a
review of why bird-migration dates are shifting (Gordo). Knudsen et al. note that further analysis will require methodological advances, and Hedenström et al. highlight the need for a properly developed theoretical framework for interpretation of patterns, as well as predictions of what to look for in the future.

The migration schedule of birds will be modulated by the environmental conditions experienced throughout the migratory journey. Both & te Marvelde investigate how spatiotemporal spring temperature patterns affect geographical variation in laying date in 2 contrasting species, one spending the winter in Europe and the other migrating to West-Africa. We expect to find not only inter-specific differences with respect to change in timing of migration, but also differences between males and females migrating at different times of the season and facing different selection pressures.

To what extent recent climate change has affected the degree of protandry — earlier arrival at reproductive sites of males relative to females— in migratory songbirds, is discussed by Rainio et al. There is a growing body of literature emphasizing the importance of seasonal interactions, such as the knock-on effects of winter climate on individual performance in the breeding season. Studds & Marra study how the amount and timing of rainfall influence the food abundance and non-breeding performance in the American redstart Setophaga ruticilla, a species whose seasonal interactions have previously been demonstrated. Whereas the winter ecology of American redstarts has been studied in detail for some time, much less is known about the climate impact on the non-breeding performance of birds wintering in Africa. Saino et al. focus on how rainfall and temperature patterns in Africa influence the timing of spring arrival of birds on the island of Capri in southern Italy.

Detailed studies of single species are often informative; coarse scale information on a wide range of species allows for interesting comparison and the search for general patterns. Rubolini et al. analyze a large amount of estimates of change in first arrival dates and mean/median arrival dates collected across Europe in the last 40 years and look for spatial and taxonomic variation as well as intra-specific consistency. As indicated by the impressive dataset which Rubolini et al. build upon, there has been a strong emphasis on the timing of spring migration. Considerably less is known about how climate change has affected autumn migration phenology. A contribution to the field is given by Péron et al., who analyse the timing of post-nuptial migration and stopover strategy in 2 insectivorous passerine species. The last 2 contributions provide a fresh reminder of the complexity of the problem at hand: to understand ramifications of climate change. Sparks & Tryjanowski study changes in spring arrival dates and how the response to temperature may change over time. In the final paper, Mustin et al. use migratory shorebirds as an example and discuss whether predictive models of climate impact at the species level may require ecological details that are difficult to include.

The temporal shifts in migratory phenology have already been well described, at least for spring arrival in Europe and North America, and now is the time to delve into the underlying mechanisms. Before doing that, let us have a closer look at the (rather) general patterns described so far. Ruboliniet al. analysed data from both passerines and non-passerines. Overall there were rapid advances in arrival date, especially for first arrival dates in species spending the winter in Europe. The most important finding reported by Rubolini et al. was that change in spring arrival date shows a significant degree of intraspecific consistency, and can thus be regarded as a species-specific trait. In other words, different populations of the same species respond consistently, which motivates comparative analyses of interspecific differences.

The general findings reported above are complicated by the fact that there is considerable spatial variation in the observed changes in arrival time, which is true also for changes in the timing of breeding. Geographic variation is however expected, considering the spatio-temporal variation in climate change, which generates spatial variation in selection pressures and different possibilities for plastic responses depending on the time and route of migration. If we increase the resolution and go beyond the arrival patterns based on the mean response of a population, one could think of different segments of a population responding differently to climate change. For instance, males and females often migrate during different times of the season and may also use different habitats during winter. Furthermore, there are different selection pressures for arrival time in males and females. Increased spring temperatures could increase pre-breeding survival rate, thereby making it possible for early arriving males competing for territories to arrive even earlier. However, Rainio et al. found a parallel rather than divergent shift in the timing of male and female migration in 4 songbird species detected at 5 European bird observatories. Clearly, we need more studies before we can say anything definitive about differences in how males and females respond to climate change.

Until quite recently there seemed to be a common view that species spending the winter in Europe (often referred to as short distance migrants) are more likely than long-distance migrants to vary migration timing in response to climate change simply because they are exposed to the warming in Europe all year round. The long-distance migrants, on the other hand, are only affected by warming while migrating through Europe, and any advancement to central or northern Europe can be explained by improved environmental conditions en route. Therefore, the adaptation of breeding time to an advancement of optimal conditions may be constrained by the migration strategy in long-distance migrants. We think that it is time to revise some details of that picture.

Though the importance of endogenous control and photo period as a trigger of migratory restlessness is beyond doubt, a growing number of studies point at the importance of inter-annual variation in winter climate as a predictor of arrival time in the summer quarters. Hence, the timing of migration may be pretty flexible even in long-distance migratory birds, and the detailed studies of the American redstart suggest that not only the speed of migration, but also the departure date can be affected by winter climate through its effect on habitat quality and thus the time needed to prepare for migration.

There are also observations that are not easily explained by a simple phenotypic response. For instance, the earlier arrival of African migrants on Capri cannot be fully explained by the climatic variables investigated so far. It has been suggested that the lack of explanation for the advanced arrival on Capri may be an indication of micro-evolution, but there are potential pitfalls to making premature claims about micro-evolution. Another interesting observation that is not easily attributed to phenotypic plasticity only is the increased response to temperature in SW Europe in the sand martin, Riparia riparia, which has resulted in earlier arrival in the UK at the same temperature as before. Again, the data at hand do not allow any formal test of the involvement of any micro-evolutionary processes, but they cannot be excluded either.

One may ask why we still lack conclusive evidence for evolutionary change despite selection for earlier arrival and the presence of genetic variation in the timing of migration, and plausible answers to this critical question are given by Pulido (2007). To some extent it is a data problem. Based on arrival data from bird observatories, we are not in position to differentiate between the relative roles of phenotypic plasticity and evolutionary responses, data do not unambiguously support or refute either of the 2 (not mutually exclusive) hypotheses. Interannual arrival data on individual birds, measured with high precision, would be useful for this purpose. Unfortunately, those kind of data are very scarce. However, there are other reasons why it is inherently difficult to find conclusive evidence for micro- evolution. For instance, to what extent changes in wind directions and speed can explain the earlier arrival of migratory birds is largely unexplored. Furthermore, since the physical condition of birds can affect departure time, we clearly need experimental studies on the wintering grounds t better understand the importance of carry-over effects that may persist over several generations. Hence, we need to appreciate the whole life cycle of events and not only to study spring migration as an isolated phenomenon. In that respect, the timing of autumn migration and how it relates to the timing of spring migration, and the selection pressures involved is, of course, of interest and has not received the attention it deserves.

In conclusion, we are now moving beyond the mere description of patterns and starting to think about the underlying mechanisms. Therefore, it is not surprising that we find ourselves in a situation where the importance of different processes (e.g. phenotypic plasticity and micro-evolution) are being discussed, but no consensus has yet emerged. Theoretical modelling may help us to get a better idea about the selection pressures involved in adapting to climate change and to know what to expect. However, as several of the contributed papers have pointed out, what we also need are more individual-based data and clever experiments to reveal the relative importance of the range of processes affecting how climate change shapes the timing of biological events, and consequently, andthe distribution and abundance of organisms.

This article is a summary of a series of scholarly articles published under the Climate Research Special ‘Bird Migration and Climate Change’ (open access).

Originally published as:
(Eds.) Niclas Jonzén, Torbjørn Ergon, Andreas Lindén, Nils Christian Stenseth. 2007. Bird Migration and Climate Change. Climate Research, Vol. 35, No. 1-2.
 
Niclas Jonzén Author
Nils Christian Stenseth Author
Andreas Lindén Author
Torbjørn Ergon Author
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Madagascar: Where Community-based Water Resource Management Has Gone Too Far

Since coming to power in 2002 President Marc Ravalomanana has both reformed and accelerated the path to decentralisation in Madagascar, granting new roles and responsibilities to regional and community leadership. We thus see the role of the national government diminishing in favor of resource management at the community level. This sort of decentralisation is intended to empower the local population to improve accountability, civic engagement, and equity. It addresses the greater capacity of local authorities for responsiveness to local population needs, while improving efficiency, equity and local “ownership” of the governing process.

I have explored the impact of increased responsibility for water management and decision-making in the communes within Madagascar’s southern district of Ambovombe-Androy. Ambovombe-Androy is a semi-arid district that comprises 17 communes with marked levels of poverty. Limited water supply, extreme demand, and predatory operators drive water prices up to unaffordable levels. Decentralisation has served to exacerbate, rather than ameliorate, the problem.

Donors have attempted to alleviate – or at least mitigate – the Ambovombe water crisis. Despite certain differences in approach, they have all focused on the community level to manage a micro-level water facility. While a conceptually strong effort, in practice the amount of water obtained has been limited and the community-based organisations have often been troubled by their own inefficiencies or corruption. The one significant macro-effort, in which Japan funded two dozen water trucks and a pumping facility in neighbouring Amboasary, and in which a government agency was put in charge of managing and maintaining the new equipment and intervening in the Ambovombe water market, was an ill-conceived design. Water delivery by truck is necessarily inefficient. In this case, offering a limited quantity of the resource exacerbated existing class cleavages as water became a commodity for those who could afford to pay for it in large quantities. Supply challenges have led to the rise of private water markets with a seasonal variation of as much as 1500 percent in rates.

A finer optic needs to be employed for determining the relationship between state and local institutions. The state is using the trend towards decentralised water management as an opportunity to reduce reasonable levels of responsibility, though it is needed to regularise supply and pricing of piped water via infrastructure development. Water is most cost-effective by scale; even standpipes are not cost-effective if they do not ensure regularised supply. Community associations can be valuable but only below the turnout. We also need to better understand and adapt community level organisations. This requires management and human capital, as well as state engagement and investment. Ambovombe’s communities need to be viewed as a complex mosaic of relationships that both enhance and detract from the power of the state in a dynamic fashion. We need to know more about the dynamics of each community including leadership type, acceptability of cost recovery schemes, type of labor inputs, and suitability of enforcement mechanisms. In contrast to the universal use of the commune administrative level, careful disaggregation of community advantage may lead to diverse definitions of community for the purpose of creating water users groups. We can then figure out which responsibilities are best suited for each community and what is needed of a state that tends to be at best inefficient, and at worst predatory.

Originally published as:
Marcus, R. 2007. Where Community- Based Water Resource Management has Gone Too Far: Poverty and Disempowerment in Southern Madagascar. Conservation and Society 5(2): 202-231.
Richard Marcus Author
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2008 Jun
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Emerging Trends in Biodiversity Conservation

Despite much recent attention, biodiversity conservation and protected area management remain, in large part, subservient issues in the world today: they need to continuously adapt themselves to ‘larger’ issues of the global political economy to remain politically acceptable. Based on this assumption, we argue that it is possible to identify three major trends in conservation and protected area management that are likely to influence policy and practice for a long time to come. We have termed these ‘neoliberal conservation,’ ‘bioregional conservation,’ and ‘hijacked conservation.’

Neoliberal conservation is based on the major political economic trend of the fall of communism and the subsequent ideological hegemony of neoliberalism. Since the beginning of the 1990s, more and more facets of human life have been brought under the influence of market thinking, and conservation is no exception. Several consequences can be noted. The first obvious one is the marketisation of nature: the management of biodiversity according to the economic principles of demand and supply. A second and related – yet farther reaching – consequence is the commodification of nature. This entails changing the inherent value of nature into monetary value. Nature thus becomes an ‘environmental service’ whereby its existence is legitimised by market demand. A last consequence is the increasing private sector involvement in nature conservation. One example is private companies buying up park land and running parks as businesses.

The second trend we have identified is ‘bioregional conservation,’ which is influenced by globalisation and the information and communication technology (ICT) revolution. Bioregional conservation is, first, characterised by the decreasing importance of boundaries for conservation. Bioregional, ecosystem, landscape, and trans-frontier approaches to conservation have all seen a steep rise in popularity over the past decade. A second development under this trend is the increasing impact that outside agents are having on local environments. Due to the possibilities offered by the ICT revolution, it has become easier for resourcerich agents to intervene in far-away natural settings; and an increasing number, especially rich western philanthropists, even feel entitled to do so. Yet, while they do so with the aim of conservation, they often have great impact on local power dynamics. A last tendency under the trend of bioregional conservation is the issue of localisation, without which globalisation cannot be understood. Nature can be interpreted in multiple ways and the global-local dialectic will have a clear impact on this struggle for the foreseeable future.

The third and last trend we have identified is ‘hijacked conservation,’ a consequence of the recent international emphasis on security. Paradoxically, this has led to a re-emphasis on borders, making the implementation of trans-frontier and bioregional conservation approaches more difficult. A significant development that is more worrying, however, is that nature is further marginalised by being made a strategic pawn in the ‘war on terror’, and in international security discussions. Thus, besides the commodification of nature, its value has further been co-opted for security reasons rather than for the conservation of biodiversity.

Although the influence of these large-scale global political and economic trends on biodiversity conservation and protected area management is not a new phenomenon, participants in the conservation debate tend to loose sight of this bigger picture. By calling attention to these trends, we aim to enhance the understanding and appreciation of macro-social, economic, and political dynamics – both constraints and opportunities – that impinge on conservation and development. Such an understanding could, in turn, enhance the success of initiatives that aim to improve conservation of biodiversity and protected areas management.

Originally published as:
Büscher, B., and W. Whande. 2007. Whims of the Winds of Time? Emerging Trends in Biodiversity Conservation and Protected Area Management. Conservation and Society 5(1): 22-43.
Bram Büscher Author
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2008 Jun
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Fire and Sub-tropical Deciduous Forests of India

Fire plays an important role in tropical deciduous forests across the globe. Most fires are deliberately or accidentally set by people. Records of natural lightning-caused fires in tropical deciduous forests exist, but are rare. My colleagues and I have conducted a series of experimental and observational studies on fire and its effects on vegetation in subtropical deciduous forests of central and south India. We have monitored the patterns of tree diversity and size-class distribution in forests that represent varying disturbance histories: secondary forests, plantations, and long-undisturbed deciduous forests.

We examined the effects of fire on diversity and stature of seedlings and juvenile trees. Effects on seedling diversity were simple: seedlings either survived fires, or were killed, with more seedlings surviving in plots protected from fire after 2 years of fire exclusion. The effects of fire on diversity of juvenile trees were less straight-forward. The effects were mediated by a greater proliferation of resprouted shoots, or ramets, in repeatedly burnt forest areas. In plots that were burnt, species composition was biased in favour of those species that could resprout, and these at times produced hundreds of shoots within a small area. Plots protected from fire, on the other hand, had a lower density of ramets. Our study also showed that the relative height growth of juvenile trees and seedlings was adversely affected by fires. Plant growth was stunted, and we hypothesised that this would have a strong effect on the future development of the forest canopy and the understory light environment in these deciduous forest ecosystems. We also found that as little as two years of fire-exclusion was sufficient to have a positive impact on the diversity of seedlings and juvenile trees.

Fire eliminated an entire functional group of plants, those that allocated relatively less biomass to roots than to shoots. Examples of these plants included several species of Gardenia, and Stereospermum suaveolens. Biomass allocation in these plants contrasts with allocation by fire-tolerant species such as Madhuca indica, Diospyros melanoxylon, and Terminalia bellerica. We also found that many seedlings died back even when they were not exposed to fire. They died back to the ground in response to drought and sprouted from buried vegetative buds following the onset of the rains. Such seedling dieback followed by successful sprouting suggests that many tree species could be pre-adapted to fire at the seedling stage, sprouting after being burnt to the ground. However, juvenile trees do not show a similar ability to die back in response to drought and sprout, and thus may not be pre-adapted to withstand fires, which top-killed juvenile trees even as tall as 1 metre.

Fire can have important effects on forest structure and diversity in deciduous forests. It is equally important to understand the role of fire in altering ecosystem functioning. For example, research focusing on soil moisture and nutrient dynamics in relation to fire might enhance our understanding of conservation needs in Indian deciduous forests. Deciduous forest plants exhibit an exceptional diversity of structure-function relationship. Plants demonstrate a variety of drought tolerance and drought avoidance strategies, and utilise a range of mechanisms to minimise water loss. Thus the conservation of deciduous forests will not only protect the integrity of species composition but also ensure the maintenance of mechanistic diversity, which is the origin of the diversity of plant functional groups.


Originally published as:Saha, S. and Howe, H.F. 2006. Stature of juvenile trees in response to anthropogenic firest in a tropical deciduous forest of Central India. Conservation and Society 4(4): 619-627.
Sonali Saha Author
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How Natural Resources Agency Personnel View Black-tailed Prairie Dogs

Black-tailed prairie dog management is one of the most conflict-laden wildlife issues in the United States today. To resolve this problem, one must find common ground among stakeholders. As a step towards doing this, we surveyed one key stakeholder group: government agents responsible for managing prairie dogs. Our mail survey assessed their values, attitudes, and knowledge about prairie dogs.

Black-tailed prairie dog colonies once spread across the western Great Plains. The area originally occupied by prairie dogs declined to a mere 1-2% of its historical size within 100 years. Livestock ranchers tend to believe that rodents are pests. Current threats to these animals include poisoning, shooting, sylvatic plague, and habitat loss. Despite the long-held belief that prairie dogs out-compete cattle for forage, recent studies have shown that well-managed livestock operations and prairie dogs can be compatible. Though ranchers want to eliminate or at least control them, conservationists want to recover and protect prairie dogs. Prairie dogs are ‘keystone’ species, whose activities, such as burrowing and vegetation clipping, create rich habitat patches that attract a diversity of wildlife. Some animals eat prairie dogs and others use their burrows for shelter, for example.

Attitudes vary from extreme dislike of to intense support for prairie dogs. The values, attitudes, and knowledge of various stakeholders likely exert a strong influence over policy related to prairie dogs — especially the attitudes of agency personnel directly responsible for their management. Public land managers, wildlife officials, and agriculture field agents can have broad discretion in policy development and implementation. A better understanding of agency personnel perspectives can provide insights into agency behaviour.

We designed our survey to measure similarities and differences among and between national, state, tribal, and local government officials, and also between those who manage wildlife and those who manage public lands, such as employees of the Departments of Interior or Agriculture. We asked respondents their gender, age, education level, years worked in current job, residence type (rural or urban), and if they had ever lived on a ranch or farm. Some questions tested respondents’ prairie dog knowledge.

Survey respondents who scored higher on the knowledge scale held more positive attitudes toward prairie dogs. Generally, people from rural areas displayed more negative attitudes than did people from towns and cities. Respondents whose families farmed or ranched provided more negative responses than those whose families did not. People working in agricultural professions held more negative attitudes towards prairie dogs than did land managers and people working in wildlife fields. People working locally displayed more negative attitudes than individuals working at the state or national level.

Respondents from all groups strongly valued wildlife. They agreed that prairie dog management should focus on financial incentives to citizens for protecting prairie dogs, implementing conservation on public lands, and controlling populations that exceed certain sizes. Knowledge about these shared values could serve as a foundation for improved relationships. Collaboration between agencies could start with projects that advance conservation on public land and promote incentive programmes while also improving attitudes about prairie dogs. Successful initial collaborative efforts might then help agencies productively tackle more controversial management issues, such as promoting conservation on private land and supporting strict protection with the Endangered Species Act listing. We hope this study helps agencies with currently competing prairie dog-management goals and forges more cooperative relationships.

Originally published as:
Reading, R.P., D. Stern and L. Mc-Cain. 2006. Attitudes and Knowledge of Natural Resources Agency Personnel towards Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus). Conservation and Society 4(4): 592-618.
Lauren McCain Author
David Stern Author
Richard P. Reading Author
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2008 Jun
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Effect of Rural Biomass Extraction on Bird Communities in Sariska Tiger Reserve

Forests are extensively used by rural people for subsistence in the tropics. Biomass extraction (like grazing, fuelwood collection and collection of non-timber forest produce) is arguably the most widespread form of anthropogenic pressure in developing countries like India. Persistent extraction may alter forest structure and composition, which in turn may affect the resident forest fauna. Our knowledge about the ecological impacts of forest resource extraction is quite deficient, especially in the case of tropical dry forests, which form nearly half of the world’s tropical forests. We undertook a study to investigate the effects of extractive activities on forest biodiversity. We focussed on birds as they may be sensitive to habitat alteration by human activities.

The study was carried out in Sariska Tiger Reserve that covers 866 sq. km. of dry deciduous forests in northwest India. The reserve, although earmarked for tiger conservation, has many human settlements located within its core and also around its periphery. The resident people are primarily livestock herders who earn their livelihood by selling milk. They use the forests extensively to graze their buffaloes and goats, and commonly lop trees for fodder and fuelwood. We selected thirty locations spanning the reserve’s core,facing varying levels of disturbance, measured on the basis of degree of lopping, number of trails, and presence of livestock dung. Based on these disturbance indices, the locations were classified into 17 disturbed and 13 undisturbed sites.

At these locations, we recorded the structure of the vegetation components (trees, shrubs and ground flora) and conducted periodic surveys for birds from March to May 2005, coinciding with most birds’ breeding season. We found that bird species diversity declined in disturbed areas, even though the net number of birds was similar. The effects of extraction on vegetation structure, mainly canopy cover, tree density, and tree height, changed bird community composition. More than half of the 48 bird species recorded were affected directly or indirectly by human-caused changes in habitat. Eight species were found to be very sensitive to disturbance, and emerged as reliable indicators of undisturbed areas. Insectivorous birds like Tickell’s blue flycatcher and White-browed fantail appeared to be most affected by changes in the forest resulting from extraction. Such birds may disappear locally under sustained habitat degradation.

Certain inherently rare birds like Brown fish owl and Crested serpent eagle, which were restricted to tracts along perennial springs, are also at risk. Conversely, four birds that were evidently encouraged by disturbance (e.g. Laughing dove and Indian robin) were hardy species that adapt well to human activities.

Our study demonstrates that even low levels of chronic biomass extraction may lead to changes in forest condition resulting in the local extinction of certain bird species. This underscores the need for inviolate areas for conserving a wide spectrum of species. At the same time, sustainable alternatives to forest-based livelihoods need to be explored urgently. To formulate such strategies it would be necessary to find out how much extraction can be sustained in forests without compromising the aims of conservation.

Originally published as:

Kumar, R. and G. Shahabuddin. 2006. Consequences of Rural Biomass Extraction for Bird Communities in an Indian Tropical Dry Forest and the Role of Vegetation Structure. Conservation and Society 4(4): 562-591.
Raman Sukumar Author
Ghazala Shahabuddin Author
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2008 Jun
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The Fire-Lantana Cycle Hypothesis in Indian Forests

Anthropogenic fires in Indian forests probably date back to the arrival of the first people on the Indian subcontinent. Fires were used to clear areas for habitation, and quite likely, to facilitate hunting. People continue to use fires today for several reasons. For instance, early-summer fires are lit to promote the growth of fresh forage for livestock. Fire is also used to facilitate the collection of several important non-timber forest products such as leaves of Diospyros melanoxylon or tendu, that are collected to make bidis, and flowers of Madhuca indica or mahua. With shrinking forest areas but a large forest-dependent population, there is evidence that the frequency of fires in our forests today is greater than it has been in the past. Thus, contemporary fire regimes are probably qualitatively different from historical fire regimes in the effect that they have on forests.

Fires can affect forests at multiple spatial scales. Fires can alter species composition. For example, the increased abundance of thick-barked, fire resistant species, or of species that can tolerate fires by resprouting, can be a legacy of frequent burning. Fire can also alter vegetation structure by killing standing trees, opening up the canopy, and converting once closed forests to open woodlands. Finally, very frequent fires can result in soil degradation.

Such frequently disturbed, degraded landscapes may be vulnerable to invasion by exotic species. Elevated levels of disturbance can result in an increased availability of space and resources that could be preempted by invasive species. We hypothesise that there may be a positive feedback between contemporary fires in Indian forests and invasion by Lantana camara, leading to a fire-lantana cycle analogous to the invasive grass-fire cycle seen in other parts of the world. We propose that lantana invasion may be facilitated by fire, and that lantana, once established, fuels further fires, setting up a self-feeding fire-lantana cycle (see flowchart).

Lantana was introduced to India during the mid-to-late 19th century as an ornamental plant and has since become widespread, ranging from dry-to-moist deciduous forests of southern India, all the way to the Himalayan foothills. It grows profusely, forming dense thickets, suppressing the regeneration of native vegetation, affecting animal habitat, and potentially affecting the supply of other ecosystem goods and services on which society depends. Lantana has several characteristics that might give it an advantage under conditions of frequent fire. It resprouts on being burnt, it flowers and fruits year round, and its seeds are widely dispersed by birds and animals enabling it to readily germinate following a disturbance. Studies from Australia confirm that lantana is favoured by disturbances such as fire and grazing. There is also anecdotal evidence to suggest this. According to local Soliga elders in the Biligiri Rangan Hills in South India, for example, the initial spread of lantana coincided with the last mass flowering and die-back of bamboo, which was followed by widespread fires.

Surprisingly, there are few empirical studies in India that look at lantana and its invasive ability, especially in response to fire, despite its pervasive distribution. There is an urgent need to empirically understand the effects of fires at multiple spatial scales and to understand the ecological mechanisms of lantana’s success. It is only with such information that we can hope to attempt restoration and management and to find a way out of the fire-lantana cycle.

Originally published as:
Hiremath, A.J. and B. Sundaram. 2005. The Fire-Lantana Cycle Hypothesis in Indian Forests. Conservation and Society 3(1): 26-42.
Ankila Hiremath Author
Bharath Sundaram Author
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Revisiting India’s Biodiversity Planning Process

After much active negotiation with countries of the North and South, India signed the Convention for Biological Diversity in 1992. The Convention required every member country to formulate its own National Biodiversity Strategy, and Action Plan. In 1999, the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) nominated Kalpavriksh, an NGO long engaged with conservation and environment issues, to coordinate the process. I review the ways in which NGOs, state agencies and activists participated in the preparation of India’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) between 1999 and 2004.

Biodiversity is a concept particularly conducive to collaboration—it is an idea that holds interest for both scientists and the wider public. Taking the need for a widely consultative process seriously, Kalpavriksh made special efforts to encourage and solicit participation from a range of actors. They sent out a call for participation in eighteen languages, through both the radio and print media, and nominated over seventy groups to produce as many plans at the state, ecoregional, thematic and substate levels. They also invited experts to present sub-thematic reviews, and constituted a core group that sought participation from a wide range of sectors including different central and state ministries, citizens, and corporate entities. In the words of the MoEF, the NBSAP was ‘India’s biggest environment and development planning process.’

The Power of Structure

From its very inception the core group was mandated to produce a series of planning documents on biodiversity, for which they sought extensive participation. In preparing and formatting this document, power was exercised and consolidated at different levels. Its framing as a planning process for biodiversity determined who would take part and what could be said. The process inherited the contentious history of conservation, and could mobilise only those who saw biodiversity as threatened, and planning as one of the necessary solutions. One person familiar with the NBSAP resented how ‘the very format in which management plans were required – identifying gaps, setting timeframes and monies required’ actually confined participants to a limiting structure. This format did not provide space for discussing the kinds of dynamic processes and activities that others favoured (NBSAP interview, July 2003).

The format of planning itself required a certain set of strategies to be identified, fixed, and written down. Here, state agencies exerted significant pressure. Because their participation was necessary and unavoidable, government agencies exercised a disproportionate amount of influence in determining the final form of the planning document. Much to the chagrin of several participants, officials in state agencies refused to compromise on certain issues, and forced discreet changes in the plan’s language to suit the their offices.

Contradictory Participations

Yet officials in state agencies could not control the NBSAP process entirely. Not all NGOs and activists who participated were equally bound by the demands of state control. The different frameworks, innovativeness, and creativity of these groups introduced a degree of agency and institutional participation, various researchers, and community and NGO activists joined the planning process to make sophisticated critiques of various threats to biodiversity.

While several of the threats and their attendant interventions seemed familiar to conservation practitioners (e.g., park fences for reducing threats from grazing livestock), the plan also identified ‘root causes’ that generally do not get included in plan documents. As a result, the final NBSAP draft, compiled from the different state and regional plans, also contained criticisms of the state itself, including a critique of its chemically driven agricultural development paradigm, and its command-andcontrol forest policy For several participants, engagement in the NBSAP process was contingent and strategic. It was inclusion in the NBSAP process that gave certain groups legitimacy to speak, act and collaborate. As activists, researchers, and state officials developed professional relationships, they frequently took the work of conservation beyond the constraints and demands of this planning effort. Understanding the ultimate implementation of the plan as unlikely, they sought to make it as open and inclusive of their agendas as possible. Activists saw their participation as a temporally limited space within which they could maneuver, and as an opportunity to establish a degree of plurality and creativity within a project of government. By working restively and conditionally with a government planning process, some participants sought to engage tactically to reach particularly defined ends different from those that the state desired.

That this was a precarious and temporary opportunity was soon made very clear by the Ministry of Environment and Forests. First by stalling its completion, then by delaying its confirmation, the Ministry resisted the final draft presented by the Technical and Policy Core Group (TPCG). Then, on 5 October, 2005, it summarily rejected the plan, citing technical inaccuracies as the reason. In doing so, the Ministry went from celebrating the initiative as an example of good governance to calling the document ‘unscientific.’ They proposed to start the entire NBSAP process over again with a different NGO, perhaps with a more diluted version of participation. Kalpavriksh, meanwhile, has made both the process documentation, and the final technical report available to the public.

Originally published as :
Anand, N. 2006. Planning Networks: Processing India’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. Conservation and Society 4(3):471-481.
Nikhil Anand Author
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2008 Mar
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Deforestation in Uttaranchal in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

The British began extending their control over forests in India (including Uttaranchal, or Uttarakhand) after passing the Forest Acts of 1865 and 1878.

This was driven by the increasing demand for timber, and hence the growing significance of forests as a source of revenue. Forests also acquired strategic importance with the growing requirement for timber for the expanding railway network. During the period of colonial rule tree-felling in Uttaranchal can be distinguished into three phases. In the first phase (1815-1865) the demand for wood was low and there was only limited interest in managing forests. The demand for timber began to grow toward the end of this period, and it gained momentum in what can be seen as the second phase (1865-1913). During this phase the government built roads and improved waterways to ensure rapid transport of wood. As a result, between the 1860s and the early 1910s timber production, on average, increased from 0.72 to 4.5 million cubic feet per annum. In the third phase (1913-1947), timber out-turn fluctuated and was quite low between 1925 and 1935. However, the felling of trees peaked during World War II.

Several factors contributed to the increased extraction of wood from forests. Some scholars attribute increased extraction to the growing local population. However, they overlook the fact that the amount of timber exported out of the region far exceeded local consumption. Villagers definitely collected large quantities of fuelwood from forests, but this was mostly in the form of dry fallen wood. Other demands for wood came from urban centres; the forests of Uttaranchal constituted the main source of timber and firewood for the inhabitants of the Gangetic plains. Moreover, in the twentieth century, the establishment of industries increased the demand for raw material and fuel from these forests.

Nevertheless, it is largely unknown that the demand for timber and fuel by the railways during the colonial period put tremendous pressure on these forests. According to one estimate, the railways consumed approximately one-third of the timber out-turn of the country in the early twentiethcentury. Wooden sleepers were used to lay tracks. Initially, only sal, deodar, and teak were used; later, creosoted chir sleepers were alsofound to be sufficiently durable for use as sleepers. As the railway network expanded (from 1,349 km in 1860 to 65, 217 km in 1946-7) the demand for wooden sleepers increased many fold. Moreover, as it was expensive to transport coal over great distances, wood was also used as fuel for trains in many place.

Till recently, only the conversion of forest land to other uses has been regarded as deforestation. Such an approach does not take into account the declining quality of forests. However, in reality forests were overexploited, since wood extraction was unsustainable. This would have led to forest degradation, if not denudation, though the degradation would not have been apparent till much later. I suggest that recognizing the degradation of forests due to timber extraction links deforestation to the production of wood, and not just to land conversion. This historical dimension to deforestation has not been adequately analysed by scholars.

Originally published as:
Dangwal, D.D. 2005. Commercialisation of Forests, Timber Extraction and Deforestation in Uttaranchal, 1815-1947. Conservationand Society 3(1):110-133.
Dhirendra Dangwal Author
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2008 Mar
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Female Biased Sex Ratios in Loggerhead Turtle Hatchlings in a Mediterranean Rookery

Whether a sea turtle embryo in its beach-sand nest develops into a female or male depends mainly on incubation temperature rather than genetic makeup. More females are produced at warmer and more males at colder temperatures. Naturally, air and therefore sand temperature fluctuates over time and so the hatchling sex ratio naturally fluctuates between years. But direct and indirect human action may consistently change hatchling sex ratios into one direction. For example, clutches are sometimes transferred to a hatchery as a conservation tool, but sand temperatures at the hatchery location may be different from temperature at the site chosen by the mother turtle. Different protection of cold (producing more male hatchlings) and warm (producing more female hatchlings) parts of nesting beaches can also lead to systematic changes of hatchling sex ratio. Finally, human induced climate change may feminize hatchling sea ratios. Monitoring the proportion of male and female hatchlings over time and space and understanding the inherent variation may therefore be essential for effective conservation of sea turtle populations. Knowledge on hatchling sex ratios provides the baseline to detect changes and if appropriate install corrective measures. This study investigated hatchling sex ratio at the largest known rookery of the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) in the Mediterranean (on the Greek island of Zayknthos, see figure). Our first aim was to estimate the current loggerhead hatchling sex ratio of Zakynthos. Secondly, we aimed at investigating spatial variation among the six individual beaches making up this rookery (see figure). Since the sex of hatchling sea turtles cannot be assessed from external morphology, we used the information on incubation duration.

Incubation duration is a valid proxy to estimate hatchling sex ratio because it is strongly determined by incubation temperature which in termsdetermines whether a sea turtle embryo develops into male or female. We collected information on clutch incubation duration from a representative sample of clutches of each of the six beaches during two seasons. The conversion from this data to hatchling sex ratio was based on the results of a published study relating hatchling sex to incubation duration by scarifying artificially incubated eggs. The estimated hatchling sex ratio on Zakynthos was female-biased in both years (68 and 75% females estimated). This deviation from a balanced hatchling sex ratio is not surprising given that a female-skewed hatchling sex ratio was found in most sea turtle populations so far studied.

We found significant differences in clutch incubation durations among the six nesting beaches of Zakynthos. These differences are estimated to result in significant differences in hatchling sex ratio. Two beaches apparently produce a high proportion of males (less than 30% female hatchlings even under conservative scenarios) with the other 4 beaches producing a female-biased hatchling sex ratio (above 65% females even under conservative scenarios). The differences among beaches in the proportion of male and female hatchlings produced are important for conservation because so far the individual beaches have not been equally well protected. Namely, the beach with the highest protection afforded seems to produce mainly female hatchlings and the beaches that apparently produce a high proportion of male hatchlings suffer particularly badly from tourism development (the main threat to nesting habitat in the Mediterranean). Our results provide additional arguments to afford these colder beaches better protection so as to minimise systematic changes in hatchling sex ratio.

This work was funded primarily by the MAVA Foundation for the Protection of Nature.

Originally published as:
Zbinden, J.A., C. Davy, D.Margaritoulis, and R. Arlettaz. 2007. Large spatial variation and female bias in the estimated sex ratio of loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings of a Mediterranean rookery. Endangered Species Research 3: 305–312.
Judith A. Zbinden Author
Christina Davy Author
Raphaël Arlettaz Author
Dimitris Margaritoulis Author
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2008 Mar
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Ecological Services of Exotic and Native Tree Plantations in Northwest India

Pre-1988 forest policies in India promoted widescale plantations of exotic Eucalyptus tereticornis mainly for the short-term visible gains from timber because of its straight bole, fast growth rate, high productivity per unit area, and minimal requirement for post-plantation care. However, the scientific community, private growers, and the public have been divided over the merits and demerits of Eucalyptus plantations in the past. One reason for this is that our current accounting system considers only the economic gains from wood and fails to consider the cost of lost ecological services when comparing exotic vs. native trees. Instead, we compared the total value of exotic E. tereticornis plantations in comparison with native Dalbergia sissoo plantations.

Total value included estimating economic (monetary) gains from wood (timber and fuel-wood), soil nutrients and their return through litter decomposition, and understorey plant diversity. Two age groups of plantations, i.e., 6-8 y (young) and 19-21 y (old), were selected to compare net benefits as exotic E. tereticornis plantations deliver most of their benefits (especially wood) by 8 y of age, while native D.sissoo plantations deliver benefits after 12-15 y of age. The diversity of plant species, nutrient content in soil, and nutrient return through litter were greater in Dalbergia than in Eucalyptus plantations. A comparison of plantations at 8 y suggested that the total monetary value of ecological services (tangible and non-tangible) was 1.6 times greater from Eucalyptus than from Dalbergia plantations, chiefly because of timber (Table). However, ecological benefits (intangible) were 1.8 times greater from Dalbergia than from Eucalyptus plantations. At 19-21 y of age, total benefits were 2.7 times greater from Dalbergia than from Eucalyptus (Table).

The study suggested that exotic plantations are more profitable than native tree plantations only over the short term and in terms of timber, which is at the cost of many ecological services. However, over the longer term the total benefits from native plantations are far greater where the value of intangible and tangible products. and services increases over time, and adds to the continuum of services and sustainability of a system. The study suggests a need to consider both tangible and intangible carry out total value assessment of exotic and native tree plantations for sustainable gains and to design policy accordingly.

Originally published as:
Sangha, K. and R.K. Jalota. 2005. Value of Ecological Services of Exotic Eucalyptus tereticornis and Native
Dalbergia sissoo Tree Plantations of North-Western India. Conservation and Society 3(1):92-109.
Kamaljit Kaur Author
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Reducing Negative Impacts of Road Paving in the Amazon

Infrastructure projects are crucial for regional development, but they also bring negative social impacts such as land conflicts, as well as ecological impacts such as deforestation along with carbon emissions and loss of biodiversity. A reason for these negative impacts is that large-scale infrastructure projects lack a process to incorporate public participation. The result is marginalised communities, and consequent degradation of the ecosystems on which these communities depend.

To address this problem we organized participatory workshops with stakeholders in municipalities along the Inter-Oceanic Highway in the southwestern Amazon. This area is a biodiversity ‘hotspot’ and the Andes-Amazon interface has particularly high species diversity. Approximately 30 indigenous groups are located along the Inter- Oceanic Highway, as well as rubber tappers, castaña (‘Brazil nut’) collectors, and other groups who have long managed local natural resources.

The Inter-Oceanic Highway passes through the trinational ‘MAP’ frontier, where Madre de Dios (Peru), Acre (Brazil) and Pando (Bolivia) meet. Concerns about cross-border impacts of the Inter-Oceanic Highway stimulated the emergence of the MAP Initiative, a grassroots movement that integrates stakeholders on all three sides of the MAP region (www.map-amazonia.net). Since 2000, the MAP Initiative has organised tri-national meetings for dialogue and planning activities, which are open to the public. Imperative in this process is the need to work with local communities. Workshops provide a means for communities to receive information about potential changes as well as to articulate their preferences about possible futures. The Scenarios programme of the NGO, IPAM (the Institute for Amazon Environmental Research), features public workshops that incorporate the perceptions of local peoples into planning for road corridors receiving new infrastructure investments (www.ipam.org.br).

We adapted the IPAM Scenarios workshop process to the case of communities along the Inter-Oceanic Highway in the southwestern Amazon. This allows for comparisons of stakeholder perspectives among the three sides of the MAP frontier. This is especially important, for the Inter- Oceanic Highway has been paved in Brazil, allowing Peruvians and Bolivians to see what problems Brazilians face after road paving.

We conducted workshops in 18 municipalities in the MAP region through which the Inter- Oceanic Highway passes. In each municipality, 25 to 30 local leaders participated, including municipal government representatives, local representatives of national environmental agencies, and diverse community leaders.

We asked participants to list concerns regarding infrastructure, social problems, environmental damage, economic difficulties, and local politics. Tabulations of concerns showed which problems were mentioned most often. We also asked participants to rank the problems they mentioned. Such rankings showed which problems were considered the most serious, and provided a means for prioritizing planning around specific concerns. In addition, the multi-stakeholder workshops included a participatory mapping exercise. This allowed participants to identify locations where they expected problems due to paving of the Inter-Oceanic Highway.

Data from workshops in Brazil demonstrated that not all problems are resolved by road improvements, and, in fact, new social, environmental, and economic problems (drugs, alcoholism, and violence; deforestation and water pollution; and land-ownership turnover) can arise in the wake of road paving. In addition, participatory maps of municipalities revealed specific locations where participants felt problems would be most likely to arise.

Information from these workshops can be joined with information from other sources to support development of future scenarios in dynamic simulation models. These scenarios provide visual representations of possible future changes as mapped over a landscape. Because the models are based, in part, on local stakeholder input, they can inform local planning and improve local environmental governance, thereby avoiding negative outcomes of road paving.

Originally published as:
Mendoza, E., S. Perz, M. Schmink and D. Nepstad. 2007. Participatory Stakeholder Workshops to Mitigate
Impacts of Road Paving in the Southwestern Amazon. Conservation and Society 5(3):382-407.
Elsa Mendoza Author
Stephen Perz Author
Marianne Schmink Author
Daniel Nepstad Author
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Landowner Experiences Regarding Biodiversity Outside Protected Areas in Kenya

Substantial biological diversity exists on lands outside protected areas and its survival depends on the goodwill of people who own those lands. To ensure that these landowners contribute to biodiversity conservation efforts in mutually beneficial partnerships, it is important to understand their socio-economic backgrounds and historical heritage, their land-use patterns and expectations, and their biodiversity education needs, as a basis of formulating conservation policies that do not exclude them.

In Kenya today private landowners receive only minor direct benefits from wildlife. With no compensation to mitigate wildlife damages, public attitudes toward wildlife are very unfavourable, especially among landowners who practice small-scale farming and pastoralism. The goal of this study was to explore some of the issues arising from interactions between local landowners and wildlife in a prominent wildlife area in Kenya. I conducted interviews with 377 private landowners of three categories, small-scale, pastoralist and large-scale, in Laikipia District of north-central Kenya. The results give us a glimpse of important landowner perspectives regarding conservation and biodiversity in Laikipia. These can provide some direction for wildlife policy analysis and other conservation needs, including focus points for further research.

Landowners in Laikipia differed in many respects regarding benefits from wildlife, wildlife damage and mitigation, and possible solutions, depending on their economic backgrounds, land parcel size and land use, traditional history, and knowledge about biodiversity. Regardless of ownership type, over 90% of all reported cases of threats due to wildlife, and injuries and deaths caused by wildlife, were attributed to one animal, the elephant. The remaining 10% of cases were attributed to buffalo, lion and hippopotamus, in that order. Many landowners routinely reported damages to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). Of the small-scale landowners, less than 30% of those sampled reported damage and up to 94% of them used an assortment of methods to keep wildlife away. Amongst small-scale landowners and pastoralists the most favoured methods of deterring wildlife were the traditional ones. These included lighting bonfires, and beating ironsheets or cracking whips to make a sound. The large-scale land owners primarily preferred shooting in the air using firearms to deter wildlife. Compensation for wildlife damage was a major issue in Laikipia, and all landowners felt strongly about the initiation of some form of government compensation scheme. According to KWS, no wildlife crop or property damages are compensated at this time except cases of wildlife-caused human death, which is compensated at a meagre US$ 215.

Considering benefits from wildlife, more than half (67%) of all small-scale landowners believed they gained nothing directly; 19% of pastoralist and 4% of large-scale landowners concurred with this view. However, many landowners appreciated the role of wildlife in general, and the importance of conserving biodiversity for foreign exchange, for aesthetic reasons, and as a reservoir of genetic diversity. Among the wildlife utilisation methods favoured, landowners highlighted the need for programmes in wildlife cropping, safari hunting, ecotourism, and game farming. The existing wildlife utilisation programme in the district was unpopular with a majority of landowners particularly due to delays in the derivation and sharing of benefits, lack of landowner commitment to programme meetings and deliberations, general illiteracy among most landowners, organisational logistics characterised by low managerial capacity and poor operational skills, existence of more economical and dependable alternatives, and the uncertainty of the current wildlife utilisation programme.

With interactions between landowners and wildlife expected to increase in the future, some preventive and management measures that emphasize direct wildlife benefits, compensation for property damages, problem animal control, investment in development projects, and biodiversity education must be incorporated (Table 1). Those can be combined with support for some of the effective traditional methods of wildlife deterrence, provision of incentives including cash and development projects tied to wildlife conservation and training opportunities, devolution of partial ownership responsibilities to landowners, and improving access to biodiversity education materials and opportunities for local landowners.

To achieve success in biodiversity conservation outside protected wildlife areas in Kenya and elsewhere, multiple partnerships must be developed with local landowners emphasizing direct benefits, transparency, trust, patience, and indeed, some sacrifices. Our ability to conserve habitats and their biodiversity will be judged by what we have done in practice, rather than by what we have found theoretically possible. As the conservation of wildlife outside protected areas will ultimately depend on the goodwill extended to wildlife by private landowners, it is imperative that as information becomes available from research, it is evaluated and translated to guide future policies that are sensitive to the needs of people, wildlife, and the environment.

Originally published as:
Wambuguh, O. 2007. Interactions between Humans and Wildlife: Landowner Experiences Regarding
Wildlife Damage, Ownership and Benefits in Laikipia District, Kenya. Conservation and Society 5(3):408-428.
Oscar Wambuguh Author
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Local Communities and Wildlife Management Reform in Tanzania

During the past 20 years, community based natural resource management (CBNRM) has become a central element of efforts to support rural livelihoods and sustain natural resources worldwide, including in Sub-Saharan Africa. The widespread interest in CBNRM is rooted in the empirical failures of strictly centralized natural resource management policies and practices, broader trends in favour of decentralization in rural development and economic policy, and the desire to create stronger synergies between local economic interests and global conservation objectives. The main challenge facing CBNRM efforts, however, is that centralized resource management systems are often historically rooted, and develop their own sets of institutionalized interests. Reforming such systems is inherently challenging, and in many instances efforts to devolve or decentralize authority for valuable resources to local communities have made limited progress.

The historical and contemporary experiences of wildlife policy and management in Tanzania provide an instructive set of experiences in relation to these broader ecological, economic, and institutional trends and issues. Tanzania possesses one of the world’s richest populations of large mammals, which continue to occupy not only state protected areas but many unprotected landscapes as well. Wildlife management has been a prominent social and political issue in Tanzania since the early colonial era, when regulations were first passed to control wildlife utilization and to set up game reserves. Both the colonial and post-colonial state worked to increase central control over wildlife use and over the substantial economic value of wildlife generated by safari hunting and, more recently, by ecotourism. By the 1980s, regulation of wildlife use was entirely subject to state authority, with both foreigners and local people only able to hunt using government-issued licenses. By this time, though, Tanzania’s wildlife populations were widely depleted as a result of the declining capacity of state law enforcement and the absence of any local incentives forconserving the resource. Given the need to address these problems, and influenced by the ideas and interests of foreign donors and international conservation organizations, Tanzania revised its wildlife policy in the 1990s. These reforms called for the devolution of management of wildlife outside the core protected areas to local communities.

During the past decade this reformist narrative has continued, but in a rhetorical sense. The legal and administrative reality has been defined by further expansion of state agencies’ authority over wildlife, and the erosion of community rights and benefit flows. !is discrepancy between policy and practice is explained by the institutional incentives that state wildlife management agencies have for maintaining control over this valuable resource, while adopting a reformist narrative to legitimize continued support from foreign donors. Donors and NGOs have not possessed the capacity to force the adoption of reforms that state authorities view as contrary to their underlying interests, andthere has been very little civic or local community engagement in the wildlife policy development process since its inception. Key lessons that emerge from the Tanzanian experience include:

  • Natural resource management  reforms in Africa face fundamental institutional challenges in terms of devolving authority over valuable resources to the local level.
  • Donors and NGOs often  promote such reforms without an adequate understanding of the institutional barriers to their adoption, and may therefore fail to develop effective strategies for negotiating such constraints.
  • Ultimately moving CBNRM from popular narrative to institutional practice will require greater grassroots
    participation in natural resource policy formulation, and popular demand for devolution; in this way, CBNRM is fundamentally tied to broader discourses on resource rights and governance in Sub-Saharan Africa and throughout the developing world.

Originally published as:
Nelson, F., R. Nshala and W.A. Rodgers. 2007. The Evolution and Reform of Tanzanian Wildlife Management.
Conservation and Society 5(2):232-261.

Author
Rugemeleza Nshala Author
W.A. Rodgers Author
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Landscape Images in Amazonian Narrative: The Role of Oral History in Environmental Research

Landscape and land-use change in the Amazon are most commonly addressed by the standard tools of land-cover change research: remote sensing, demographic methods, and political ecology approaches. These methodologies are used to construct a description of the causes and effects of landuse transitions at broad scales. In contrast, studies that incorporate a very specific, human scale – individuals’ memories of the land – have already proven useful for correcting this picture in other regions. Here I evaluate the use of oral histories with ribereño residents of the Muyuy-Panguana archipelago in the Peruvian Amazon, with the primary goal of integrating this information into ecosystem studies.

Oral history approaches differ from other interviewing techniques in that they impose less structure on the conversation, and encourage evaluation rather than merging of the relationship between interviewer and interviewee. In this study individuals, couples, and small groups were interviewed about their personal histories, the formation of their communities, and their perception of culture-nature changes. Conversations progressed from short, specific questions to more open-ended queries intended to direct the discussion towards the interviewee’s personal history in relation to the landscape, and his or her ecological knowledge. I found that the recorded Amazonian landscape narrative exposed through this technique is a blend of environmental factual information and narrative art, and that both elements are useful in conservation and landscape change research.

Some of the factual information in the interviews is difficult or impossible to obtain through more traditional methods. For example, the narratives reveal a more precise history of a prominent river channel in the archipelago. Neither a typical remote sensing analysis using multi-temporal images, nor a study of historical maps, could determine that before the 1970’s the channel was sometimes almost dry and could be crossed by people and animals on foot. Through the interviews, I also obtained descriptions of forest successional patterns. The interviewees described processes that echo and sometimes extend the knowledge accessible in the ecological literature. The narrative art demonstrated in these interviews is useful for historical analysis since many experiences were shared, resulting in structural similarity. In some instances, the narrative includes precise descriptions of change processes. In other cases, the narrative of the floodplain’s dynamism is intertwined with mythological figures. Myth can arise alongside a conventional story of forest succession, or to account for more drastic and inexplicable changes in the landscape. As I overcame my bias towards the factual components of the interview and became more attuned to the contexts in which mythology entered the conversation, I found that they often reflected the relationship of the community to specific landscape features, or even my own relationship with the interviewee. The myths can serve as explanations for dramatic events, or to encourage certain codes of conduct in using resources or interacting with the landscape.

Integrating oral historical techniques into conservation research is not only another way to access historical and ecological facts or represent cultural interactions. The narratives also present the conservation goals of the interviewees. The goals of a conservation program are ultimately subjective judgments, and it is important to understand local preferences and techniques in devising conservation strategies. Oral history is especially appropriate for collecting this information, since people are allowed to explore their memories and evaluate their experiences.

Through this freedom preferences and aesthetics enter the interview. Hence, the ribereño oral history is not only useful for understanding ecosystem dynamics and environmental history, but also for promoting a more inclusive conservation agenda for the communities of the Amazon.

Originally published as:
Nazario, J.A. 2007. Landscape Images in Amazonian Narrative: The Role of Oral History in Environmental Research. Conservation and Society 5(1):115-133.
Javier A. Arce-Nazario is at the Division of Society and Environment, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California at Berkeley, USA (jarce@berkeley.edu).
Javier A. Arce-Nazario Author
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Dilemmas in British Conservationism in Zimbabwe, 1890-1930

During the first 40 years of British colonial rule in Zimbabwe, from 1890 to 1930, European farmers and miners established commercial farms and mines (in prime natural regions ‘i’ and ‘ii’; Figure 1). The Mazoe District of
northeastern Zimbabwe embodied the two major pillars of the settler cash economy – mining and commercial agriculture. Its capital city was Bindura, which, together with Trojan and Concession, were booming centres of gold and nickel exploitation, facilitated by good road and rail networks to Harare (Salisbury). The colonial state sought to orient settler farmers towards the production of export crops, tobacco, maize and cotton. It encouraged the production of minerals, and cash and food crops, envisaging that a diversified economy would provide ‘greater self-sufficiency’ for the colony. It also envisaged benefiting the ruling British South Africa Company (1890-1923) by cutting the food import bill and raising the value of land, as well as by building and sustaining a stable European community.

White miners and farmers depended on state support in expropriating natural resources at the expense of the indigenous population, which was largely composed of the Shona and Ndebele.The extractive economic activities of colonialists directly caused a fundamental transformation in soil and forest use. This led to widespread deforestation and soil erosion, resulting from unregulated clearing of vegetation and timber cutting, especially in the Mazoe River valley. The rehabilitation of lands around abandoned Mazoe mines was expensive and often difficult due to waste material polluting the soil, vegetation, and water. The state provided preferential treatment to miners in meeting their timber and energy requirements because they contributed the bulk of state revenue. This policy was a source of protracted conflict over soil and forest exploitation between miners and farmers. Soil erosion and deforestation were major environmental impacts arising from the competing interests of mining and agriculture. Environmental degradation highlighted the negative effect of settler farming, particularly the perennial cultivation of the same crop – notably tobacco and maize – on the same field. Land was ‘mined’ for short-term economic gain. The settler community was unwilling to acknowledge and deal effectively with the problems of deforestation and erosion. There was no radical change in individual or collective attitudes towards natural resource management.

The ignorance, neglect, and greed of early settler society contributed to the permanent loss of biodiversity and wildlife from various habitats. Much wild flora and fauna gradually became extinct as a result of new techniques of farming and mining, such as the use of artificial fertiliser-chemicals and processes, respectively. However, with Responsible Government in 1923, new conservation initiatives were introduced to control the exploitation of resources. Nonetheless, old habits were difficult to change and the rapacious exploitation of natural resources by some farmers and miners persisted well into the late colonial era. There were wider impacts on African men, women, and children who worked for the colonial system as ultra-cheap labourers, earning parsimonious wages under conditions of overwork, inadequate food rations, and the absence of proper housing. African poverty and environmental degradation were the two outstanding consequences of British colonisation, specifically in the Mazoe District, and in Zimbabwe more generally.

Specialised and diversified farming: High annual rainfall (> 1000mm), temperature <15°C. Suitable for dairying, forestry, tea, coffee, fruits, maize, beef ranching.

Intensive farming: Annual rainfall 750-1000 mm. Ideal for rain-fed maize and tobacco, beef, cotton, winter wheat and vegetables. Semi-intensive farming: Annual rainfall 650-800 mm, mostly as infrequent heavy storms, with severe mid-season dry spells. Marginal for maize, tobacco and cotton. Favours livestock production with fodder. Requires good management to retain moisture during growing season.

Semi-extensive farming: Annual rainfall 450-650 mm, subject to seasonal droughts and severe dry spells during the rainy season. Found in hot, low-lying land. Marginal for rain-fed maize. Ideal for drought-resistant fodder crops.

Extensive farming: Annual rainfall < 450 mm and too low and erratic for most crops. Very hot, low-lying region. Suitable for animal husbandry, and for growing drought-resistant fodder crops under irrigation. Below the Zambezi escarpment, this region is infested with tsetse fly.

Originally published as:
Kwashirai, V.C. 2006. Dilemmas in Conservationism in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1890–1930. Conservation and Society 4(4):541-561.
Vimbai Chaumba Kwashirai Author
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Linking Forests, Trees, and People: From the Air, on the Ground, and in the Lab

Governing natural resources sustainably is a continuing struggle. Major debates occur over what types of policy ‘interventions’ best protect forests, with the types of property and land tenure systems being central issues. Evaluating the impacts of different tenure regimes in a systematic manner is not an easy task. Ecological systems rarely exist isolated from human use. The challenge of good scientific observation of linked social-ecological systems is made even more difficult because relevant variables operate at different scales and their impacts differ radically. We provide an overview of findings from a long-term interdisciplinary, multiscale, international research program that studies factors affecting forest cover. We describe insights obtained from a series of explorations from the air (landscape scale), on the ground (forest-patch scale), and in the lab (individual decision-maker scale).

From the Air: Observations Over Time

Remotely sensed images generate important information about the landscape dimensions of forest processes, and allow us to go back in time. Based on a rigorous set of methods developed over the past decade at the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change (CIPEC, www.cipec.org ), we have studied forests managed under a variety of tenure arrangements across the world. Here, we follow forest change in three landscapes, two located in the Indian states of Maharashtra and West Bengal and the third in Chitwan District of Nepal. By overlaying boundaries of different management regimes on these images, we are able to interpret the impacts of management regime on forest change. Through in-depth interviews conducted with local inhabitants, we can understand the major social factors associated with overharvesting in these forested landscapes.

From these and other CIPEC studies, the official designation of a forest as government, community, or co-managed does not appear to impact forest conservation as much as the legitimacy of ownership and degree of monitoring that takes place on the ground. In the Nepal buffer-zone and community forests, where user groups are provided with secure tenure rights to their forest resources and ownership is perceived as legitimate and fair, communities themselves engage in monitoring efforts to successfully manage their forests. In the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary of West Bengal, we see that traditional, strict public protection of parks can work to protect forests but has a high fiscal cost as well as a high cost in terms of increased conflicts with local communities. Such strict protection approaches are not feasible in all government protected areas, as seen in the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra, indicating the difficulties in sustaining such efforts over the long term.

From the Ground: Cross-Sectional Data

In order to examine the performance of diverse institutional arrangements using “on-the-ground” measures, we rely on data gathered by the International Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) research program initiated in 1992; with research locations in over 13 countries across the world (see www.indiana.edu/~ifri). This program uses 10 research protocols for obtaining reliable information about users, forest governance, and the ecological conditions of sampled forests.

 A long-term goal of the IFRI research program is to use the forest mensuration data collected at each site to compare measures over time for the same forest (thus, holding the ecological zone constant over time). We now have long-term data from 42 forests: five in India, three in Kenya, 10 in Nepal, 18 in Uganda, and six in the USA. Number of stems, diameter at breast height (DBH), and basal area were obtained for all trees within randomly sampled 10 m circular plots. We find that the type of ownership of these 42 forests does not have a statistically significant relationship with any of these three dependent variables. However, the involvement of at least one user group in regular monitoring of compliance with the rules related to entry and use patterns is significantly associated with maintenance of or improvement in forest condition.

From the Lab

The repeated findings fromthe field, of high levels of cooperationin activities such as monitoring, challenge core economic theories of human behavior. This is because the benefits of well-enforced rules regarding entry and harvesting from a resource are shared by all members of a group while the costs are borne by the individual. We have conducted a series of laboratory experiments of behaviour in common-pool resource (CPR) situations. The subjects were undergraduate students at Indiana University who voluntarily agreed to participate.

We find that providing opportunities for face-to-face communication between subjects greatly increased cooperation, and allowed them to substantially increase the maximum attainable returns from their investments. Next we examined the impact of a diverseset of sanctioning experiments. When the sanctioning rules were imposed by the experimenters, subjects received lower returns than in contexts where they were given the opportunity to choose whether they would implement their own sanctioning institution.

Discussion

The temptations to overharvest from natural resources are always large. We conclude that a simple formula focusing on formal ownership, particularly one based solely on public ownership of forest lands, will not solve the problems of resource overuse. If the formal rules limiting access and harvest levels are not known to or considered legitimate by local resource users, substantial investment in fences and official guards to patrol boundaries are needed to prevent ‘illegal’ harvesting. Without these expensive inputs, government-owned, ‘protected’ forests may not be protected in practice. When users are genuinely engaged in decisions about rules affecting their use, the likelihood of users following the rules and monitoring others is much greater than when an authority simply imposes rules on users. These results help to open up a new frontier of research on the most effective institutional and tenure arrangements for protecting forests. This moves the debate beyond the internal and external boundaries of protected areas into much larger landscapes where protection also occurs, and helps us understand when and why protection, recovery, and clearing occur in specific regions within these larger landscapes. Further, focusing on a single research method used by one academic discipline for understanding complex, multiscale processes does not provide a cumulative understanding of how individuals in dynamic, complex social-ecological settings react to institutional rules and affect ecological systems. Multidisciplinary research in diverse international settings is essential for developing an integrated perspective to achieving sustainability.

Originally published as:

Ostrom, E. and H. Nagendra. 2007. Insights on linking forests, trees, and people from the air, on the ground, and in the laboratory. PNAS 103(51): 19224–19231.
Harini Nagendra Author
Elinor Ostrom Author
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The Cost of Postponing Conservation Planning and Implementation

Even when social institutions agree on conservation goals, for instance, the protection of endemic, rare, or at-risk species in regional conservation area networks, there is typically a long waiting period between setting goals and the formulation of an explicit action plan to achieve those goals, and an even longer period before the plan is funded and implemented on the ground.  Meanwhile habitats continue to be transformed through human habitation, resource extraction, agricultural and industrial development, etc. There is plenty of evidence showing that such habitat transformation disproportionately affects regions of high species richness and endemism, particularly in the tropics. This raises the possibility that ongoing habitat transformation also disproportionately affects areas with high “complementarity” value, that is, those areas that have unique biological features not represented in other potential conservation areas. Areas with high complementarity value have the highest priority for conservation management if the goal is to conserve biodiversity in as little total area as possible, that is, the goal is to minimize the economic and social cost of a conservation plan.

Until recently, the hypothesis that ongoing anthropogenic habitat transformation disproportionately affects high priority areas for conservation, though widely regarded as plausible, had not been seriously tested against data. However, during the last two years, methods of systematic conservation planning have been used to subject this hypothesis to a stringent test in México, a megadiverse country with severe levels of deforestation, especially of tropical humid forests. This work was a collaboration between the Laboratorio de Sistemas de Información Geográfica at the Universidad Autónoma de México and the Biodiversity and Bio-cultural Conservation Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin.

Because México has an elevated degree of endemism, especially among mammals, the biodiversity surrogates that were tracked in the study were all 86 non-volant endemic mammal species of México. These must be adequately protected in any reasonable conservation plan for the country. The geographical distributions of these species were modeled using a genetic algorithm on the basis of extensive field records and the predictions were verified for a representative subset of the regions. These “niche” models produce the “fundamental niche” or hypothetical distribution of a species purely on the basis of climatic, topographic, soil, and other similar ecological factors. The predicted range or “realized niche” of the species must then be identified using other exigencies such as historically contingent patterns of presence, barriers to dispersal, etc. In this study, for each of four time slices (1970, 1976, 1993, and 2000), the predicted range of the species was restricted to regions of the potential distribution which maintained either primary or secondary vegetation cover. This choice was dictated by previous work that indicated that most species only managed to maintain self-sustaining viable population within such forests. As elsewhere in the tropics, between 1970 and 2000, large areas of México were progressively deforested, with the rate of deforestation increasing rapidly after 1980. Concomitantly, the habitat of almost all of the modelled species progressively shrank during this period.

Increasing Diseconomy of Nominal Conservation Area Networks in Mexico. This figure shows the increased area needed (regions in black) to achieve the adequate representation of 86 non-volant endemic mammal species in protected areas. The target of representation for this set of maps was 10 % of the predicted original (pre-1970) habitat of each species which falls within areas that retain primary or secondary vegetation (shown in grey). The amount of land required was less than 0.45 % or the total area of Mexico in 1970, 0.6 % in 1976, but 4.69 % in 1993, and 71.25 % in 2000. That the grey region decreases over time shows the toll of continued deforestation.

Next, area prioritization algorithms were used to find optimal sets of nominal conservation areas which would represent all these species in as little area as possible.  The particular algorithm used was an optimal branch-and-bound algorithm implemented in the CPLEX software package. Heuristic algorithms, such as the rarity-complementarity algorithm implemented in the ResNet software package, gave similar results but an optimal algorithm was preferred to ensure that no potential inaccuracy, however slight, was introduced through the use of heuristics. 

For different runs of the algorithm, the targeted representation for each species was set at 10 %, 12 %, 15 % and 20 % of its original (pre-1970) habitat. In these optimal solutions it was uniformly found that, as time went on and deforestation took its toll, progressively more area was needed to protect the same fraction of the original habitat of the species (see Figure 1). In other words, assuming that the area of land that must be protected is positively correlated with the social and economic cost of a conservation plan, these results indicate that achieving the same level of conservation has progressively become significantly more expensive in México. In particular, the cost rises sharply in the 1980s and 1990s, after only rising slightly in the 1970s. Presumably, this behaviour reflects the increased rate of deforestation in the later decades. Such is the cost of postponing conservation action. While these results are limited to non-volant mammals, analyzing the performance of other taxa is unlikely to change their basic import because patterns of endemism and complementarity in México are similar for the other taxa for which data can be obtained.

As yet, similar analyses have not been performed for any other region of the world. However, because México encompasses a wide diversity of habitats, especially in its tropics, these results are likely to be replicated in other tropical regions with similar deforestation pressures and other land use—land cover (LULC) change patterns. It is almost certainly generally true that optimal cost-effective conservation action requires immediate formulation of explicit plans to achieve goals, followed by timely implementation of those plans. The cost of achieving conservation goals progressively increases with the time lag between setting goals and formulating and implementing explicit plans to achieve them. The salience of this problem is underscored by the fact that all signatories of the 1992 Rio Convention on Biodiversity have in principle committed themselves to the goal of protecting representative samples of their biota in conservation area networks. Yet very few have translated those goals into explicit conservation plans during the last fifteen years and even fewer have begun implementing such plans.

 These considerations strongly suggest that serious analyses of the impediments to conservation action should be part of the process of identifying conservation goals for every region right from the very beginning. Typically, these impediments arise from: (i) the various (forgone) costs associated with excluding an area from potential LULC change (through development, intrusive agriculture, resource extraction, etc.); and (ii) the traditional presence of communities within nominal conservation areas. Negotiating these impediments requires that economic and community stakeholders should be meaningfully included in the process of identifying conservation goals even before the stage at which explicit plans are formulated to achieve those goals (let alone the implementation stage of those plans). Unfortunately, this is a lesson that conservation biologists are yet to learn sufficiently well.

This article summarizes the results of:

Fuller, T., V. Sánchez-Cordero, P. Illoldi-Rangel, M. Linaje, and  S. Sarkar, 2007. “The Cost of Postponing Biodiversity Conservation in Mexico.”  Biological Conservation 134: 593 – 600.

 Sánchez-Cordero, V., P.  Illoldi-Rangel, M. Linaje, T. Fuller, and S. Sarkar, 2008. “Por qué hay un costo en posponer la conservación de la diversidad biologica en México.” Biodiversitas 76: 7 – 12.
Sahotra Sarkar Author
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