Conservation goes back to its roots

PUNE, India: Dawa Tsering Sherpa never thought he would see this day.

Standing in a village high in the Kanchenjunga range of the Himalayas,

he witnessed his community being handed the responsibility of managing

the surrounding mountains and valleys as a conservation area.

From Katmandu, Nepal's capital, had come "hakim sahibs" - a cabinet

minister, high-ranking officials, members of international conservation

organizations, even some foreign donors. The villagers were visibly

excited, for they knew it was a big day. But they may not have realized

its global significance.

A few years earlier, Nepal's government and conservation groups like WWF

had worked with local communities to make possible the transition to

local control. The aim was not only to ensure the conservation of this

unique mountain landscape and its wildlife, but also to provide local

people with sustainable options for livelihood, health and education. A

management council representing all the communities had been set up, and

Dawa Sherpa had been elected its chairman.

In the Indian state of Orissa, 2,000 kilometers to the south, Anjali

Pradhan was foraging in the forests of the Baisipalli Wildlife Sanctuary

for medicinal herbs that she could sell to traders. She kept a sharp eye

out for forest department guards, knowing that what she was doing was

illegal.

Some years back the government had banned collection of forest produce,

cutting off the most important source of livelihood for several thousand

families living inside the state's wildlife sanctuaries. Anjali's annual

family income had plummeted from the equivalent of about $200 to less

than $20, forcing her husband to move out in search for jobs in road

construction, and the remaining family members to scrounge around for a

risky illegal existence.

Areas protected for wildlife have dealt a severe blow to the livelihoods

of millions like Anjali across the world. More than a century and a half

of conservation policy based on the American "Yellowstone" model has

attempted to separate people from nature, leaving protected areas only

to tourists and scientists. Local people's own conservation traditions

have been neglected as conservation was placed in the hands of

centralized bureaucracies.

Thus the significance of the Kanchenjunga ceremony. In a clear break

from convention, Nepal intends to entrust protected area management to

communities who live closest to the resource, rather than rely only on

distant government officials.

This belated trust is not misplaced. Tens of thousands of sites rich in

biodiversity are conserved by indigenous peoples and local communities

across the world. Most of these remain unrecognized. In the Philippines,

more than 500 community marine conservation sites have been listed, and

similar numbers are emerging from the Pacific islands.

In South Asia, several thousand communities are conserving forests,

wetlands, marine and coastal areas. Nomadic peoples have managed

grassland and desert landscapes in Central Asia and the Horn of Africa

in ways that sustain considerable wildlife. Scholars estimate that 370

million hectares of forest may be under community- based conservation.

This trend will inevitably spread, and may double the world's current

coverage of protected areas. This is both because of growing democratic

and territorial assertiveness from communities, as also because

international policy now requires it. In 2004, countries that are

parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed to an ambitious

program of work on protected areas, which included the need to recognize

and support community-conserved areas and collaboratively managed

protected areas.

Such initiatives face enormous threats: political or socioeconomic

divisions within communities, the incursions of rapacious international

markets, imposition of destructive mining, and dams or other so-called

development projects.

The biggest threat, however, is that communities in many countries

remain without effective decision- making power and control over natural

resources. That is why the Nepalese example is so vital.

There is a tragic postscript to the Kanchenjunga ceremony. Dawa Tsering

Sherpa died, along with several officials and conservationists, in a

helicopter crash while returning from the ceremony. In their memory,

several groups are putting together a fund to promote community-based

conservation. High in the Himalayas, their legacy will live on as

villagers show that looking after protected areas can go hand in hand

with making a living.