Session
III (April12-16, 2003)
"Management systems: parks, protected areas, community-based
development"
Lead
(Discussion Paper) by
Dr. Khadga Basnet, Ph. D., Central Department of Zoology, Tribhuvan
University, Nepal
Introduction
Hello. I am Khadga Basnet. I would like to welcome you all to Session
III that I am moderating for e-consultation. During next five days
(April 11-15) we will discuss `Management
Systems: Parks, Protected areas, and Community-based Development’.
This is such a complex and diverse area that no text written by an
individual on the subject would be complete. I invite you to join me and
make it complete. There is plenty of literature available on the subject
including unpublished experiences and knowledge and untold stories. For
this reason, please bring as much information as possible, including
your own experiences, stories, and anecdotes to share with and make the
session very successful.
Protected areas (PAs) are one
of the most effective approaches to biodiversity conservation that
depend on good management – policies, programs, strategies and
schedule and implementation. Management system of PAs is very complex
because of large variation in their categories (e.g., IUCN categories of
PAs), sizes, and physical locations. For this reason, any generalization
about the management system of PAs should be taken cautiously. In this
brief background material for discussion, I will mainly highlight
shifting paradigms of biodiversity conservation that indicate the
management process in PAs.
Mountains
as home of high biodiversity
Mountains comprise about one-fifth of the
world’s land surface area and provide direct and indirect life support
to millions of people living in the mountains and below them. Mountains
(Eastern Himalaya-Yunnan region, Western Ghats, Tropical Eastern Andes,)
are known as centers of high biodiversity- vascular plants, rare,
endangered and endemic species.
About a third of the 785 million hectares of designated protected areas
worldwide are in mountain areas. Out of 18 global biodiversity hotspots,
seven are from mountain regions (Myers 1990). High biodiversity and land
area ratio in mountains often exceed those of lower elevations.
Altitudinal zonation of life forms, orientation, slope, and abundance of
microhabitats are the major causes of such high biodiversity in
mountains (Korner and Spehn 2002).
Biodiversity
protection and shifting paradigms
Various conservation approaches have been designed to address diverse
issues in both spatial and temporal scales. The latter part of
conservation history is dominated by protected area system approach
(national parks, reserves, conservation areas etc). All the countries in
the world have designated protected areas of different categories (e.g.,
I-VI categories of IUCN) for a variety of conservation objectives. Since
late 1970s, most of the countries have developed national conservation
plans, action plans or strategies, expanded the area of coverage, and
improved standard of management, legislation, and general conservation
awareness (see MaKinnon 1997). Relatively recent international
initiatives like Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the
establishment of Global Environment Facility (GEF) have also played
significant roles in establishing and managing PAs, which have been
increasing in numbers, sizes, and overall coverage of areas. These PAs
proved effective in protecting biodiversity (e.g., particular species
and their habitats) but they addressed only small set/s of a large
number of conservation issues inside them. Most of the issues,
particularly outside the PAs, including local people and their rights,
were largely ignored. The management process of these `isolated’ PAs
was based on top-down model and generated park-people conflicts and
associated problems.
This led to the development of
community-based bottom-up model of biodiversity conservation. The
concept of conservation area and buffer zone in 1980s and 1990s
respectively changed the scenario of biodiversity conservation by
accommodating the areas and people outside the protected area for
conservation through community development. But still a large number of biological and socio-economical
issues (e.g., wildlife corridor) were ignored. This has led to the
development of large-scale biodiversity conservation concept such as
ecoregion-based conservation (ERBC) and continental conservation (Olson
and Dinerstein, 1998; Soule and Terborgh, 1999). These large-scale
models (ERBC) have since late 1990s accommodated a wide range of
conservation issues outside and between the protected areas. The goal of
the large-scale conservation approach is to conserve the full range of
species, natural habitats, and ecological processes together with
socio-culture and economy. With long-term goals and vision, these
conservation models and practices have evolved to the highest level at
present. It is too early to list down the lessons learned, but its
outcome will guide the course of the biodiversity conservation approach
in the future. Successful biodiversity conservation requires
i) long-term vision, planning and programs with adequate resources for
implementation,
ii) orientation and conservation education to local partners and
stakeholders, and
iii) linkage between biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction of
local people through income generating programs, ecotourism, etc.
Because
of the scale and size, landscape level approach of conservation may face
several challenges including
a) lack of resources (e.g., funds and manpower) to implement programs
effectively, and
b) lack of proper coordination, communication, and commitment among
stakeholders.
Then,
new issues likely to emerge include:
i) more theoretical and paper work than actual programs in the field,
ii) scattered and superficial actions without solid outcome due to
larger scale, and
iii) local stakeholders lose their interest because of meager/or no
benefits to them.
But the program will still excel because all other stakeholders are
satisfied. For example, implementers or grantees (often NGOs) can list
down a large number of issues, programs and their achievements (an
advantage of larger area of coverage) with which the government and
donors (mainly depend on paper work) are happy. This is probably one of
the reasons why the large-scale conservation models have been considered
as returning back to top-down approach of conservation (Brosius and
Russel 2003).
Management
issues of mountain protected areas
In bottom-up model of conservation, a management plan is prepared
through a participatory planning process. The plan generally consists of
1) goals, objectives, and their justifications,
2) management issues, policies and programs,
3) implementation strategies and schedule,
4) Monitoring and evaluation of implementation,
5) periodic review and update.
This is a general pattern of any management plan for mountain or lowland
PAs. The most important thing in developing a management plan is
to identify the issues that distinguish the mountain PAs from other.
With some variations, issues identified in the management plans of
mountain parks include: Human
pressure, lack of alternative and high dependency of local people on
mountain resources, overexploitation and degradation of resources, habitat
loss, lack of infrastructure and accessibility, lack of
communication and coordination, safety
and security, crop and livestock depredation, park-people conflicts, inadequate
research and information, and so on.
Most of them, if not all, are related to socio-economic issues
indicating that they are more focused on community development. There
are many `biodiversity’ projects, which are working on only community
development (e.g., drinking water, health and sanitation) and have
nothing to do with biodiversity or wildlife or plants (Kothari et
al.1998). It seems that the pendulum have swung too far toward
community development, if we consider the conservation approach of
`isolated protected areas’ during 1970s and 1980s. The questions are:
How the community development and biodiversity conservation
can be balanced? How far or to what extent the conservation biology can
integrate with socio-economy (community development) and vice versa
while maintaining their identity ? I believe that all successful
conservation programs must involve local participation as real
stakeholders.
References
Brosius, J.P. and D. Russel. 2003.
Conservation from Above: an anthropological perspective on trnsboundary
protected areas.
Journal of Sustainable Forestry 17: 39-65.
Korner, Ch and E.M.Spehn 2002.
Mountain Biodiversity: A global Assessment. The Parthenon Publishing
Group. New York.
Kothari et al. 1998.
Communities and conservation. Sage Publications, New Delhi.
MacKinnon, J. Protected Areas
Systems Review of the Indo-Malayan Realm. The World Bank, Washington,
D.C.
Myers, N. 1990. The
biodiversity challenge: expanded hotspots analysis. The Environmentalist
10:243-256.
Olson, D. and E. Dinerstein.
1998. The Global 200: A Representation Approach to Conserving
the Earth’s Distinctive Ecoregions. WWF-US Conservation Science
Program, Washington, D.C.
Soule, M.E. and J.Terborgh.
1999. Continental Conservation: Scientific Foundations of Regional
Reserve Networks. Island Press, Washington, D.C.