Measures of socio-economic impacts of conservation interventions have largely been restricted to externally defined indicators focused on income, which do not reflect people's priorities. Using a ...holistic, locally grounded conceptualization of human well-being instead provides a way to understand the multi-faceted impacts of conservation on aspects of people's lives that they value. Conservationists are engaging with well-being for both pragmatic and ethical reasons, yet current guidance on how to operationalize the concept is limited. We present nine guiding principles based around a well-being framework incorporating material, relational and subjective components, and focused on gaining knowledge needed for decision-making. The principles relate to four key components of an impact evaluation: (i) defining well-being indicators, giving primacy to the perceptions of those most impacted by interventions through qualitative research, and considering subjective well-being, which can affect engagement with conservation; (ii) attributing impacts to interventions through quasi-experimental designs, or alternative methods such as theory-based, case study and participatory approaches, depending on the setting and evidence required; (iii) understanding the processes of change including evidence of causal linkages, and consideration of trajectories of change and institutional processes; and (iv) data collection with methods selected and applied with sensitivity to research context, consideration of heterogeneity of impacts along relevant societal divisions, and conducted by evaluators with local expertise and independence from the intervention.
Pastoralist areas of Ethiopia are vulnerable to drought, causing livelihood loss and famine. One approach to increasing pastoralist resilience is the control of livestock disease, but there is ...limited information from pastoralist areas to inform control strategies. This study aimed to explore pastoralist concepts of small ruminant disease and implications for infectious disease surveillance and control in the pastoralist Afar Region.
During 2013–14, qualitative and quantitative methods were applied in two villages of one district in the mid-west of the region. Semi-structured group interviews, incorporating participatory tools, explored pastoralist knowledge of small ruminant diseases and their impact. These were followed by multiple visits in different seasons to 70 households for semi-structured and informal interviews, observation of management practices, clinical examinations, and weekly questionnaires of mortality and morbidity. Thematic analysis was applied to interview transcripts and field notes, and descriptive statistical analysis to quantitative data.
Afar concepts of disease causation, terminology and treatment were predominantly naturalistic, related to observable signs and physical causes, rather than personalistic factors (misfortune due to magical or spiritual agents). Disease occurrence was associated with malnutrition and adverse weather, and disease spread with contact between animals during grazing, watering and migration. Disease occurrence varied by season with most syndromes increasing in frequency during the dry season.
Names for disease syndromes were related to the main clinical sign or body part affected; 70 terms were recorded for respiratory syndromes, diarrhoea, sheep and goat pox, lameness, skin diseases, ectoparasites, urinary and neurological syndromes and abortion. Some syndromes with pathognomonic signs could be linked to biomedical diagnoses but most were non-specific with several possible diagnoses. The syndromes causing greatest impact were diarrhoea and respiratory disease, due to mortality, reduced milk production, weight loss, abortion, weak offspring and reduced market value. Afar applied a range of traditional methods and modern medicines to prevent or treat disease, based on livestock keeper knowledge, advice of local specialists and occasionally advice from district veterinarians or animal health workers.
In relation to surveillance for peste des petits ruminants (PPR), several terms were used for PPR-like syndromes, depending on the predominance of respiratory or diarrhoea signs. Therefore, whenever these terms are encountered during surveillance, the associated disease events should be fully investigated and samples collected for laboratory confirmation. The Afar naturalistic concepts of disease parallel biomedical concepts and provide a good foundation for communication between veterinarians and pastoralists in relation to PPR surveillance and control measures.
East African arid and semi-arid lands are home to many of the world's pastoralists and most spectacular savanna wildlife populations, attracting substantial conservation and tourism revenues. Yet ...these peoples are among the poorest (and most affected by extreme climatic events), and the wildlife is in unsustainable decline. National governments, international donors and conservation agencies favour win-win solutions through conservation with development. Maasailand is a hotspot of conservation, poverty and new initiatives to redistribute tourist income. We outline pastoralist livelihoods and how these are changing, then summarise status and trends of wildlife populations, tourism revenues, and conservation and development initiatives in East Africa and Maasailand. We ask to what extent wildlife revenues contribute to pastoralist livelihoods and whether this translates into a robust basis for coexistence. To put in context the role and importance of wildlife- and tourism-based activities, we outline findings from a multi-site study of Maasai livelihoods. Livestock contribute half or more of the mean annual income in all sites, with off-farm work and farming ranking second and third, respectively, except in Mara, where wildlife-based income contributes around 20% income across all wealth categories. In most sites, significant areas have been set aside for conservation and tourism, but wildlife contributes <5% income to a small proportion of households at most. Few wildlife-derived benefits flow to pastoralists, while conservation restrictions constrain production and coping strategies, undermining potential for coexistence. In exceptional circumstances, significant wildlife revenue may reach households, but full social and ecological implications of associated conservancy agreements remain unclear.
Environmental policies in African rangelands affect development and welfare as well as environmental measures. Biodiversity is widely perceived as declining, and environments as undergoing ...degradation, through rural population growth and resource use. These assumptions are often underpinned by environmental discourses contesting control of natural resources, rather than by objectively measured trends and causalities. Orthodox biodiversity conservation policy advocates fortress conservation. Savanna species do better where they can disperse across wider landscapes with conservation-compatible rural land uses, rather than isolated in protected areas, but community-based conservation initiatives have been disappointing. Policies addressing land degradation, and their underlying assumptions, are subject to similar challenges. The paper outlines a natural experiment investigating biodiversity and land cover changes 1975–1995 for 100,000
km
2 cross-border rangeland including the Serengeti–Mara conservation areas and their buffer zones. Ecological, ethnic and micro-economic continuities make it possible to control for confounding factors and identify main drivers of change. Privatisation of formerly communal rangeland, and its conversion to commercial monoculture, have driven drastic land cover and wildlife declines in Kenya. Population growth and agropastoral land use were not significant factors. The gap between natural and social science, and western versus local understandings, needs bridging to achieve more effective environmental policy.
Measures of socio-economic impacts of conservation interventions have largely been restricted to externally defined indicators focused on income, which do not reflect people's priorities. Using a ...holistic, locally grounded conceptualization of human well-being instead provides a way to understand the multi-faceted impacts of conservation on aspects of people's lives that they value. Conservationists are engaging with well-being for both pragmatic and ethical reasons, yet current guidance on how to operationalize the concept is limited. We present nine guiding principles based around a well-being framework incorporating material, relational and subjective components, and focused on gaining knowledge needed for decision-making. The principles relate to four key components of an impact evaluation: (i) defining well-being indicators, giving primacy to the perceptions of those most impacted by interventions through qualitative research, and considering subjective well-being, which can affect engagement with conservation; (ii) attributing impacts to interventions through quasi-experimental designs, or alternative methods such as theory-based, case study and participatory approaches, depending on the setting and evidence required; (iii) understanding the processes of change including evidence of causal linkages, and consideration of trajectories of change and institutional processes; and (iv) data collection with methods selected and applied with sensitivity to research context, consideration of heterogeneity of impacts along relevant societal divisions, and conducted by evaluators with local expertise and independence from the intervention.
Local access to “wild,” common-pool terrestrial and aquatic resources is being diminished by global resource demand and large-scale conservation interventions. Many theories suggest the well-being of ...wild harvesters can be supported through transitions to other livelihoods, improved infrastructure, and market access. However, new theories argue that such benefits may not always occur because they are context dependent and vary across dimensions of well-being. We test these theories by comparing how wild harvesting and other livelihoods have been associated with food security and life satisfaction in different contexts across ∼10,800 households in the tropics. Wild harvests coincided with high well-being in remote, asset-poor, and less-transformed landscapes. Yet, overall, well-being increased with electrical infrastructure, proximity to cities, and household capitals. This provides large-scale confirmation of the context dependence of nature’s contributions to people, and suggests a need to maintain local wild resource access while investing in equitable access to infrastructure, markets, and skills.
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•Hundreds of millions of people in the tropics harvest “wild” common-pool resources•Wild harvests are correlated with high relative well-being in remote and poor areas•Access to infrastructure, cities, assets, and skills also increase well-being overall•The well-being of many people relies on both wild resources and economic development
Hundreds of millions of local people in the tropics harvest food, firewood, and other products from unmanaged (or “wild”) forests, grasslands, rivers, lakes, and seas. Yet global demand for resources, and proposals for large protected areas, are set to reduce the local availability of these wild products.
Many people argue that local wild harvesters can be sufficiently compensated by investing in better infrastructure, improving skills, and creating alternative sources of income. However, new evidence calls for caution in assuming that wild harvests can be so easily substituted, especially in the short term. While improved access to infrastructure, markets and skills is beneficial, it needs to be balanced with continued access to wild harvests if the well-being of all groups is to be protected—especially among more remote, marginalized, and poorer communities.
The contribution of wild resources to human well-being in different contexts remains debated. We analyze associations between wild harvesting, food security, and life satisfaction across ∼10,800 households across the tropics. We find that, while harvests are very common and strongly correlate with well-being in remote and poor areas, access to infrastructure, markets, and skills are also highly important. Policies should aim to maintain wild resource access while investing in equitable access to infrastructure, markets, and skills.
Book details
Book review of
Conservation and Community in Kenya: Milking the Elephant
by Carolyn Lesorogol. Lanham, Boulder, New York, London: Lexington. 2022. ISBN 9781793650290; e-ISBN ...9781793650306.
ABSTRACT
Most conservation and development initiatives assume that rules limiting resource extraction are necessary for ecological sustainability. While this is often true, in some social–ecological ...systems, unpredictable ecosystem dynamics and limited exploitation technology make it unlikely that people will overstep the ecological threshold, precluding the need for management rules. Here, two kinds of systems can emerge: open access systems in which individuals can meet their needs without cooperating with others, and a cooperative open access system in which social rules are required though management rules are not, because individuals need to cooperate to survive and to prevent erosion of cooperation by free‐riders. We provide three brief case studies illustrating cooperative open access: Pantaneiro fishers, Agta hunter‐gatherers, and Maasai pastoralists. We conclude that understanding these exceptions is pivotal for a better theoretical understanding of social–ecological systems, and can be valuable in building a strategic approach to conservation.
Common understanding of the causes of land-use and land-cover change is dominated by simplifications which, in turn, underlie many environment-development policies. This article tracks some of the ...major myths on driving forces of land-cover change and proposes alternative pathways of change that are better supported by case study evidence. Cases reviewed support the conclusion that neither population nor poverty alone constitute the sole and major underlying causes of land-cover change worldwide. Rather, peoples’ responses to economic opportunities, as mediated by institutional factors, drive land-cover changes. Opportunities and constraints for new land uses are created by local as well as national markets and policies. Global forces become the main determinants of land-use change, as they amplify or attenuate local factors.
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