Conservation-based Development Research Articles

Fasilitasi bantuan usaha ekonomi kreatif kelompok masyarakat binaan Balai Taman Nasional Bunaken di Pulau Nain

Community empowerment in buffer zone villages is one of the conservation-based development efforts. Community empowerment through the development of the creative economy is an alternative for the community in developing their local potential. Nain Island is the farthest island in the Bunaken National Park area which can only be accessed by sea from the mainland of North Sulawesi. This limited access needs to be supported by the development of infrastructure in terms of transportation, electricity, water, social, economic, education, health and environmental development. Economic crisis have a serious impact on the future of the existence of the national park, namely the level of education of the people in and around the conservation area. Recognizing the above, Bunaken National Park Center distributes various kinds of assistance for empowering community economic enterprises through fostered groups in all areas of management at the site level (resort). Groups that have been assisted previously for a sufficient period of time will then be tested for feasibility and readiness in terms of receiving assistance. The implementation of facilitation activities and the provision of creative economic business assistance to the assisted village community groups on Nain Island is carried out on an ongoing basis. The method of implementing the activities is in the form of data collection and group assistance. It is true that the Sinar Bahari Nain group has been facilitated in receiving assistance for capital stimulus for creative economy businesses. Assistance to community groups needs to be carried out routinely and attached after the provision of assistance and supervised in its use.

Conservation or Decarbonization? Small Hydropower and State Logics of Green Development in China

Through an analysis of small hydropower (SHP) in China, I argue that logics of green development offer a framework for analyzing why, how, and to what intended effect the state pursues different green agendas over time and space. For decades, China’s central and provincial governments framed SHP as a model of green development, but in 2016 they instituted SHP restrictions due to ecological impacts and electricity waste, a situation blamed on local officials haphazardly approving too many plants. This interpretation, however, ignores a major shift in state logic for promoting SHP, first for conservation-based development in rural areas and then for low-carbon development in urban areas. These logics—which I abbreviate as conservation and decarbonization—are based on different political–economic problems that green development is meant to solve for the state, different places targeted for intervention, and different distributions of benefits and costs. Using this framework, I argue that a shift to decarbonization in the mid-2000s incentivized cash-strapped local governments in rural western China to build as many SHP plants as possible to export electricity and build local industries, leading to a subsequent “bust.” I illustrate this trajectory using case studies of three prefectures in Yunnan province. This article thus enriches scholarship on state–nature relations by theorizing the role of the state in shaping dominant discourses and practices of green development across space and their uneven outcomes. Key Words: China, conservation, decarbonization, green development, renewable energy.

Finding Common Ground: Birds, Biodiversity, and the Implications for Collaboration with Traditional Landowners in New Guinea

It has been proposed that indigenous societies can be models for the conservation of biodiversity. However, attempts at implementing conservation-based development plans are being judged failures. In this article, I argue that these failures can be addressed by translating indigenous knowledge into context that is mutually intelligible to both indigenous people and conservation biologists. Drawing on sixteen months of ethnobiological fieldwork, this article uses indigenous knowledge to describe the relationship of traditional life to biodiversity for the Hewa of Papua New Guinea's Central Range. The island of New Guinea is one of the planet's last bastions of cultural and biological diversity. Using birds as an indicator of diversity, I argue that more productive conservation policies will emerge when indigenous activities are viewed not as vehicles for establishing equilibrium with the environment, but as a source of ecological disturbance. Although Hewa traditions currently play a significant role in shaping this biologically diverse environment, their lifestyle is not necessarily a template for sustainability in the future.

Forest Restoration and Forest Communities: Have Local Communities Benefited from Forest Service Contracting of Ecosystem Management?

Conservation-based development programs have sought to create economic opportunities for people negatively impacted by biological diversity protection. The USDA Forest Service, for example, developed policies and programs to create contracting opportunities for local communities to restore public lands to replace jobs lost from reduced timber harvest. This article examines 12 years of Forest Service land management contracting in western Oregon, Washington, and northern California to evaluate if contractors located in communities near national forests have been awarded more land management contracts and contract value over time. We find that land management contracting spending has declined dramatically and, once we control for intervening factors, we find that local contractors have received a smaller proportion of land management contracts over time.

Wildland Fire Management as Conservation-Based Development: An Opportunity for Reservation Communities?

This article explores the economic and cultural development potential of wildland fire management for American Indian communities. Wildland fire management provides opportunities to engage in “conservation-based development”—helping communities to strengthen their connections with the land, improve ecosystem health, stimulate small-business development, and reduce their risk from fire. Indian communities—many of which are rural and dependent on natural resources for their cultural, spiritual, and economic livelihood—are an important example of the potential of wildland fire management for conservation-based development. To examine this potential we asked the question: What are the opportunities and issues for fire-management activities to augment tribal economies, providing jobs and small-business development opportunities while restoring the ecosystem and providing opportunities for cultural development? To answer the question we interviewed representatives of all federally recognized tribes in the Pacific Northwest.

The land that could be: environmentalism and democracy in the twenty-first century

In this book, environmentalist and lawyer William Shutkin describes a new kind of environmental and social activism spreading across the nation, one that joins the pursuit of environmental quality with that of civic health and sustainable local economies. In the face of challenges posed by often corrosive market forces and widespread social disaffection, this civic environmentalism is creating nothing less than a new public discourse and dynamic social vision grounded in environmental action.Shutkin points the way to vibrant, sustainable communities through four inspiring examples of civic environmentalism in action: the redevelopment of contaminated urban land for agriculture in inner-city Boston, mass-transit-based development and waterfront restoration in Oakland, protection of open space and conservation-based development in rural Colorado, and smart-growth and sustainability strategies in suburban New Jersey. The book's underlying message is that the nation's environmental health is a critical factor in its success as a vital democracy. Social health, democratic community, and environmentalism, Shutkin shows, are one.From the author's preface :This book asserts that environmentalism is as much about protecting ordinary places as it is about preserving wilderness areas; as much about promoting civic engagement as it is about pursuing environmental litigation; and as much about implementing sound economic development strategies as it is about negotiating global climate change treaties. Ultimately, I believe, environmentalism is nothing less than about our conception of ourselves as a social and political community -- what the bald eagle, our national symbol, really means.

ETCON, an expert system for conservation based land use planning in the Ethiopian Highlands

Land evaluation is of key importance in land use policy and planning for sustained rural development. The use of expert systems to support land use policy and planning decisions for conservation-based development in the Highlands of Ethiopia was investigated. A prototype expert system called ETCON (EThiopia CONservation) was developed to make recommendations for land use planning based on land unit characteristics and land utilisation type requirements for a specified farm input level and management practice. The knowledge base, inferencing mechanism, a sample consultation, and plans for field testing are presented.