Civil Society Conflicts Environment & Social Conflicts

Abstract

Mainstream models of nature conservation, as they are proposed by Environmental Global Action Networks (EGAN), such as Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), focus on the creation of public property (in the form of national parks), legal prohibitions (such as bans on logging and on trade in endangered species), public education and, more recently, carbon trading schemes. As Indonesia’s Tesso Nilo national park demonstrates, the mainstream approach is not only costly but also highly ineffective. According to our findings, two thirds of the park have been encroached, the park management itself has allegedly been involved in illegal logging, human-wildlife conflict continues unabated, wildlife continues to dwindle and the local population remains hostile to the conservation model. In this paper we attempt to show that the failure of Tesso Nilo is due to the application of mainstream conservation models that are based more on rhetoric than results and ignore economic realities. Alternative, market-based solutions exist and have been proven to be both cost-effective and successful in delivering tangible results. Effective private property rights incentivize the local population to engage in sustainable management of natural resources: “if it pays, it stays.” By contrast, the strategies of the EGANs create social conflict and perverse incentives. International donors should pay more heed to results than rhetoric. This is the first of a series of working papers that will examine the various models of civil society development in Indonesia. The authors consider themselves independent researchers who reject blind faith in collectivist green ideologies and focus on pragmatic, results-based solutions. It is an undeniable fact that environment and development are not mutually exclusive but reinforce each other (otherwise rich countries would not have cleaner environments). At the same time, we recognize the complexity of the issues at hand and the need for more detailed study by governments, donors and NGOs. All too often, the environmental and developmental debate is characterized by political correctness, vested political and economic interests as well as a lack of realism.