Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
achieve as dif erent groups of local people can have highly conl icting
points of view about the best use of the natural resources (for example,
government forestry/wildlife staf , pitsawyers, commercial agriculturalists,
traditional healers, hunters, rich people/poor people). Making all of these
groups feel that they are involved in the ICDP and that it is working on
their behalf is extremely dii cult, and some trade-of s are inevitable.
Protection components are included
It is important for a conservation project to dei ne what it is trying to con-
serve and for whose benei t. In most cases ICDPs have listed the species
that the core habitat area is important for, and perhaps some from the
surrounding lands as a part of the project justii cation. Many projects
proceed no further, and do not know if the habitat is large enough, suit-
able enough, or in the right spatial coni guration to maintain the bio-
logical values. In recent years attempts have been made to structure these
questions, so that an ICDP could establish targets for species, habitats and
important ecological processes as a part of its planning phase. Box 3.1 out-
lines simple approaches for dei ning focal biological elements and setting
targets, as core parts of the project design. These targets could be built as
indicators into a logical framework for an ICDP, typically at the level of
overall project goal or objectives.
The management of any form of natural resource implies a need for
rules, regulations, boundaries and enforcement mechanisms. It is there-
fore not surprising that supporting protection and regulation is a common
part of ICDPs. Indeed, it has been concluded that protection of the core
natural resource values is essential for all ICDPs (Hannah, 1992; Rodgers,
1993; Abbot et al., 2001). In many African ICDP locations, there is a
government-managed protected area at the core of the ICDP. In such
cases, the government oi cers traditionally undertake the protection
component. This system works well in some places and poorly in others.
Reasons for a poor performance range from a lack of staf or equipment
to allow them to do the job, through to their personal exploitation of the
resource for their own proi t, or for the proi t of the government agency
managing the area.
Poor governance by the oi cial managers of the core area (or percep-
tions of it) can result in negative perspectives of the local people towards
the oi cial managers, which makes ICDP models dii cult to operate
without considerable work on building trust and cooperation. In other
ICDPs a locally controlled and managed area of natural habitat may be
found instead of a government reserve. In many places these local systems
are long-standing and can provide good protection. If there is no gov-
ernmental protected area, and no traditional management systems, some
