The role of traditional knowledge and access to genetic resources in biodiversity conservation in Southeast Asia

The article examines international treaties linking trade and environment, their governance models and implementation in the context of Southeast Asia. Particular attention is being paid to the role of intellectual property concepts, customary law and traditional knowledge as incentives for biodiversity conservation and to difficulties in defining the subject matter and communities of knowledge holders. Indonesia’s regulation of traditional knowledge and access to biodiversity is discussed as example. The article concludes that national development goals and interests in royalty collection frequently dominate the discussion and that key concepts are still insufficiently defined to avoid overlaps and conflicts. Genuine local support for the conservationist aims of the models will depend on whether a benefit flow to communities can be ensured and their original role to act as incentives can be realised. International collaboration is important to avoid disputes concerning biodiversity related knowledge held across borders.

Factors influencing awareness of community-based shorebird conservation projects in Australia

We examine the awareness of potential volunteers (n = 360) living near nine community-based shorebird conservation projects. About half of the people sampled (54%) were unaware of the nearest project. Awareness of interviewees varied substantially among projects (28-78%). Apart from gaining awareness of projects through membership of natural history groups (43%), many respondents heard of projects through friends and relatives (20%), rather than through media such as newspapers (14%) and television (2.3%). We demonstrate that community-based projects can be quantitatively and critically assessed for awareness. The use of rapid, cost-effective assessments of awareness levels has application in many conservation projects.

Community-based sustainability: conservation in the Ballarat region

The discourse of sustainability is promoted internationally, with the United Nations declaring 2005-2014 as a Decade for Education for Sustainable Development. There is discussion concerning the nature, status and significance of Education for Sustainability and its relationship with the somewhat established discourse of environmental education. This debate requires continuing theorising and one approach is to reflect critically on specific examples of sustainability within specific communities. This article seeks to promote further discussion about sustainability, and to contribute to ongoing theorisation about Education for Sustainability, by considering a particular instance – that of environmental sustainability in the Ballarat region of Victoria. The case study suggests that implementation of this local environmental sustainability strategy was dominated by technocratic and individualistic ideologies.

Conservation and development interventions as networks: The case of the India ecodevelopment project, Karnataka

Experience with community-based biodiversity conservation programs in the 1980s and 1990s contributed to the conviction among donor agencies and researchers that such programs must be based on the active support of local resource users, appropriate incentives, and institutional support. Yet the continuing struggles of practitioners to implement conservation interventions that are socially and ecologically sustainable point to difficulty in realizing these principles on the ground. Actor-oriented research in rural development and actor network theory emphasize that the capacity of facilitators to engage effectively in negotiation processes and establish strong networks with key actors is critical in mediating intervention outcomes. Drawing on the case of the India Ecodevelopment Project at Rajiv Gandhi (Nagarahole) National Park in Karnataka, India, this paper explores the role of relationships and networks between actors in a conservation and development intervention, finding that practitioners need to focus on negotiation and network building as a central rather than subsidiary part of the intervention process. Associated with this is the need for change in the way donor and implementing agencies conduct themselves, to promote communication and greater flexibility in intervention processes.

Características del diseño de una relación estratégica comunitaria y marketing en emprendimiento en el sector de ambientadores y cosméticos

En nuestro país el sector de ambientadores y cosméticos ha presentado un crecimiento económico constante y notable, proyectando a Colombia para el año 2032 como un dirigente en la elaboración de cosméticos y productos de aseo. La biodiversidad colombiana ofrece múltiples recursos, incluyendo una gran diversidad de aromas naturales, es un importante mercado para producción de cosméticos sin la utilización de productos artificiales. El presente trabajo de investigación tiene por objetivo determinar las características del diseño de una relación estratégica comunitaria y marketing en la creación de una empresa de cosméticos y ambientadores. Ésta investigación se realiza bajo la recopilación de información del sector y principalmente de la organización, dentro de un estudio empírico-analítico descriptivo. Estableciendo resultados que finalmente dan respuesta a la utilidad de estrategias comunitarias en la actualidad. En el caso de estudio de la nueva empresa "Jolie Le Petit" en un sector en crecimiento, ofrece múltiples oportunidades de negocio y permite generar ideas innovadoras para la venta de productos. La facilidad de cambio y la inclusión en la comunidad posibilita el acercamiento a los clientes, asegurando la permanencia en el mercado indicado. Considerando la posibilidad que la inversión extranjera en el sector pueda afectar notablemente el mercado nacional. Mediante el análisis concluimos que la estrategia de mercadeo comunitaria es adecuada y aplicable a este tipo de empresa. "Jolie Le Petit" además de ser una unidad es también un actor social, estando inmersa en una comunidad en donde juega un papel vital el ser percibida como un buen vecino, ofreciendo a los clientes confianza compromiso y relación continua.

Should payments for biodiversity conservation be based on action or results?

There is growing interest in the potential of payments for ecosystem services (PES) to encourage land managers to protect and enhance the environment. However, questions remain about how PES agreements should be designed. There is a division between schemes that structure payments by action or by results, with most biodiversity PES schemes, including European agri-environment schemes, paying by action; for example incentivising land managers to carry out actions believed to increase biodiversity. Payment by results is a common incentive structure in the private sector (e.g. labourers doing piece work or no-win no-fee lawyers) but rarer in PES. Using a theoretical modelling approach, we investigate the conditions under which each way of structuring payments may be more cost-effective in a biodiversity PES. Payment by action is favoured where there is a clear action that can be specified at an appropriate level and to which biodiversity is sensitive. We found that payment by results is favoured in degraded landscapes as incentives are created for managers to use their private knowledge and join the scheme only if they can produce the biodiversity services targeted by the scheme. Payment by results is also favoured where biodiversity is less sensitive to conservation action and when it is difficult for a central agency to determine an appropriate level of conservation action. This is because payment by results allows individual managers to optimise their level of action. The relative cost of monitoring action (compliance with an agreement to manage in a certain way) versus results (the presence of biodiversity) has a substantial effect on which payment structure is more efficient only when the central agency can accurately set an appropriate level of action. We illustrate these principles with examples based on agri-environment schemes. Synthesis and applications. Payment by results deserves more attention from those designing biodiversity PES (be they agri-environment schemes in agricultural landscapes or direct payment schemes in more intact ecosystems). This paper provides a formal framework to help policy makers identify the conditions under which payment by results or payment by action is most likely to yield cost-effective biodiversity conservation. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Applied Ecology © 2011 British Ecological Society.

Motivating domestic energy conservation through comparative, community-based feedback in mobile and social media

The progress of technology has led to the increased adoption of energy monitors among household energy consumers. While the monitors available on the market deliver real-time energy usage feedback to the consumer, the format of this data is usually unengaging and mundane. Moreover, it fails to address consumers with different motivations and needs to save and compare energy. This paper presents a study that seeks to provide initial indications for motivation-specific design of energy-related feedback. We focus on comparative feedback supported by a community of energy consumers. In particular, we examine eco-visualisations, temporal self-comparison, norm comparison, one-on-one comparison and ranking, whereby the last three allow us to explore the potential of socialising energy-related feedback. These feedback types were integrated in EnergyWiz – a mobile application that enables users to compare with their past performance, neighbours, contacts from social networking sites and other EnergyWiz users. The application was evaluated in personal, semi-structured interviews, which provided first insights on how to design motivation-related comparative feedback.

Indigenous Knowledge for Biodiversity Conservation

Indigenous peoples with a historical continuity of resource-use practices often possess a broad knowledge base of the behavior of complex ecological systems in their own localities. This knowledge has accumulated through a long series of observations transmitted from generation to generation. Such ''diachronic'' observations can be of great value and complement the ''synchronic''observations on which western science is based. Where indigenous peoples have depended, for long periods of time, on local environments for the provision of a variety of resources, they have developed a stake in conserving, and in some cases, enhancing, biodiversity. They are aware that biological diversity is a crucial factor in generating the ecological services and natural resources on which they depend. Some indigenous groups manipulate the local landscape to augment its heterogeneity, and some have been found to be motivated to restore biodiversity in degraded landscapes. Their practices for the conservation of biodiversity were grounded in a series of rules of thumb which are apparently arrived at through a trial and error process over a long historical time period. This implies that their knowledge base is indefinite and their implementation involves an intimate relationship with the belief system. Such knowledge is difficult for western science to understand. It is vital, however, that the value of the knowledge-practice-belief complex of indigenous peoples relating to conservation of biodiversity is fully recognized if ecosystems and biodiversity are to be managed sustainably. Conserving this knowledge would be most appropriately accomplished through promoting the community-based resource-management systems of indigenous peoples.

Community-based Ecotourism as a Sustainable Development Option in the Taita Hills, Kenya

This study aims at identifying the existing and potential resources, as well as recognizing the hinderances, for community-based ecotourism development in the Taita Hills in south-eastern Kenya. The indigenous mountain rain forests on the hills are rich in biodiversity, but severely degraded because of encroachment caused by the dynamics of increased population, socio-politics and economics. The research problems are based on the hypothesis that there is no tourism in the Taita Hills generating income for the local economy and high population density combined with poverty creates a need for alternative employment opportunities as well as for sustainable ways of forest resource management. The data for this study was gathered during two field trips in Kenya, in January-February 2004 and 2005, as a part of the Taita Project within the Department of Geography at the University of Helsinki. The qualitative methods used consist of RRA and PRA techniques, in-depth interviews, a structured questionnaire and literature analysis as well as attendance on excursions and a workshop with conservation experts and officials. Four case areas in the Taita Hills are studied. The study concludes that alternative livelihoods are needed among the Taita Hills´ rural population and community-based ecotourism is seen as a way of bringing financial benefits for households as well as reviving the fading cultural traditions and indigenous knowledge about forest use. The governmental policies, district level development plans and some NGOs support ecotourism development. The Forest Act 2005 forms base for local participation in forest management. The unique natural features, the welcoming Taita-culture and the location in the coastal tourism circle favour Taita Hills. However, this kind of development has its risks, such as too rapid change of sorest usage level and the exposure of communities to an ecotourism treadmill process. The costbenefit ration of marketing for hard ecotourists is generally low and the tourism infrastructure needs upgrading in the Taita Hills. More tight collaboration is important between the different level stakeholders working for conservation and development. Community-based ecotourism in Taita Hills, when carefully planned and managed, could be one opportunity for Kenya to diversify its tourism product supply and for forestadjacent communities to gain tangible benefits on a sustainable basis from forests.

Community-based Natural Resource Management: Issues and Cases from South Asia

Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is the joint management of natural resources by a community based on a community strategy, through a participatory mechanism involving all legitimate stakeholders. The approach is community-based in that the communities managing the resources have the legal rights, the local institutions and the economic incentives to take substantial responsibility for sustained use of these resources. This implies that the community plays an active role in the management of natural resources, not because it asserts sole ownership over them, but because it can claim participation in their management and benefits for practical and technical reasons1–4. This approach emerged as the dominant conservation concept in the late 1970s and early 1980s, of the disillusionment with the developmental state. Governments across South and South East Asia, Africa and Latin America have adopted and implemented CBNRM in various ways, viz. through sectoral programmes such as forestry, irrigation or wildlife management, multisectoral programmes such as watershed development and efforts towards political devolution. In India, the principle of decentralization through ‘gram swaraj’ was introduced by Mahatma Gandhi. The 73rd and 74th constitution amendments in 1992 gave impetus to the decentralized planning at panchayat levels through the creation of a statutory three-level local self-government structure5,6. The strength of this book is that it includes chapters by CBNRM advocates based on six seemingly innovative initiatives being implemented by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in ecologically vulnerable regions of South Asia: two in the Himalayas (watershed development programme in Lingmutechhu, Bhuthan and Thalisain tehsil, Paudi Grahwal District, Uttarakhand), three in semi-arid parts of western India (watershed development in Hivre Bazar, Maharashtra and Nathugadh village, Gujarat and water-harvesting structures in Gopalapura, Rajasthan) and one in the flood-plains of the Brahmaputra–Jamuna (Char land, Galibanda and Jamalpur districts, Bangladesh). Watersheds in semi-arid regions fall in the low-rainfall region (500–700 mm) and suffer the vagaries of drought 2–3 years in every five-year cycle. In all these locations, the major occupation is agriculture, most of which is rainfed or dry. The other two cases (in Uttarakhand) fall in the Himalayan region (temperate/sub-temperate climate), which has witnessed extensive deforestation in the last century and is now considered as one of the most vulnerable locations in South Asia. Terraced agriculture is being practised in these locations for a long time. The last case (Gono Chetona) falls in the Brahmaputra–Jamuna charlands which are the most ecologically vulnerable regions in the sub-continent with constantly changing landscape. Agriculture and livestock rearing are the main occupations, and there is substantial seasonal emigration for wage labour by the adult males. River erosion and floods force the people to adopt a semi-migratory lifestyle. The book attempts to analyse the potential as well as limitations of NGOdriven CBNRM endeavours across agroclimatic regions of South Asia with emphasis on four intrinsically linked normative concerns, namely sustainability, livelihood enhancement, equity and demographic decentralization in chapters 2–7. Comparative analysis of these case studies done in chapter 8, highlights the issues that require further research while portraying the strengths and limits of NGO-driven CBNRM. In Hivre Bazar, the post-watershed intervention scenario is such that farmers often grow three crops in a year – kharif bajra, rabi jowar and summer vegetable crops. Productivity has increased in the dry lands due to improvement in soil moisture levels. The revival of johads in Gopalpura has led to the proliferation of wheat and increased productivity. In Lingmuteychhu, productivity gains have also arisen, but more due to the introduction of both local and high-yielding, new varieties as opposed to increased water availability. In the case of Gono Chetona, improvements have come due to diversification of agriculture; for example, the promotion of vegetable gardens. CBNRM interventions in most cases have also led to new avenues of employment and income generation. The synthesis shows that CBNRM efforts have made significant contributions to livelihood enhancement and only limited gains in terms of collective action for sustainable and equitable access to benefits and continuing resource use, and in terms of democratic decentralization, contrary to the objectives of the programme. Livelihood benefits include improvements in availability of livelihood support resources (fuelwood, fodder, drinking water), increased productivity (including diversification of cropping pattern) in agriculture and allied activities, and new sources of livelihood. However, NGO-driven CBNRM has not met its goal of providing ‘alternative’ forms of ‘development’ due to impediments of state policy, short-sighted vision of implementers and confrontation with the socio-ecological reality of the region, which almost always are that of fragmented communities (or communities in flux) with unequal dependence and access to land and other natural resources along with great gender imbalances. Appalling, however, is the general absence of recognition of the importance of and the will to explore practical ways to bring about equitable resource transfer or benefit-sharing and the consequent innovations in this respect that are evident in the pioneering community initiatives such as pani panchayat, etc. Pertaining to the gains on the ecological sustainability front, Hivre Bazar and Thalisain initiatives through active participation of villagers have made significant regeneration of the water table within the village, and mechanisms such as ban on number of bore wells, the regulation of cropping pattern, restrictions on felling of trees and free grazing to ensure that in the future, the groundwater is neither over-exploited nor its recharge capability impaired. Nevertheless, the longterm sustainability of the interventions in the case of Ghoga and Gopalpura initiatives as the focus has been mostly on regeneration of resources, and less on regulating the use of regenerated resources. Further, in Lingmuteychhu and Gono Chetona, the interventions are mainly household-based and the focus has been less explicit on ecological components. The studies demonstrate the livelihood benefits to all of the interventions and significant variation in achievements with reference to sustainability, equity and democratic decentralization depending on the level and extent of community participation apart from the vision of implementers, strategy (or nature of intervention shaped by the question of community formation), the centrality of community formation and also the State policy. Case studies show that the influence of State policy is multi-faceted and often contradictory in nature. This necessitates NGOs to engage with the State in a much more purposeful way than in an ‘autonomous space’. Thus the role of NGOs in CBNRM is complementary, wherein they provide innovative experiments that the State can learn. This helps in achieving the goals of CBNRM through democratic decentralization. The book addresses the vital issues related to natural resource management and interests of the community. Key topics discussed throughout the book are still at the centre of the current debate. This compilation consists of well-written chapters based on rigorous synthesis of CBNRM case studies, which will serve as good references for students, researchers and practitioners in the years to come.

Lack of cross-scale linkages reduces robustness of community-based fisheries management.

Community-based management and the establishment of marine reserves have been advocated worldwide as means to overcome overexploitation of fisheries. Yet, researchers and managers are divided regarding the effectiveness of these measures. The "tragedy of the commons" model is often accepted as a universal paradigm, which assumes that unless managed by the State or privatized, common-pool resources are inevitably overexploited due to conflicts between the self-interest of individuals and the goals of a group as a whole. Under this paradigm, the emergence and maintenance of effective community-based efforts that include cooperative risky decisions as the establishment of marine reserves could not occur. In this paper, we question these assumptions and show that outcomes of commons dilemmas can be complex and scale-dependent. We studied the evolution and effectiveness of a community-based management effort to establish, monitor, and enforce a marine reserve network in the Gulf of California, Mexico. Our findings build on social and ecological research before (1997-2001), during (2002) and after (2003-2004) the establishment of marine reserves, which included participant observation in >100 fishing trips and meetings, interviews, as well as fishery dependent and independent monitoring. We found that locally crafted and enforced harvesting rules led to a rapid increase in resource abundance. Nevertheless, news about this increase spread quickly at a regional scale, resulting in poaching from outsiders and a subsequent rapid cascading effect on fishing resources and locally-designed rule compliance. We show that cooperation for management of common-pool fisheries, in which marine reserves form a core component of the system, can emerge, evolve rapidly, and be effective at a local scale even in recently organized fisheries. Stakeholder participation in monitoring, where there is a rapid feedback of the systems response, can play a key role in reinforcing cooperation. However, without cross-scale linkages with higher levels of governance, increase of local fishery stocks may attract outsiders who, if not restricted, will overharvest and threaten local governance. Fishers and fishing communities require incentives to maintain their management efforts. Rewarding local effective management with formal cross-scale governance recognition and support can generate these incentives.

Implementing REDD through community-based forest management: lessons from Tanzania

REDD (reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation) aims to slow carbon releases caused by forest disturbance by making payments conditional on forest quality over time. Like earlier policies to slow deforestation, REDD must change the behaviour of forest degrading actors. Broadly, it can be implemented with payments to forest users in exchange for improved forest management, thus creating incentives; through payments for enforcement, thus creating disincentives; or through addressing external drivers such as urban charcoal demand. In Tanzania, community-based forest management (CBFM), a form of participatory forest management, was chosen by the Tanzania Forest Conservation Group, a local NGO, as a model for implementing REDD pilot programmes. Payments are made to villages that have the rights to forest carbon. In exchange, the villages must demonstrably reduce deforestation at the village level. In this paper, using this pilot programme as a case study, combined with a review of the literature, we provide insights for REDD implementation in sub-Saharan Africa. We pay particular attention to leakage, monitoring and enforcement. We suggest that implementing REDD through CBFM-type structures can create appropriate incentives and behaviour change when the recipients of the REDD funds are also the key drivers of forest change. When external forces drive forest change, however, REDD through CBFM-type structures becomes an enforcement programme with local communities rather than government agencies being responsible for the enforcement. That structure imposes costs on local communities, whose local authority limits the ability to address leakage outside the particular REDD village.

High Stakes: Lessons from stakeholder groups in the biodiversity conservation network

Research in common property, participatory resource management, and community development points to the central importance of organizational arrangements in conservation and development interventions. The dilemma facing contemporary conservation practitioners is how best to assist and facilitate such arrangements in support of participatory resource management and sustainable livelihoods, given the range of organizations, societal processes, and structures in which interventions might engage. This article presents some key findings from a study of stakeholder groups at 4 project sites, with information from a further 16 sites, in the Biodiversity Conservation Network: (1) Longstanding organizations had an established community niche, but could become bogged down in bureaucratic procedures; (2) poor communication between organizations was common and could undermine resource management; and (3) charismatic individuals and local elite interests could dominate groups, diminishing their representativeness. Based on these findings, the article argues that conservation professionals need to build their capacity as facilitators and negotiators, paying greater attention to how stakeholder groups form and function, their links to wider arenas, and the aims and positions of groups and individuals.