Introduction: Sustainable Development, A New Age for Conservation? (original) (raw)
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Contested nature conservation and development at the turn of the twenty-first century
2003
emergence of a global environmental movement dedicated, among other things, to curbing unprecedented rates of species loss and habitat destruction. Now at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we still face an alarming downturn in the diversity of life found on the planet in spite of key gains in policy development, political participation, financial support, and program implementation. The need to act decisively and quickly is indisputable. At the same time, it is important to recognize that most areas considered to be high priority biodiversity “hotspots” (Myers 1988) are also social and political “hotbeds.” These rural areas in countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mexico, the Philippines, and the Ivory Coast may feature high levels of poverty, insecure land tenure and landlessness, unstable and/or undemocratic political systems, and histories of state-sponsored repression. While the conservation movement is certainly not responsible for these conditions...
International Journal of Sustainable Development Research, 2020
Africa is the continent of nature conservation per excellence, the testing ground for conservation policies and the symbol of degradation of protected areas worldwide. Though the internalization of international conservation policies and standards has had positive impacts on the extension of protected areas networks, these ones are undergoing increased pressure that considerably threaten biodiversity. Such evolutions call for a revision of the management systems on the basis of preliminary indepth and rigorous analysis of conservation policies and practices. The study aimed to: (1) explore and synthesize the state of art on conservation policies and practices, (2) identify and analyze the gaps existing between management standards and field practices and (3) detect challenges and bottlenecks and define innovative strategic options for efficient and sustainable management. The research relies on the interpretative synthesis and analysis of the hudge literature available on the nature conservation. The results showed that the dominant model of inhabited protected areas and social exclusion broke the historical harmony between populations and natural resources, disrupted traditional ways of life and generated devastating and continuous social conflicts. They revealed that the lack of management tools, the limits of eco-tourism, the inefficiency of participatory programs and the financial gaps lead to increased anthropic pressures and degradation that have transformed most of protected areas into open agro-pastoral parks. More specifically, the lack of management goals, categories and plans for most of protected areas and the absence of appropriate and regular assessments generate visual navigations and improvisations in management systems that result into glaring discrepancies between theoretical management categories and field practices that have globally failed to maintain original situations or to induce progress. Finally, the poor performance of the management systems results from conflicts of ideologies, interests and agendas between actors having strongly imbalanced means, positions and powers. Such conflicts come from the primacy of powerful external actors, the central role of national governments and the democratic deficits in the management mechanisms, the preeminence of ecological interests over socioeconomic benefits, the selective international funding, the emerging privatization of conservation and the marginalization of local communities. To address these ideological and practical challenges, prior and deep assessments of management systems are needed for strategic declassifications, reclassifications and classifications of protected areas before the promotion of rebalanced powers between actors in favor of local communities, administrative and financial autonomies, community based joint shareholdings, double universal mechanisms for compensatory financing and domestic patriotic tourisms.
Sustainable development is rooted in the history of two divergent movements – for the preservation of nature, and for the conservation of natural resources – and of their relationship with the natural sciences. Ecology has played a central role in this history. As a societal paradigm that is at once ecological, political, and economic, sustainable development is supposed to embody ideal policy for all societies, and to overcome the opposition between these two diverging views of man‑nature relationships. An analysis of international texts devoted to sustainable development emphasizes certain fundamental, interdependent principles: true democracy, social sustainability, and respect for the resilience of ecological systems. Despite formal concessions to preservationists with the recognition of the intrinsic value of biodiversity, the sustainable development concept is clearly anthropocentric, and is in direct line of descent from conservationism. As its fundamental principles are not implemented in an integrated way, its ritual evocation fail to hide strong ethical and political contradictions, rendering it merely an impotent utopia.
Mainstreaming Conservation Agendas in the Current SocioPolitical Development Context
The Initiation, 2010
Conservation and development are inextricably linked. The earlier school of thought; "good ecology is good economics" vis a vis "good economy is good ecology" are equally relevant and mutually inclusive. Conservation initiatives in Nepal is often seen and viewed in terms of protecting wildlife and the subsequent conflicts emanating from it-for instance crop depredation and casualties by wildlife. It is often this negative side that takes the toll and overshadows the wider gamut of benefits accruing from conservation. It is an irony that even after three decades of conservation planning, this sector has not been able to position itself at the centre stage of developmental planning. In other words, green sector has not been able to market itself of its full potential; thereby receiving less than what it contributes at large. This has happened because we have not been able to educate and make aware our political leaders, planners and decision makers that play an important role in shaping the policy dimension.
CONSERVATION THROUGH DEVELOPMENT: PATHS OF INNOVATION FOR PROTECTED AREAS
This paper explores the idea that protected areas, with particular reference to the national parks of Italy, could become the focus of an alternative way of perceiving and implementing development. Previous research has highlighted the fact that protected areas are often coincident with territories left on the fringes of industrial development and that they share common problems (e.g., local economic decline, depopulation, and loss of traditional ways of territorial management). This paper analyses the role played by parks' particular administrative legislation in accentuating these issues. It illustrates how the consequent risk of loss of territorial heritage could result in a failure of the goals of the national parks themselves. It argues that innovations in the tools of territorial governance might lead to a more effective way of actively protecting landscapes that express coevolutionary relationships.
Society & natural …, 2002
This article presents a critical review of recent writings that argue that peopleoriented approaches to conservation have largely failed to achieve their main goalÐ the protection of biological diversity. Based on an analysis of this problem, authors of these works conclude that biodiversity conservation initiatives should place renewed emphasis on authoritarian protection of national parks and other protected areas to safeguard critically threatened habitats worldwide. W e examine ® ve core themes in these writings. W e conclude that, while many of their ® ndings regarding shortcomings of current people-oriented approaches are well grounded, the overall arguments are incomplete because they largely ignore key aspects of social and political processes that shape how conservation interventions happen in speci® c contexts. As a result, recommendations linked to the renewed protectionist argument most likely will not provide long-term protection of biodiversity.
Africa is the most important testing ground for international conservation policies and standards. Their internalization had positive impacts on the extension of protected areas networks. However, these ones are undergoing great degradations that call for a revision of the management systems. The study aimed to: (1) explore and synthesize conservation policies and practices, (2) identify and analyze gaps between standards and field practices and (3) detect bottlenecks and propose alternative strategies for sustainable management. The methodology adopted relies on the interpretative and analytic synthesis of available literature on nature conservation. The results showed that the conservation policies and practices have generated devastating social conflicts and continuous degradation of most of protected areas because of many factors including the lack of management goals, categories and plans. Due to a painful past and an inconsistent present, the management rules have globally failed to maintain original situations at least. The study proved that the poor performances of protected areas management are explained by recurrent conflicts of ideologies, interests and agendas between conservation stakeholders. The vision developed to address the ideological and management challenges relies on a deep reorientation of normative classifications, strategic partnerships and administration, financing and compensation mechanisms and ecotourism development.