Professional Documents
Culture Documents
San Vicente,
Leyte
Conservation, the definition of which I prefer is maintaining ecological and social adaptive capacity (Berkes et al., 2003),
is an uncertain, complex, messy and contentious undertaking. Whether the focus is on obscure, little known endemics or
the language, knowledge and traditions of particular cultural groups, effective, viable conservation requires working across
disciplines, with a wide range of individuals, at multiple scales, for a long time. Ultimately, nothing is more important to the
future adaptive capacity of humanity and our planet than the maintenance of biological and cultural diversity. Yet
conservation efforts often prompt more questions than they generate answers. At the most basic level, the questions
include: What to conserve? Why conserve? Where and when to conserve? And most importantly: How to conserve?
And by whom? Is conservation the same as protection?
As should be obvious from this list of questions, conservation is not simply a biological issue, but fundamentally a
social, cultural, economic and ultimately political undertaking. This may seem obvious, yet much of the conservation
conversation, or more accurately the debates that have raged for decades and the projects that have been pursued in the
name of conservation, have been framed, managed and directed largely by biologists, though social scientists and
activists have also had much to say. Some conservation efforts have clearly been successful, such as the reestablishment
of healthy osprey and bald eagle populations throughout much of the United States. Other efforts have not only failed, but
have arguably been counterproductive and left bitter legacies of conflict, such as in northern Lore Lindu N.P. in Sulawesi,
Indonesia as so richly documented by Li (2007).
One of the most contentious and oldest conservation debates revolves around how conservation
should be pursued, specifically whether biodiversity conservation (and in this context the focus has
been exclusively on biological diversity) should pursue:
- strict preservation (sometimes referred to as fortress conservation or coercive conservation) .
In this approach all utilitarian/extractive uses are prohibited, including hunting, gathering, forest
product collecting, farming, etc., whether they have been practiced for centuries or not.
See: Kramer et al. (1997), Struhsaker (1998), Terborgh (1999).
or
- conservation through sustainable
use, sometimes referred to as
working landscapes or wise use,
before the latter term was co-opted by
opponents of government
management of public lands in the
American West.
In this approach some utilitarian and
extractive uses, if managed on a
sustainable basis by resident people,
particularly indigenous populations in
tropical forests, are not only
compatible with, but essential to the
development of socially acceptable,
economically viable and politically
feasible conservation.
See: Brechin et al. (2003), Campbell et
al. (2010), Hutton et al. (2005), Kusters
et al. (2006), West & Brechin (1991).
The preservation vs. sustainable use conflict is an old one. John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club,
and Gifford Pinchot, first director of the U.S. Forest Service, debated the topic over a century ago
and their decisions continue to frame both the physical boundaries and politics of land use in the
American West and profoundly influenced conservation efforts around the world.
Yellowstone N.P.
Tropical forest degradation and conversion have been a global conservation issue for decades, but
has yet to be controlled, much less eliminated. For information regarding tropical forest biodiversity
loss see: Bradshaw et al. (2009), Brooks et al. (2006), Gardner et al. (2009), Jepsen et al. (2001),
Laurance (2007), Sodhi et al. 2006 & (2004). For discussions of tropical forest conservation efforts see:
Ashton (2007), Brooks et al. (2006), Butler & Laurance (2008), Curran et al. (2004), Harvey et al. (2008),
Hayes (2006), Holland et al. (2009), Peluso (1993), Peluso & Watts (1991), Schwartzman et al (2000),
Sodhi et al (2010).
See: Li (2007) re. state and international conservation efforts and their effects in northern Lore Lindu
N.P. and Siebert & Belsky (2002) for how the village of Moa addressed food insecurity in southern Lore
Lindu N.P.
forest clearing by
Javanese migrants,
Sulawesi
The preservation vs. sustainable use debate prompts many additional questions, such as:
What is being conserved and why? This question is often species-focused, particularly on species
important to the international conservation community and that generate interest, sympathy and
funding (e.g., think of the success WWF has had with its panda). Similar efforts focus on conserving
iconic landscapes and ecologically unique communities (e.g., Yellowstone and the Galapagos).
Efforts to conserve species often entail identifying and specifying biological criteria (e.g., minimum
viable population sizes), while preserving iconic sites focuses on unique natural features (e.g.,
glaciers in Glacier N.P.).
For example, assume one is interested in conserving the rare and endangered Sumatran Tiger
in Kerinci, Sumatra. Why are Sumatran Tigers endangered? Is it due to habitat loss? If so, what
are the causal factors and underlying forces that drive tiger habitat loss in Kerinci? Is it resident
collection of rattan and the cultivation of cinnamon and coffee in forest farms? Or are state and
multinational corporate logging practices the primary cause? Or is it habitat loss due to the
establishment of vast oil palm plantations? Whatever the specific cause(s), what are the
underlying economic, political and social forces that facilitate or drive forest conversion and tiger
habitat loss? Alternatively, perhaps hunting of Sumatran tigers for the lucrative Chinese
aphrodisiac market is the primary cause of their decline. If so, what underlying economic, political
and social forces facilitate this activity? Or, perhaps the decline in tigers results from insufficient
prey, disease, and/or loss of genetic vigor due to inbreeding depression among an already small
population.
For discussions of forest conversion in
Indonesian protected areas, including
Kerinci-Seblat N.P., see: Curran et al.
(2004), Fitzherbert et al. (2008), and Linke
et al. (2008).
For reviews of causal factors and
underlying drivers of tropical forest
degradation and conversion, see:
Chomitz, (2007), Dove, (1993), Fearnside
(2008), Geist & Lambin (2002), Hecht &
Cockburn (1989), and Rudel (2005).
For historical perspectives on forest
exploitation, see: Tucker (2000) and
Wallace (1869).
The role and importance of habitat loss/ecological disturbance raises many questions, including:
With respect to tigers, what forest types are favorable to ungulates, pigs and other animals that
Sumatran tigers feed upon?
How are these forest conditions created and maintained? Specifically, what disturbance regimes and
attributes (i.e., type, size, intensity, duration, frequency and pattern) favor Sumatran tigers?
See: Uhl (1990) for an introduction to natural and anthropogenic disturbance regimes.
What historic disturbance regimes shaped and maintained the flora and fauna of Kerinci?
What role did people, who have lived in, utilized and managed forests in Kerinci for centuries play in
shaping and maintaining the regions flora and fauna?
How were Sumatran Tigers able to co-exist, or at least survive, with humans in the past?
Why do Bengal tigers still survive in Bhutan
and India where human populations and land
use pressures are greater than Kerinci?
See: Namgyel et al. (2008) regarding potential
relationships between swidden agriculture
and tigers in Bhutan.
Have historic disturbance regimes changed?
If so, how? Over what time period?
If disturbance regimes have changed, what
were the causal factors and underlying
driving forces?
swidden field, Bhutan
Ecological disturbance can be explored any place, but are always site specific and must consider how
disturbance regimes have changed over time, particularly disturbances that affect (i.e., shape or
maintain) biodiversity of conservation concern.
See: Perera et al. 2004 for analysis of attempts to emulate natural disturbance regimes in managing
coniferous forests in western Canada.
British Columbia
Historic ecological disturbances raise the broader issue of the role of indigenous people (i.e., native
inhabitants) in those disturbances, that is in shaping and maintaining biological diversity and
landscape conditions prior to the age of globalization ushered in by Columbus.
How did historic anthropogenic disturbance regimes affect the development of contemporary
biodiversity and ecological conditions (e.g., soils) and functions (e.g., nutrient cycling), and how have
disturbance regimes changed since European contact,
colonization and the exchange of people, plants,
animals, diseases and other organisms around the
world?
The changes wrought by this contact, what Mann
(2011) describes as convulsive transculturation,
profoundly impacted every corner of the planet.
Manns popular books, 1493 (2011) and 1491 (2005),
and the research upon which they are based, raise
disturbing questions for preservationists.
Of particular concern is the possibility that biodiversity
and landscape conditions throughout the New World
largely reflect that which developed in the 500 years
since the death of up to 95% of the hemispheres
original inhabitants due to European diseases,
Starvation, genocide and conflict.
The role of humans in historic ecological disturbances raises numerous interesting questions:
If forests throughout much of the New World were less extensive and more actively managed,
frequently burned, etc. before Columbus, as appears to have been the case, are post-Columbian
conditions a cultural artifact as some have argued?
If some apparently pristine tropical forests only developed over the past five centuries, might
tropical forests be more resilient to disturbance than is commonly assumed?
If so, resilient to what specific
disturbance types and attributes?
How significant and widespread
are historic anthropogenic
disturbances in the tropical
forests of Asia and Africa?
How does one investigate this?
For discussions of historic
anthropogenic land uses and
disturbance of tropical forests see:
Brondzio (2008), Bayliss-Smith
et al. (2003), Bird et al. (2008),
Bush & Silman (2007), Denham
et al. (2003), Denevan (2004),
Haberle (2007), Kealhofer (2003),
Ranganathan et al. (2008), Willis
et al. (2004), and Xu et al. (2009).
Poussin (1648)
from Grove & Rackham (2001)
The topic of sustainability, specifically defining, implementing and managing sustainable use, raises
many complex and contentious issues, including:
How does one define sustainable use?
Is a comprehensive definition possible? That is,
does it address everything from genetic
variability within a population through all
possible effects associated with use/extraction
on ecosystem processes over an ecologically
meaningful time period? Or is the notion of
sustainable development an oxymoron?
See: Ludwig et al. (1993) and Struhsaker (1998).
Are there successful examples of sustainable
use of forests, wildlife or fisheries?
See: Jackson et al. (2001) and Ludwig et al.
(1993) for examples from marine fisheries.
Important socioeconomic considerations
inherent in sustainable resource use are
reviewed by: Belcher et al. (2005), Campos
& Nepstad (2006), Knoke et al. (2009) and
Ostrom (2009).
Nasi & Frost (2009), Pearce et al. (2003) and
Putz et al. (2001) review challenges in and
prospects for sustainable management of
tropical forests.
Arnol harvesting rattan cane near Moa
Managing for sustainable use typically entails using a commodity at some predictable and +/- fixed
level. In contrast, managing for social and ecological resilience (i.e., maintaining adaptive capacity)
recognizes that social and ecological change varies and is unpredictable and inevitable.
Consequently, managing for resilience seeks to retain the capacity to adapt to change through
nurturing social and ecological diversity, memory and redundancy.
See: Berkes et al. (2003) for an overview and examples of resilience, and the online journal Ecology
and Society for case studies that employ the resilience framework.
Balinese farmers
have managed
irrigated rice
paddies and
adjacent upland
forests on a
sustainable basis
for centuries
without external
inputs.
How did they
manage this?
References:
Ashton, P. 2007. Asias tropics are the most intensively used: Contrasting conservation strategies between South and East. Current
Science 93:1538-1543.
Bayliss-Smith, Y., E. Hviding, T. Whitmore. 2003. Rainforest composition and histories of human disturbance in Solomon Islands.
Ambio 32: 346-352.
Belcher, B., et al. 2005. The socioeconomic conditions determining the development, persistence, and decline of forest garden
systems. Economic Botany 59:245-253.
Belsky, J.M. and S.F. Siebert. 1983. Household responses to drought in two subsistence Leyte villages. Philippine Quarterly of
Culture andSociety 11:237-256.
Berkes. F. 2008. Sacred Ecology 2nd edition. NY: Routledge.
Berkes, F., J. Colding, C. Folke, eds. 2003. Navigating Social-Ecological Systems. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Bird, R., et al. 2008. The fire stick farming hypothesis: Australian aboriginal foraging strategies, biodiversity, and anthropogenic
fire mosaics. PNAS 105(39):14796-14801.
Brechin, S., P. Wilshusen, C. Fortwangler, P. West, eds. 2003. Contested Nature: Promoting International Biodiversity Conservation
with Social Justice in the Twenty-first Century. State Univ. of NY,
Bradshaw, C. et al. 2009. Tropical turmoil: a biodiversity tragedy in progress. Front Ecol Environ 7:79-87.
Brondzio, E. 2008. The Amazonian Caboclo and the Aa Palm: Forest Farmers in the Global Market. Advances in Economic Botany,
Vol. 16. NY: The New York Botanical Garden.
Brooks, T., et al. 2006. Global biodiversity conservation priorities. Science 313:58-61.
Bruner, A.; R. Gullison; R. Rice; G. da Fonseca. 2001. Effectiveness of parks in protecting tropical biodiversity. Science 291:125-128.
Bush, M. and M. Silman. 2007. Amazonian exploitation revisited: ecological asymmetry and the policy pendulum. Front Ecol Environ
5:457-465.
Butler, R. & W. Laurance. 2008. New strategies for conserving tropical forests. TRENDS Ecol. & Evol. 23:469-472.
Campbell, B., J. Sayer, B. Walker. 2010. Navigating trade-offs: working for conservation and development outcomes. Ecology and
Society 15(2)16.
Campos, M and D. Nepstad. 2006. Small holders, the Amazons new conservationists. Conservation Biology 20:1553-1556.
Chomitz, K. 2007. At Loggerheads? The World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Curran, L. et al. 2004. Lowland forest loss in protected areas of Indonesian Borneo. Science 303: 1000-1003.
Davis, W. 2007. Light at the Edge of the World. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre.
Denham, T. et al. 2003. Origins of agriculture at Kuk swamp in the highlands of New Guinea. Science 301:189-193.
Denevan, W. 2004. Semi-intensive pre-European cultivation and the origins of anthropogenic dark earth in Amazonia. In: Glaser, B.
and W. Woods (ed). Amazonian Dark Earths: Explorations in Space and Time. Springer, NY. pp. 135-143.
Dove, M. 1993. A revisionist view of tropical deforestation and development. Environmental Conservation 20:17-24.
Fearnside, P. 2008. The roles and movements of actors in the deforestation of Brazilian Amazonia. Ecology and Society 13(1):23.
Fitzherbert, E., et al. 2008. How will oil palm expansion affect biodiversity? TRENDS in Ecol & Evol 23:538-454.
Freese, C., ed. 1997. Harvesting Wild Species: Implications for Biodiversity Conservation. Baltimore: John Hopkins Univ. Press.
Gardner, T. et al. 2009. Prospects for tropical forest biodiversity in a human-modified world. Ecology Letters 12:561-582.
Geist, H. and E. Lambin. 2002. Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation. BioScience 52:143-150.
Gomez-Pompa, A. and A. Kaus. 1992. Taming the wilderness myth. BioScience 42:271-279.
Grove, A. and O. Rackham. 2001. The Nature of Mediterranean Europe: An Ecological History. Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, CT.
Haberle, S. 2007. Prehistoric human impact on rainforest biodiversity in highland New Guinea. Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 362:219-228.
Hall, P. and K. Bawa. 1993. Methods to assess the impact of extraction of non-timber tropical forest products on plant populations
Economic Botany 47:234-247.
Harvey, C. et al. 2008. Integrating agricultural landscapes with biodiversity conservation in the Mesoamerican hotspot. Conservation
Biology 22:8-15.
Hayes, T. 2006. Parks, people, and forest protection: an institutional assessment of the effectiveness of protected areas. World
Development 34:2064-2075.
Hecht, S., A. Anderson, P. May. 1988. The subsidy from nature: shifting cultivation, successional palm forests, and rural
development. Human Organization 47:25-35.
Hecht, S. and A. Cockburn. 1989. The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers and Defenders of the Amazon. Verso, NY.
Holland, T. et al. 2009. A cross-national analysis of how economic inequality predicts biodiversity loss. Conservation Biology
23:1304-1313.
Hutton, J., W. Adams, J. Murombedzi. 2005. Back to the barriers? Changing narratives in biodiversity conservation. Forum for
Development Studies 32:341-370.
Jackson, J. et al. 2001. Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems. Science 293:629-638
Janzen, D. 1998. Gardenification of wildland nature and the human footprint. Science 279:1312-1313.
Jepsen, P., et al. 2001. The end for Indonesias lowland forests? Science 292:859-861.
Kealhofer, L. 2003. Looking into the gap: land use and the tropical forests of southern Thailand. Asian Perspectives 42:72-95.
Knoke, T. et al. 2009. Can tropical farmers reconcile subsistence needs with forest conservation? Front Ecol Environ 7:548-554.
Kramer, R.; C. van Schaik; J. Johnson, eds. 1997. Last Stand: Protected Areas and the Defense of Biodiversity. London: Oxford Univ.
Press.
Kusters, K. et al. 2006. Balancing development and conservation? An assessment of livelihood and environmental outcomes of
nontimber forest product trade in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Ecology and Society 12(2):20.
Laurance, W. 2007. Forest destruction in tropical Asia. Current Science 93:1544-1550.
Lansing, S. 1991. Priests and Programmers: Technologies of Power in the Engineered Landscape of Bali, Princeton, Univ. Press,
Princeton.
Li, T. 2007. The Will to Improve. Chapel Hill, NC: Duke University Press.
Linke, M. et al. 2008. Evaluating biodiversity conservation around a large Sumatran protected area. Conservation Biology 22:683-690.
Ludwig, D., et al. 1993. Uncertainty, resource exploitation, and conservation: lessons from history. Science 269:17-18.
Mann, C. 2011. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created. Knopf, NY.
Mann, C. 2005. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Knopf, NY.
Namgyel, U., et al. 2008. Shifting cultivation and biodiversity conservation in Bhutan. Conservation Biology 22:1349-1351.
Nasi, R. & P. Frost. 2009. Sustainable forest management in the tropics: is everything in order but the patient still dying? Ecology
and Society 14(2):40.
Nepstad, D. and S. Schwartzman, eds. 1992. Non-Timber Products from Tropical Forests. Advances in Economic Botany Vol. 9,
New York Botanical Garden., NY
Ostrom, E. 2009. A general framework for analyzing sustainability of social-ecological systems. Science 325:419-422.
Pearce, D.; F. Putz; J. Vanclay. 2003. Sustainable forestry in the tropics: panacea or folly? Forest Ecology and Management
172:229-247.
Peluso, N. 1993. Coercing Conservation?: The Politics of State Resource Control. Global Environmental Change 3:199-218.
Peluso, N. and M. Watts (eds). 2001. Violent Environments. Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca, NY.
Perera, A., L. Buse, M. Weber ( eds). 2004. Emulating Natural Forest Landscape Disturbances. Columbia Univ. Press, NY.
Peters, C. 1994. Sustainable Harvest of Non-Timber Plant Resources in Tropical Moist Forest: An Ecological Primer. Washington,
D.C.: Biodiversity Support Program, World Wildlife Fund.
Peters, C. et al. 1989. Valuation of a tropical forest in Peruvian Amazonia. Nature 339:656-657.
Plotkin, M. and L. Famolare, eds. 1992. Sustainable Harvest and Marketing of Rain Forest Products. Island Press, Washington, D.C.
Putz, F. et al. 2001. Tropical forest management and conservation of biodiversity: an overview. Conservation Biology 15:7-20.
Ranganathan, J., et al. 2008. Sustaining biodiversity in ancient tropical countryside. PNAS 105:17852-17854.
Rudel, T. 2005. Tropical Forests: Regional Paths of Destruction and Regeneration in the Late Twentieth Century. Columbia Univ.
Press, NY.
Salafsky, N., S. Dugleby, J. Terborgh. 1993. Can extractive reserves save the rain forest? An ecological and socioeconomic
comparison of nontimber forest product extraction systems in Peten, Guatemala and West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Conservation
Biology 7:39-52.
Schwartzman, S., A. Moreira, D. Nepstad. 2000. Rethinking tropical forest conservation: perils in parks. Conservation Biology
14:1351-1357.
Siebert, S.F. 2004. Traditional agriculture and the conservation of biological diversity in Crete, Greece. Inter J of Agricultural
Sustainability 2:109-117.
Siebert, S.F. 1995. Prospects for sustained-yield harvesting of rattan (Calamus spp.) in two Indonesian national parks. Society and
Natural Resources 8:209-218.
Siebert, S.F. and J.M. Belsky. 2002. Livelihood security and protected area management. International Journal of Wilderness
8(2):38-42.
Sodhi, N., et al. 2010. Conserving Southeast Asian forest biodiversity in human-modified landscapes. Biological Conservation
143:2375-2384.
Sodhi, N., et al. 2006. Biodiversity and human livelihood crises in the Malay Archipelago. Conservation Biology 20:1811-1813.
Sodhi, N., et al. 2004. Southeast Asian biodiversity: an impending disaster. TRENDS in Ecol & Evol. 19:654-660.
Struhsaker, T. 1998. A biologists perspective on the role of sustainable harvest in conservation. Conservation Biology 12:930-932.
Terborgh, J. 1999. Requiem for Nature. Island Press, Washington, D.C.
Ticktin, T. 2004. The ecological impacts of harvesting non-timber forest products. J. of Applied Ecology 41:11-21.
Tucker, R. 2000. Insatiable Appetite. Univ. of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Uhl, C., et al. 1990. Studies of ecosystem response to natural and anthropogenic disturbances provide guidelines for designing
sustainable land-use systems in Amazonia. In: A. Anderson (ed) Alternatives to Deforestation. Columbia Univ. Press, NY, pp. 2442.
Wallace, A.R. 1869. The Malay Archipelago. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford (reprint). pp. 596-598.
West, P. and S. Brechin (eds). 1991. Resident Peoples and National Parks. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Willis, K.; L. Gillison, T. Brncic. 2004. How virgin is virgin rainforest. Science 304:402-403.
Xu, J., L. Lebel. J. Sturgeon. 2009. Functional links between biodiversity, livelihoods, and culture in a Hani swidden landscape in
southwest China. Ecology and Society 14(2):20.