Community Conservation

1. Community Conservation Peter Weafer Tess Weafer Caylin McKee

2. What is community conservation? • Programs and partnerships that focus on community-based conservation with strong local involvement. • Empower local communities with minimal outside interference.

3. How did it start? • Authoritarian practices didn’t allow for involvement of the community or incentives for conservation. • Realized educated community could manage themselves for their benefit and the land and animals.

4. Benefits • Involvement of local people: • Jobs (i.e. park rangers, tour guides) • Percentage of entrance fees

5. Protected Areas Outreach • The form of community conservation with the least amount of community authority and most amount of park/government authority • An alternative to “fines and fences” approach • Has become more mainstream

6. The influence of protected area outreach on conservation attitudes and resource use patterns: a case study from western Tanzania Christopher M. Holmes http://journals.cambridge.org

7. Abstract • Investigates the attitudes & behaviors of two Tanzanian ethnic groups towards the conservation of Katavi National Park (KNP) • How did attitudes & behaviors change after the implementation of protected areas outreach? • Degazetting – stopping the legal protection of an area

8. Katavi National Park (KNP) • Gazetted in 1974 • Located in western Tanzania in the northern Rukwa Valley • No settlement or resource extraction permitted within the 4,500 km2 • Third largest in Tanzania

9. Methods • Wood is the primary source of fuel for native people • 5.7% growth rate over past 30 years has lead to encroachment on KNP resources, over extraction outside of KNP and negative feelings towards KNP boundaries • Interviews were conducted with open-ended questions about native’s perceptions about KNP, perceived levels of park outreach & wildlife conflicts

10. Results • KNP outreach had a strong positive association with attitudes towards the park • Peoples that received KNP services/visits were against degazetting KNP • The degree varied throughout ethnicities • Similar findings as other protected area outreach studies • Protected area outreach is pivotal in shaping positive conservation attitudes but recognition of outreach can vary greatly within communities

11. Is protected areas outreach a meaningful part of sustainable tourism? YES NO Data supporting the development of increased conservation behaviors Positive attitudes towards protected area Tangible benefits are appreciated & recognized Behavior might not be consciously conservational Negative attitudes towards protected area staff Intangible benefits (conservation) are less appreciated & recognized Protected areas outreach programs differ across the board but the fact that a protected area has an outreach program in place shows that they are conscious of their impact on the surrounding community and are at least making an effort to mitigate it. We believe that PAO is a meaningful part of sustainable tourism.

12. Co-management community conservation • A process in which the people are given the opportunity and responsibility to manage their own resources and define their own goals that affect their well-being • Community-Based Coastal Resource Management (CBCRM) on San Salvador Island, Philippines. - community has a stake in the resources - partnership with the local community and government is essential

13. Co-management • San Salvador Island, Philippines • 380 hectare island • Population in 1996: 1,620 people • 64% of the population is dependent on fishing • Known for abundance of tropical fish and warm water making it a tourist destination • Fishing in the 1970’s shifted to destructive methods such as blast fishing • Other illegal fishing was also present because of the lack of law enforcement

15. Co-management • A Peace Corps. Volunteer assessed the needs of the village and surveyed reefs • Established the stakeholders • Outcome: Proposed Marine Sanctuary • Haribon Foundation selected as lead implementation organization: • First nongovernmental group to realize the need for co-management • Established the Marine Conservation Project for San Salvador (MCPSS)

16. Co-management • Marine Conservation Project: • Help train 7 locals from different villages in marine sanctuary and reserve management. • Went to Apo Island for 10 days to learn. • Helped locals gain confidence and motivation to do this in San Salvador.

17. Co-management • The members who were trained spearheaded campaign for 126 hectare marine sanctuary and reserve in 1989. • Drafted ordinances banning fishing within sanctuary and non destructive fishing in the reserve • Government Involvement: • Masinloc Municipal Council passed the ordinance to help legitimize at a local level • Members began monitoring for illegal fishing

18. Co-management • Mansinloc Municipal Government: • Enabled ordinance to be passed providing legal basis for sanctuary and reserve violators to be apprehended • Mediation of conflicts between village based resource users as well as outside users • Provide boats, radios, and fuel at the request of the San Salvador citizens • Formal creation of patrol team to enforce fisheries laws • Provision of political environment that allowed for the pursuit of community based initiatives

19. Co-management • Outcomes: • National government support in 1993 • Coral health grew by 23% within first year • Within the first 8 months 39 violators were caught • 35 out of the 39 were nonresidents • Fish species richness improved • Governmental relationship strengthened • Main industry now is toursim

20. Devolution • Involves the transfer of authority over natural resource decision-making and benefits from the central state to locals. • The state maintains a role in: • Protecting wider public goods • Establishing the policy, legal and social frameworks • Facilitating and regulating private activity • Mediating conflict • Providing legal resource • And more…

21. Types of Devolution Foundations • District organizations: local government organizations such as Rural District Councils • Village Committees: facilitated by government departments (i.e. Village Natural resource Management Committees in Malawi or Forest Protection Committees in India) • Corporate, Legal Organizations: rights holders and/or residents (i.e. Trusts, Conservancies, villages • Household-based/ individual management) • Self-initiated Organizations: Traditional leaders through residents

22. ODI (Overseas Development Institute) Natural Resource Perspectives • The Study = Devolution and Community-based Natural Resource Management: Creating space for local people to participate and benefit? • ODI apart of Natural Resource Perspectives • Evidence from • A number of studies on the impacts of natural resource devolution policies in several Asian and southern African countries from the perspective of local people • Devolution outcomes are assessed in terms of who has greater benefits and decision-making authority.

23. Shift in Conservation and Natural Resource Management (NRM) • Countries moved away from costly state-centered control towards approaches in which local people play a much more active role. Transfer of management authority to local level organizations. • Examines the extent to which devolution has transferred control over NRM decision-making to local people, created the space to accommodate local interests and livelihood needs. • Have devolution policies been favorable for local people? • This study looks at three Asian Countries and eight southern African countries

24. Focuses of devolution ASIA • India, China, Philippines • Focus on forest management under both state and communal tenure • Consider both production and protection • Devolution policies in place for 10-20 years Southern Africa • Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho • Cover a range of sectors on both community and state land: wildlife, forests and woodlands, and rangelands • Devolution policies in place for 3-10 years

25. Has Devolution worked for local people? • Are there improved benefits for local communities? • Across most sites in Asia and southern Africa, local people’s views were that devolution policies had yielded only limited benefits for them. • In most instances the state provided benefits as an incentive to encourage people to support activities that met government revenue or conservation interests rather than local livelihood

26. DIRECT AND INDIRECT BENEFITS • Direct • Access to some subsistence and commercial products • Share of revenues from hunting, tourism, sales of timber, etc. • Employment • Share of income from permit and license fees • Infrastructural development • More productive resource base • Indirect • Organizational development + strengthening • New alliances (NGO’s) • Pride and identity • Greater Visibility • Political empowerment • Diversification of livelihood • Technical and managerial capacity building • New communication channels

27. Who controls and makes decisions? • At all sites effort was made to transfer some decision making responsibility over NR from central to local level. • Overall, according to the case studies, and despite rhetoric to the contrary, central authorities continued to drive the NRM agenda. • Government departments, except where NGO’s played roles, determined the nature of the shifts in control and the types of power that were transferred. • In most cases, tight-restraint was still put on local decision-making.

28. http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3646/76-devolution-community-based-natural-resource-management.pdf?sequence=1http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/3646/76-devolution-community-based-natural-resource-management.pdf?sequence=1