Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Although hard to achieve, it is perhaps best to try to dei ne a sustainable
end point for the ICDP from the outset, and work towards this end point.
If the natural resource values are in a government reserve then building
the strength of that agency to achieve its mandate in an equitable manner
should assist long-term management sustainability. If the resources are
found in community-controlled areas, then building the capacity and
management authority of locally constituted bodies (village committees or
similar) to take on the role of managing the resource may be the best way
to achieve sustainability.
If the natural resource requires funding to manage, then working to
achieve i nancial sustainability is critical. Most sources of sustainable
funding for long-term conservation interventions in Africa come from
tourism (for example, ecotourism, see Ashley and Roe, 1998), or use
the natural resource to generate funds. One other source of long-term
funding is the trust fund, where a capital sum is used to generate some
interest to manage the resource in perpetuity. Another mechanism is the
national or local taxation system that might - for example - generate
funds from water users and then provide these funds to the managers of
the relevant watersheds - in particular in some relatively dry countries like
Kenya, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Malawi. Considerable discussion now
takes place around the issue of whether schemes that entail 'Payments
for Environmental Services' can provide a real solution to the matter of
sustainably i nancing conservation around ICDP sites. The most popular
schemes - and those where there has been the greatest amount of work -
are those related to carbon and water payments.
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A number of other issues can make achieving a sustainable end point
to project interventions challenging. Changing politics and changes in the
local/global economies can alter an apparently 'sustainable' outcome to
one that is unsustainable. There may also be local dif erences in interpret-
ing a sustainable end point. Local farmers may accept a balance between
habitat conservation and agricultural development, but a powerful local
politician may have dif erent aims for use of these resources. Finally,
valued biodiversity sites may need a subsidy (in perpetuity) to have a sus-
tainable conservation outcome, that is, if in economic terms the benei ts
from conversion greatly outweigh the benei ts from conservation.
Monitoring and evaluation coni rms project success
Most ICDPs have failed to measure their conservation impact (Kremen et
al., 1994; Salafsky and Margolius, 1999; Klieman et al., 2000; Danielsen et
al., 2001; Wells and McShane, 2004). Without such measures it has been
relatively easy for them to be heavily criticized (for example, Oates, 1999;
Leach et al., 2002).
