Abstract
The conservation of biodiversity in protected areas depends on the interests and agendas of stakeholders involved in the planning and enforcing of management actions. The challenge, therefore, has been to identify and include the perspectives of multiple participants important to local conservation. This paper describes the social context in which local conservation is conducted in a natural protected area in Yucatan, Mexico. In particular, it examines the agreement and expectations among local stakeholders on the main goals the reserve should achieve. Through participatory observation and semi-structured interviews, we analyzed the perceptions on conservation of the five groups relevant to the area management: 1) local people; 2) conservation government agency; 3) scientists; 4) non-governmental organization, and 5) a tourist agency. All actors agreed that the protected area should fulfill two main goals: i) to conserve biodiversity and, ii) to improve local welfare and development. In general, ecotourism is perceived as the best option for protecting the forest and promoting local development. Traditional agriculture, on the other hand, is perceived as the main conservation threat, but recognized as a crucial component of local wellbeing. We discuss these results in the context of the Yucatan Peninsula.
Highlights
The prevailing model to conserve biodiversity has been to exclude humans from the natural habitat by setting aside protected areas (PAs)
Results were grouped in two main categories: i) goals identified as priorities in the PA; and ii) challenges and opportunities to achieve forest conservation and local wellbeing
Across all stakeholders, improving local livelihoods and conserving biodiversity showed the highest percentages of overall agreement as the most important to be achieved in OMYK
Summary
The prevailing model to conserve biodiversity has been to exclude humans from the natural habitat by setting aside protected areas (PAs). Some studies have shown that this conservation approach has failed to accomplish its main goal (preventing land conversion and conserving biological diversity), but has created social conflicts, derived from the displacement of residents, restriction of traditional activities, and in some cases the criminalization of local land-use practices (e.g., [6,7,8,9]). Conservation voices have argued that biodiversity would be more effectively protected if the residents of PAs were actively involved in the conservation process (e.g., [7,10,11]). Several studies have pointed out that successful approaches would be those incorporating local perceptions on conservation and engaging communities in the management of reserves [12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]
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