Reshaping Conservation

Forest conservation is important, but it can also undermine the rights of local communities whose livelihoods depend on forest resources. This long-standing issue has recently been re-ignited by climate change schemes such as the proposed global REDD+ mechanism, which seeks to conserve forests in order to reduce carbon emissions.

But how do local communities actually respond to forest conservation interventions when they are implemented on the ground? Do they watch helplessly as external conservation agendas are imposed upon them, or do they respond actively – and if so how?

This is the topic of a new article in Conservation & Society, co-authored by DIIS researcher Mikkel Funder together with Finn Danielsen, Yonika Ngaga, Martin Reinhardt Nielsen and Michael Køie Poulsen.

The article presents the findings from a study of how households have responded to the introduction of a community based forest monitoring system in southern Tanzania. It shows how different groups of community members have not only engaged in the forest monitoring system, but are also seeking to reshape it and move it beyond the reach of local forest authorities and conservation experts.  The monitoring system has thereby become part of an effort by community members to secure greater territorial control over forest resources vis-à-vis the state, other communities and each other.

The article suggests that we need a more nuanced understanding of how people engage with and relate to conservation interventions, and that we should be vary of assuming that communities respond in uniform ways as either “for” or “against” conservation.