Conservation must treat local populations fairly
The proportion of the world’s surface which is classed as a protected area has been steadily increasing, and now stands at over 15% of the world’s land area. Protected areas store 15 percent of the global terrestrial carbon stock, help reduce deforestation, habitat and species loss, and support the livelihoods of over one billion people. While this appears to be good news, there are two main caveats. Firstly, many areas are protected in name only, and are still subject to illegal logging, encroachment and degradation. Secondly, protection can be at the expense of local and indigenous peoples who have been using land sustainably for millennia, but who are now prevented from using traditional natural resources, causing both hardship and antipathy towards the concept of conservation. Excluding local people from, for example, areas used for wildlife tourism, can encourage poaching if the local communities feel that they aren’t getting a share in any benefits from tourism. Thus equity has emerged as an important goal of protected area management. A new open access paper published online in Conservation Letters examines equity in protected area governance. The paper examines equity around a protected area in Laos, a montane rainforest, where ecotourism is one of the current land uses.
The study examines the key issues affecting people in three villages adjacent Nam Et-Phou Louey National Protected Area. Established in the 1990s the forested landscape is home to tigers, clouded leopards, white-cheeked gibbons and other endangered species. But the forest and wildlife have not fared well in recent years -- for example, the tiger population has declined from around 15 to as few as two. The study villages have similar histories of resettlement, but different governance contexts: Phon Song bordered by “total protection zone” with no entry or resource use allowed, Khorn Ngua where the PA border was negotiated so that the village adjoins a “controlled use zone” where resource use is regulated, and Son Khua where a buffer of “controlled-use zone” exists but an ecotourism scheme also employs villagers and distributes monetary benefits to each household.
The researchers found that the park boundaries, enforced in the mid-2000s, affected villages differently. Although incomes from farming had increased in all villages, land was much more restricted in one village near the centre of the conserved area, meaning field sizes and incomes were lower on average, and with yields decreasing as fields could not be left fallow. Park authorities noticed this, and decided to release land from the protected area as compensation for this unfair distribution of costs. However, that land did not fall into the hands of those who needed it most.
Lead author Dr Neil Dawson of the University of East Anglia explained: "While this may seem a fair solution, it directly compromises conservation, trading wildlife territory for people's welfare. This is exactly the scenario that many in conservation fear when fairness to people becomes a goal of conservation.
"In contrast, through listening to the views of local people and understanding their practices and perspectives, we found equity issues to be much more complex, and uncovered potential solutions to their problems to be much more compatible with conservation. These solutions included more transparent and consistent rule enforcement to prevent land being concentrated in the hands of wealthier villagers.”
To find research on the Leisure Tourism database on relationships between protected areas and local livelihoods, try starting with the search wildlife AND tourism AND protected AND livelihoods, filtered by content type Abstract. Stone and Nyaupane (2016) explore linkages among protected areas, tourism and community livelihoods in a rural setting in Botswana. The study provides a new methodological approach in understanding the changing relationships among tourism, conservation and community development by expanding a community capitals framework. Wanie and Asoh (2016) critically examine protected areas' contribution to wildlife conservation and ecotourism by means of a case study approach of the Limbe Wildlife Centre, a zoo/sanctuary/aquarium/fauna park in Cameroon. The greatest constraint to wildlife conservation in the area is financial (38 percent), followed by the problem of community participation (18 percent). More than 90.8 percent of the inhabitants were not involved in ecotourism and conservation efforts while 78.9 percent of others opined that they fail to support the zoo because it does not contribute to community development.
Munanura et al. (2016) discuss tourism revenue sharing (TRS) around the Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. Results suggest that TRS has had minimal conservation impact due to acute food insecurity and limited livelihood capabilities among the poorest residents in proximity to the park. This paper recommends restructuring of the TRS decision-making process to ensure consideration of both short-term and long-term conservation goals, wildlife conservation linkages and participation of the most economically disadvantaged residents in proximity to the park boundary.
Liu et al. (2012) discussed drivers and socioeconomic impacts of tourism participation around the Wolong Nature Reserve, China. In general, households with greater financial (e.g., income), physical (e.g., access to key tourism sites), human (e.g., education), and social (e.g., kinship with local government officials) capitals and less natural capital (e.g., cropland) were more likely to participate in tourism activities. Nthiga et al. (2015) discuss whether tourism-conservation enterprises such as ecolodges can enhance community livelihoods and wildlife conservation in wildlife-rich areas outside state-protected areas in sub-Saharan Africa.
Reference
Neil Dawson, Adrian Martin, Finn Danielsen. Assessing Equity in Protected Area Governance: Approaches to Promote Just and Effective Conservation. Conservation Letters, 2017; DOI: 10.1111/conl.12388