Conservation-development conflicts: a comparative study of drivers and barriers to the acceptance of nature protection measures in inhabited areas across contexts
Abstrakt
The accelerating rate of biodiversity loss has led to a growing call for action. Consequently, conservation strategies have been widely used as a means to preserve biodiversity. However, in inhabited areas, these strategies often drive conservation-development conflicts. Therefore, there is a growing interest in developing effective means to integrate the needs of nature and people within the nature protection, and address the different interests of local and non-local communities. Through the application of a social-ecological lens, this comparative multi-case study focuses on the social and developmental drivers and barriers to nature conservation in inhabited localities, as well as perceived injustices among the local stakeholders, further determining their involvement or withdrawal. We focus on two conservation efforts related to flagships species - Dendrolagus matschiei (Matschie's tree kangaroo) and Canis Lupus (grey wolf) - in two contrasting contexts; The tree kangaroo conservation program (Papua New Guinea), and the Wolf care program (Czechia). Upon their implementation, both of the programs created a range of opportunities Stream 2 - Democracy and Power - DRAFT 2022 Toronto Conference on Earth System Governance 129 but also barriers for local communities. We applied a combination of evaluation and participatory ethnographic methods. Multiple stakeholders from the expert and farmer's sector were surveyed via face-to-face semistructured interviews (n=80), with the incorporation of series of field stays (2018 in Papua New Guinea, and 2021-22 in Czechia), and participant- and structured observation. In addition, the data collection was supplemented by a content analysis of the projects' annual reports. The results show that several key elements need to be acknowledged if local communities are to successfully cooperate with conservationist on biodiversity protection:
1) the implementation of social science pilot research before the start of program;
2) a regular evaluation of program activities from the perspective of locals, insuring that their perspectives, expectations, and interpretations of conservation are fully understood, and addressed, as well as expectations, and perspectives of researchers;
3) making sure that locals and conservationists perceive the program implementation process as just;
4) treating conservation as development opportunity for the involved communities; and
5) addressing issues of power properly. The study demonstrates the mismatch between interests of various stakeholders, their expectations and different interpretations of conservation across contexts, as well as power relationships create stark barriers towards the community support of implementation and promotion of biodiversity protection programs. Finally, it discusses how the research findings can provide a tool for better community biodiversity protection support further promoting its effectivity.