Trade-offs between conservation and development in community-based management initiatives

María Mar Delgado-Serrano

doi:10.18352/ijc.792

Abstract

Community-based management (CBM) has attracted much interest as a conservation and development strategy in natural resource-dependent communities in recent decades. However, most initiatives fail to achieve both objectives. The most analyzed CBM strategies in the literature include donor- and government-driven initiatives, but other types exist as well. The research objective was to identify the internal and external factors that influence the trade-offs between conservation and development in three internally driven CBM initiatives in Latin America: a long-term indigenous-based conservation strategy, the constitutional recognition of ancestral land rights of Afro-American communities and artisanal fisheries management. The results showed that livelihoods depend on natural resources, but none of the cases identified a balance between conservation and development. Community activities are not the primary cause of natural resource degradation. Conservation is supported by ethnicity and cultural values and is challenged by current development models and worldviews that push intensification of resource use and by power asymmetries. Internal pressures include limited rule compliance and enforcement authority to stop free-riding and unauthorized activities. Internal challenges for development include the lack of capacities, rigid rules and non-inclusive CBM, and the inertia and risk aversion that prevail in many communities. External challenges include the lack of economic incentives and compensation models that enable welfare opportunities linked to sustainable management

Highlights

In a context of increasing pressure to use natural resources and the urgency to foster their sustainable management, communities that interact daily with and base their livelihood on natural resources have an important role to play (Brondizio and Tourneau 2016; Delgado-Serrano et al 2017)
We identified three Community-based management (CBM) initiatives that emerged as a result of the links between livelihood and sustainable management of resources and which are representative of the CBM types mentioned
In Mexico, Colombia and Argentina, economic development based on the extraction of natural resources is a national priority that conflicts with resource conservation

Summary

Introduction

In a context of increasing pressure to use natural resources and the urgency to foster their sustainable management, communities that interact daily with and base their livelihood on natural resources have an important role to play (Brondizio and Tourneau 2016; Delgado-Serrano et al 2017). Past decades have shown how the abilities and knowledge of local people can be tapped to make conservation empowering and culturally compatible, leading to the emergence of different approaches, such as integrated conservation and development projects (IDCPs), community-based conservation (CBC) and community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) (Dressler et al 2010). These approaches emerged as a reaction to top-down government-based conservation strategies that prioritized conservation displacing people from protected areas, in favor of preserving natural resources and have attracted considerable attention from governments and funding agencies (Berkes 2007). These results come primarily from donorand government-driven initiatives based on the use of economic incentives to encourage conservation

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