Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ICDPs have attempted to create management systems that take on their
own institutional form over the long term.
A related issue is whether there is an appropriate and functioning legal
framework for the ICDP, and for actions related to conservation and
development. If there are no legal frameworks (either from the national
government, or from traditional leaders) then it is dii cult to design
project interventions that require the 'control' of use of natural resources.
In many parts of Africa, projects start by working with the government-
authorized village leadership, and gradually discover that there may be an
equally (or sometimes more) powerful system of traditional leadership.
Working with the right people from the outset of an ICDP has obvious
benei ts, but is often dii cult to achieve.
Project targets are clearly formulated
Importantly, within the context of an ICDP there needs to be a clear
and strong linkage between the development activities of the project and
the conservation objectives of the project. Often the ICDP development
activities are executed separately to the conservation activities and have
no obvious linkage to the overall conservation goals, for example the
improvement of roads, purchase of sewing machines, or improvements in
local health care facilities. In such cases it is dii cult to link the develop-
ment interventions to the conservation, which may cause the project to
fail. However, this strategy may work if the linkages have been developed
carefully over a long period of time, or people know that they are receiving
these benei ts as a form of 'payment' for not damaging species, habitats or
ecological processes.
Most ICDPs are developed by teams of consultants, generally from
outside the area. There is a tendency for these consultant teams to build
assumptions about the state of the local community and the natural
resource management systems into the targets for the ICDP, without
having the data to validate or refute these assumptions. They also bring
their own biases on the 'best' ways to achieve conservation in a particular
situation. One kind of assumption that is often inadequately tested is the
source of threats to natural resources. Over-simplistic analyses are often
made of the threats to the system, and to the natural resource value that
the ICDP is targeting. The main threat to a mountain forest may come
from agricultural expansion, but this may not be aimed at providing more
food to the local populations, but rather a commercial crop for export to
townspeople. The clearance of natural habitats to expand the commercial
agriculture may be organized by a powerful person based well away from
the site of the ICDP and who is simply paying local people to work on his/
her behalf.
