Stakeholder participation and evidence-based conservation: what are conservation scientists or practitioners afraid of?

This talk introduces the session on integrating communities in evidence-based conservation. Its starting point is my personal experience and first-hand observations of the implementation of development aid projects and... [ view full abstract ]

This talk introduces the session on integrating communities in evidence-based conservation. Its starting point is my personal experience and first-hand observations of the implementation of development aid projects and conservation projects in Eastern and southern Africa and the challenges that conservation projects in Europe regularly face. Such projects often make attempts to implement an element of “participation” by some local people affected by or targeted by the project. In many cases, it is unclear who should participate, how the participants will be selected and by whom, what the purpose of the participation should be, how far such participation should go and whether the appropriate stakeholder groups are actually being consulted (often a gender issue). Perhaps most importantly, but rarely explicitly discussed, there is the question whether project staff and coordinators genuinely expect such participation to aid the success of the project, or whether it is more likely to be viewed as a damage-limitation exercise without which the project would not have been granted funding in the first place.

In this session we will present examples from work with tigers, apes, elephants, raptors and firewood where such project participation is essential to the success of research projects and conservation-related projects with a human dimension in wildlife. Our examples and our review will demonstrate that it matters when such participation is solicited, who does so and for which purpose. A core component of participation solicitation is trust, a trust which project leaders first have to gain from their potential partners and participants. Our review of past research projects in a human dimensions of wildlife context demonstrates that a crucial step is the time point and purpose at which stakeholders are first asked to participate. In particular, if they can provide input at the design stage of a project (the “co-design” principle), then they understand how the topics or questions to be addressed were selected, why the study was undertaken and which aspect of human dimensions in wildlife it is supposed to address. This strengthens the credibility of such projects and the acceptance of unexpected and potentially unpalatable outcomes. Co-design could be facilitated if funding agencies made provisions for such interactions at the design stage, which are currently often not available. It also forces the project coordinators to be somewhat open to the selection of topics and flexible in the design of the putative project work, i.e., they have to accept an element of losing control as to where the journey is likely to go – and such loss of control is not palatable to some scientists or project staff.