Document: KAT-3-5-1

Community based conservation: does it work?

GALVIN, K.A.*

Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA ¹

Abstract:
Community-based conservation (CBC) is a concept aimed at involving local people in the conservation of wildlife and/or protection of biodiversity. The concept developed from the realization that much of the planet's wildlife and biodiversity exist outside protected areas and in regions occupied by rural people in developing countries. Models of community-based conservation adhere to the notion that if local communities can derive some value, nominally income, through conserving biodiversity, they will do so. This promising concept has been widely promoted as `the answer' to conservation in developing countries. However, results from CBC projects in Africa and elsewhere suggest that there are more failures than successes. If CBC is to be anything other than a passing fad, then it is important to identify the causes for the failures and to determine if these causes can be corrected. Many community based conservation efforts involve local communities in name only. Locals are involved neither in project identification and planning nor are they beneficiaries , thus these projects are not really community-based conservation projects. Another pattern of failure includes involvement of the local people only in a cursory way. Other scenarios for failure also have in common insufficient involvement of the local people at all levels in the project. In order for community-based conservation to work, people need to be considered a component of the ecosystem being conserved and brought into the project process from the beginning.

Keywords: community based conservation, biodiversity, human ecology

This abstract is being presented at: 3:15 PM in session:
Symposium # 4: Human Development and Biodiversity Conservation in the Developing World: Finding a Balance in Concept and Practice.