Introduction - Environmental Management - page 3

application of dif erent social science techniques in combination with
ecological management thinking.
Tom Brooks et al. (Chapter 2) highlight the importance of an awareness
of how conservation funding is spent. Allocation of money essentially rep-
resents a key way in which human beings interact with the environment.
The approach taken to prioritizing which areas benei t from the $6bn
spent annually on conservation has obvious consequences for global bio-
diversity. In their chapter, a shorter version of which was originally pub-
lished in the journal Science , Brooks et al. present a comprehensive review
of the concepts, methods, results, impacts and challenges of approaches to
nine templates of global biodiversity priorities that have been proposed by
biodiversity conservation organizations over the last decade. Their review
is rooted within the theoretical irreplaceability/vulnerability framework of
systematic conservation planning. This chapter makes an important con-
tribution to improving understanding of these prioritization approaches,
which in turn makes it possible to orient more ei cient allocations of
geographically l exible conservation funding.
Neil Burgess et al. (Chapter 3) discuss people versus environment and
people and environment policies in the context of wildlife conservation
as a divide between those promoting 'fortress conservation' and those
promoting 'people-focused conservation'. In their chapter they argue that
for environmental managers involved with implementing conservation
projects on the ground in the developing world, these polarized views
often represent impractical extremes. Furthermore, for people living in
rural areas of developing countries, the divide between 'development'
and 'conservation' is also often quite artii cial. Burgess et al. highlight a
third approach to environmental management that falls between the two
extremes. Projects that take this middle ground approach are known as
Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs). The authors
present a detailed analysis of the successes and failures of ICDPs over the
years and develop some practical ecological, social and economic criteria
by which ICDPs might be assessed. They then provide a practical example
of how to apply such criteria by using them to analyse the successes and
failures of two ICDPs with which they have had personal involvement.
By combining ecological criteria with social and economic criteria, the
authors' analysis enables them to make a series of practical management
recommendations for making the ICDP model more ef ective in achieving
conservation at the same time as sustaining and improving the lives of the
people that live in these areas.
Management ef orts to maintain biodiversity do not need to be focused
solely on protected areas. Economically productive landscapes contain
many of the world's species, and many protected areas now regarded