Towards a win-win culture in conservation: identifying the means for maximizing biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction
Principal Investigator: Dr. J. Carter Ingram, Earth Institute, Columbia University
Background
Despite decades of work, hundreds of projects, thousands of trained professionals and millions of dollars, progress in biodiversity conservation has been sluggish and inconsistent (Salafsky et al. 2002). The paucity of success stories in conservation has been likened to the low success rates in poverty alleviation during the 20th century, for which years of investment failed to improve the plight of many of Africa°s desperate poor (Redford and Taber 2000). The connections between biodiversity and poverty extend beyond their records of success and are becoming increasingly appreciated by world leaders and researchers. As stated by Kofi Anan in a recent United Nations press release, ¿Unless we stop the loss of biological resources, our efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 will be that much more difficult, if not impossible ¿(Anan 2003). In a meeting on ´Biodiversity after Johannesburg° in London, current information gaps in the understanding of biodiversity and poverty were identified and included: (1) the lack of indicators for measuring biodiversity and poverty, or an index that combines the two into one holistic measure of environmental and social well being and (2) the scarcity of protocols or typologies, which demonstrate the kinds of community level projects which work under various conditions (McNeely 2003).
The United Nations Development Program°s Equator Initiative provides a unique opportunity to consider these issues. The Equator Initiative has adopted innovative approaches in addressing these problems and is paving the way for the achievement of the Millenium Development Goals by promoting synergies between community scale conservation and poverty reduction. The initiative honors and supports projects within countries of the equatorial zone that have effectively reduced poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. These case studies provide examples of how conservation and poverty reduction can be achieved synchronously.
Project Purpose
This research aims to contribute towards improving conservation effectiveness of protecting biodiversity and reducing poverty in tropical, developing countries by filling some of the existent information gaps. Specifically, this project will seek to advance understanding of the interface between conservation of biodiversity and poverty reduction by: (1) identifying a typology of social and environmental factors which characterize effective conservation programs; (2) quantifying relationships between the two issues; and (3) developing/applying a suite of poverty and biodiversity indices which can be applied and contextually adapted to assess and monitor environmental and social ¿successî of conservation projects.
Partners and Collaborators
The identified partners for this project are the Earth Institute at Columbia University, the Conservation and Environmental Research Consortium at Columbia University, and the UNDP Equator Initiative.
References
Anan, Kofi, 2003. United Nations press release 13/05/2003
McNeely, Jeff. 2003. Intermediate Report from Working Group on Hunger, Poverty and Biodiversity. From ´Biodiversity after Johannesburg°. Zoological Society of London, 2-4 March 2003. http://www.equatorinitiative.org/secondary/biodiversity_agenda.htm
Redford, K. and A. Taber. 2000. Writing the wrongs: developing a safe-fail culture in conservation. Conservation Biology 14: 1567-1568.
Salafsky, N., Margoulis, R. and K. Redford. 2002. Improving the practice of conservation: a conceptual framework and research agenda for conservation science. Conservation Biology 16: 1469-1479.
|
