A simple framework for evaluating community conservation projects

To be successful, community-based conservation projects should foster linkages between human well-being and environmental health, as well as incorporate resilience mechanisms to be viable in the long-term. We have previously... [ view full abstract ]

To be successful, community-based conservation projects should foster linkages between human well-being and environmental health, as well as incorporate resilience mechanisms to be viable in the long-term. We have previously proposed, therefore, that any evaluation of community-based conservation projects consider three parameters: ecological viability, socio-economic viability and linkage mechanisms. Here we introduce a simple scoring tool to help keep community-based conservation projects on track in all three areas of project evaluation, quickly compare between community conservation projects, and understand factors contributing to their success or failure. The tool guides users through scoring benefits and resilience mechanisms pertinent to a project’s ecological and socio-economic viability and their linkage, and is applicable in both data-poor and data-rich situations. We illustrate its use by evaluating the Wechiau Community Hippo Sanctuary (WCHS) of northern Ghana close to 20 years after its inception, and to assess progress since our last evaluation in 2010. The WCHS has the dual objective of protecting one of two Ghanaian hippopotamus populations while alleviating poverty in the surrounding communities through the creation of livelihood alternatives and infrastructure development. Retrospective scoring of WCHS as it was in 2010 suggests that the project then scored 61% overall, with higher scores on socio-economic (69%) than ecological (58%) or linkage (63%) outcomes. While the project benefits were high (75%), the resilience mechanisms had room for improvement (65%). With additional data up to 2016, the overall score for the WCHS increased to 65%, due to increased ecological (67%) and socio-economic (83%) scores. The linkage score remained the same. Our scoring tool helps to highlight that while the WCHS project provides many benefits to both biodiversity and human well-being, awareness of how these two factors relate may need to be improved to ensure continued success. Beyond pin pointing areas for improvement in individual projects, the tool can also be useful for comparing across projects and ultimately for a global analysis of the effectiveness of community conservation projects.