17. The Future of Integrated Conservation and Development Projects: Building on What Works

Conservation and Development in Latin America and Southern Africa: Setting the Stage

“…Therefore, ICDPs proposed to tackle the whole range of conservation and development needs and issues in an integrated local fashion. ICDPs facilitated the transfer of substantial funds from developed to less developed countries; their impacts are much debated (for reviews see Hughes and Flintan 2001, Wells et al 2004, Sandker et al 2009, Blom et al 2010. With mixed results and high costs, and despite aspirations of participatory decision making, ICDPs were sometimes criticized as authoritarian interventions from outside that were not based on negotiated common objectives, and did not adequately consider the visions and aspirations of local stakeholders (Robinson andRedford 2004, Sayer et al 2007).…”

Preserving Biodiversity and Ecosystems: Catalyzing Conservation Contagion

“…Most of the criticism has been directed toward large integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) while the successes of small community-based projects have been overlooked (Horwich & Lyon, 2007). Even practitioners of ICDPs, however, have been disappointed by their limited achievements (Robinson & Redford, 2005) and are attempting to learn from their failures to maximize future success (McShane & Wells, 2004;Rhoades & Stalling, 2001). What seems clear at present is that ICDPs have been adhering to a faulty paradigm and have much to learn from community conservation and community-based forestry paradigms (Shepard, 2004).…”

“…ICDPs conceptualize local communities as generators of habitat degradation (McShane & Newby, 2004;McShane & Wells, 2004) based on the premise that humans utilize natural resources and may abuse them when community and governmental regulating systems break down, characteristic of the "tragedy of the commons" (Feeney et al, 1990;Hardin, 1968). However, if rural indigenous and other local people are seen as threats, they will have a greater probability of living up to that expectation.…”

“…While ICDP enthusiasts have undergone some soul searching because of the backlash and criticism from biologists and sociologists, they have rightly begun to learn from ICDP failures (McShane & Wells, 2004). Unfortunately, small community conservation projects have been neglected and are "below the radar" of the mainstream conservation community (see Horwich & Lyon, 2007) not withstanding published accounts of successes as well as problems of such projects (Horwich, 1990a(Horwich, , 1998(Horwich, , 2005Horwich & Lyon, 1988, 1995, 1999Horwich et al, 1993;Lyon & Horwich, 1996).…”

Participatory Vulnerability Assessment in the Context of Conservation and Development Projects: A Case Study of Local Communities in Southwest Cameroon

“…Organizations with the primary mission of conservation have more recently adopted forms of integrated conservation and development approaches (Campbell and Vainio-Mattila 2003), or a more explicit rights-based approach (Campese et al 2007). Rather than a concentration on protected areas alone, a more integrated landscape approach that aims to achieve both biodiversity conservation and development outcomes is becoming more widely adopted (Wells et al 2004). This shift toward more participatory processes to achieve conservation goals and with a landscape-level focus could be a significant step toward more equitable and successful conservation.…”