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Transformative conservation of ecosystems
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- Dorian Fougères, Mike Jones, Pamela D. McElwee, Angela Andrade, Stephen R. Edwards
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- Journal:
- Global Sustainability / Volume 5 / 2022
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 04 March 2022, e5
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- Article
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Non-technical summary
Many conservation initiatives call for ‘transformative change’ to counter biodiversity loss, climate change, and injustice. The term connotes fundamental, broad, and durable changes to human relationships with nature. However, if oversimplified or overcomplicated, or not focused enough on power and the political action necessary for change, associated initiatives can perpetuate or exacerbate existing crises. This article aims to help practitioners deliberately catalyze and steer transformation processes. It provides a theoretically and practically grounded definition of ‘transformative conservation’, along with six strategic, interlocking recommendations. These cover systems pedagogy, political mobilization, inner transformation, as well as planning, action, and continual adjustment.
Technical summaryCalls for ‘transformative change’ point to the fundamental reorganization necessary for global conservation initiatives to stem ecological catastrophe. However, the concept risks being oversimplified or overcomplicated, and focusing too little on power and the political action necessary for change. Accordingly, its intersection with contemporary biodiversity and climate change mitigation initiatives needs explicit deliberation and clarification. This article advances the praxis of ‘transformative conservation’ as both (1) a desired process that rethinks the relationships between individuals, society, and nature, and restructures systems accordingly, and (2) a desired outcome that conserves biodiversity while justly transitioning to net zero emission economies and securing the sustainable and regenerative use of natural resources. It first reviews criticisms of area-based conservation targets, natural climate solutions, and nature-based solutions that are framed as transformative, including issues of ecological integrity, livelihoods, gender, equity, growth, power, participation, knowledge, and governance. It then substantiates six strategic recommendations designed to help practitioners deliberately steer transformation processes. These include taking a systems approach; partnering with political movements to achieve equitable and just transformation; linking societal with personal (‘inner’) transformation; updating how we plan; facilitating shifts from diagnosis and planning to action; and improving our ability to adjust to transformation as it occurs.
Social media summaryCurious about stemming the global biodiversity and climate crises? Browse this article on transformative conservation!
Forest environmental income in Vietnam: household socioeconomic factors influencing forest use
- PAMELA D. MCELWEE
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- Journal:
- Environmental Conservation / Volume 35 / Issue 2 / June 2008
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 04 August 2008, pp. 147-159
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Much research has focused on understanding the importance of forest environmental income in different communities and highlighting key socioeconomic characteristics of forest-dependent households. This paper examines the economic importance of forests among rural agriculturalists in Vietnam. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey of 104 households in five study villages in Ha Tinh province in north central Vietnam surrounding the Ke Go Nature Reserve (KGNR). Variables such as migration status of the household, age, income class and landholdings were used to identify characteristics of households with high forest income in both absolute and relative terms. More than half of households reported receiving forest environmental income in cash. Socioeconomic variables were compared between forest cash income (FCI) households and non-FCI households. Non-FCI households had more alternative income sources from wage labour and livestock, while FCI households were significantly younger, tended to live closer to the forest and had larger landholdings. Contrary to other research on forest use, the households deriving the most forest income in both absolute and relative terms were not the poorer households, but those in the middle class. These findings highlight the need for conservation and development projects to pay attention to the specific household factors that influence forest use, rather than relying on assumptions that poverty and forests are always linked.