Community-based conservation

Community-based conservation (CBC) was first proposed as a corrective to protectionism, to encourage local participation in environmental management.  Since, there has been a growing tendency towards CBC, despite drawbacks such as proclaiming projects for the most part conducted by outside agents as community-based or misconceiving the community as a homogeneous and small spatial unit. Another pitfall of CBC is that biased stakeholders may choose to ignore moratoriums, or even fix unsustainable quotas. A harsher critique of CBC warns that the protection of biodiversity is intrinsically incompatible with sustainable development. Nonetheless, merging the well-being of the community with biodiversity conservation is internationally recognized as an effective approach to ecosystem management. When stakeholders profit from the linkage of wildlife conservation and sustainable development, biodiversity loss is circumvented.

Research-based resource management and conservation policies are amid mankind’s best defenses against biodiversity loss. To benefit from the integration of conservation and development, stakeholders must possess the capacities needed for informed decision-making in commons management, for example in dealing with many objectives at once or for understanding ‘wicked’ environmental problems such as climate change. Not only does the ownership of common resources strengthen communities against the trend towards the valuation of nature and larger scale eco-regional approaches supported by geo-spatial technologies, but also protects against cultural and environmental homogenization. It takes perseverance and dedication but engaging in community-based conservation leads to effective environmental management that profits the local community.

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