Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
and training from outside (Insight n.d.). These videos were very influential with
decision-makers at the national and international levels, and gave otherwise
unheard people a voice in a popular and easily transferable medium. Invoking
people's competitive spirit is often a good way to get them involved. The Durrell
Wildlife Conservation Trust uses quizzes and competitions with small prizes to
raise interest in conservation (Andrianandrasana et al . 2005; see also Box 7.3).
Similarly Sirén et al . (2006) used a lottery as a vehicle for discussing the reasons
why people hunt bushmeat.
6.4.3 Alternative livelihoods
A wide range of approaches to improving livelihood prospects from sources other
than exploited species have been tried. What might work in a particular location
needs to be assessed during the initial research phase, and should be based on the
views of local people on feasibility and robustness (Chapter 3). Broadly, interven-
tions fall into two types: obtaining better outputs from existing enterprises and
starting up new enterprises. Better outputs from existing enterprises may include
providing veterinary care to livestock; better breeds of livestock or crop; offering
help in improving agricultural practices through, for example, water conservation
and erosion mitigation; and capturing more of the value-added from a product via
on-site processing (for example, cheese production, making handicrafts from wool,
brewing). New enterprises might include natural resource based ones like honey
production or weaving, or service provision such as bush taxis. Provision of micro-
credit may open up a range of opportunities that were not previously available. The
NGO Fauna and Flora International are pioneering a small grants programme as a
method of kick-starting local businesses (Box 6.7).
Options for alternative livelihoods should be assessed on the basis of:
Having been proposed by local people (otherwise they will not have owner-
ship of the idea and it is likely not to be feasible or accepted). As facilitator you
can help people come up with suggestions, but they must in the end feel that
the idea is theirs.
Having no negative environmental impact , particularly on the species or
ecosystem of conservation concern. Ideally there should be positive linkages
between the proposed activity and the environment, although this is usually
indirect, through the enterprise contributing to the sustainability of develop-
ment.
If a primary aim is to improve the food security or wellbeing of the commu-
nity, then targeting women is usually the best way to ensure the improved
income is used for the benefit of the household as a whole.
If the aim is to distract people from over-use of resources (see Section 6.3.3 for
caveats about this approach) then the resource users must be targeted—and
this may well be adult men. Hence there may be a lesser gain in terms of
poverty reduction to trade off against the greater conservation gain. This is
because additional resources gained by women tend to be invested into
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search