A new approach to conservation: using community empowerment for sustainable well-being

Abstract

ABSTRACT. The global environmental conservation community recognizes that the participation of local communities is essential for the success of conservation initiatives; however, much work remains to be done on how to integrate conservation and human wellbeing. We propose that an assets-based approach to environmental conservation and human well-being, which is grounded in a biocultural framework, can support sustainable and adaptive management of natural resources by communities in regions adjacent to protected areas. We present evidence from conservation and quality of life initiatives led by the Field Museum of Natural History over the past 17 years in the Peruvian Amazon. Data were derived from asset mapping in 37 communities where rapid inventories were conducted and from 38 communities that participated in longer term quality of life planning. Our main findings are that Amazonian communities have many characteristics, or assets, that recent scholarship has linked to environmental sustainability and good natural resource stewardship, and that quality of life plans that are based on these assets tend to produce priorities that are more consistent with environmental conservation. Importantly, we found that validating social and ecological assets through our approach can contribute to the creation of protected areas and to their long-term management. As strategies to engage local communities in conservation expand, research on how particular methodologies, such as an assets-based approach, is needed to determine how these initiatives can best empower local communities, how they can be improved, and how they can most effectively be linked to broader conservation and development processes.

Moving beyond the human–nature dichotomy through biocultural approaches: including ecological well-being in resilience indicators

“…Biocultural approaches employ participatory methods for goal setting, identification of locally relevant criteria and indicators of resilience, monitoring, and evaluation, and continued adaptive management (e.g., Tipa and Nelson 2008, Verschuuren 2012, Wali et al 2017, Sterling et al 2017a, McCarter et al 2018. The process of selecting indicators for human well-being in biocultural landscapes, for example in Bolivia (Escobar 2014) as well as in Ghana (Guri and Verschuuren 2014), shows that many IPLCs recognize a direct link between human well-being and landscape quality.…”

“…Current methods that expand the breadth of resilience indicators available for decision-making in biocultural approaches include cultural landscape and community asset mapping, multispecies ethnographies, and the development of community well-being indicators for the conservation of biocultural landscapes (Ens 2012, Pert et al 2015, Wali et al 2017, Thạch et al 2017, McCarter et al 2018). …”

“…Recent efforts to reconcile nature conservation and human development include promoting the integration of social sciences into conservation (Mascia et al 2003, Agrawal and Ostrom 2006, Brosius 2006, Barry and Born 2013, Sandbrook et al 2013, Bennett et al 2016, Ives et al 2017 and the integration of local actors (e.g., community members, NGOs, local government) into research and action through social-ecological systems resilience studies, community-based management, or in situ conservation of agrobiodiversity (Altieri and Merrick 1987, Alcorn 1993, Pinedo-Vásquez and Padoch 1993, Berkes 2008, Liu and Opdam 2014, Ens et al 2016. These efforts have led to (1) more nuanced human well-being indicators, modified from the Human Development Index, to better integrate material conditions, quality of life (e.g., spiritual dimensions, social connections, environmental quality, and subjective wellbeing), and sustainability of well-being (i.e., human, social, economic, and natural capital) (Clark 2014, OECD 2015, Biedenweg et al 2017, Gross-Camp 2017, Wali et al 2017, and (2) sets of indicators, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, that include people-focused and ecological goals but fall short in integrating these domains through attention to the feedbacks and interactions between humans and the environment.…”

Logging Community-Based Forests in the Amazon: An Analysis of External Influences, Multi-Partner Governance, and Resilience

“…The understanding of the cooperative members that they were limited by technical knowledge to put CFM into practice encouraged them to seek organizational support. The positive outcomes that the cooperative has had are partly related to its capacity to seek partners and strengthen its social capital [24,99]. Data show that without the partnership within the governance system created to establish the forest management, the cooperative would hardly have advanced in its activities.…”

“…Cooperation can strengthen trust between partners [99] and achieve broad objectives such as conservation and development [102]. Indeed, trust is a key factor in the ongoing partnerships in TNF.…”