Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
become scarce. As Dale Peterson writes, “In the subsistence economy, biodiversity represents
wealth as palpably as coins in the pocket represent wealth in the cash economy, and the empty forest
is as serious a disaster as the failed bank.”
With the disappearance of elephants, buffalo, and sitatunga, which were hunted for meat prior
to the wars, many Congolese people have become desperate. And at the present rate of human en-
croachment into the forests, the bonobos have little time. If the much larger population of Africa's
chimpanzees could be reduced to 5 percent of what it was a hundred years ago, the bonobos, who
may number as few as five thousand and are spread over 139,000 square miles, need concerted hu-
man effort now in order to ensure their survival.
The plan that BCI hoped to implement would avoid two scenarios: national parks and isolated
conservation “islands.” For the first, local people would have to be displaced, creating conservation
refugees. National parks frequently lack funding as well, and hunting often continues within them,
exacerbated by the fact that they become a no-man's-land, administered by absentee landlords. Dur-
ing several meetings in Kinshasa, the Congolese in both the government and the ICCN told Sally
that they didn't want more parks. These conversations helped transform her vision of a “Bonobo
Peace Park” into the “Bonobo Peace Forest,” in which communities would remain to manage and
protect the land—their land.
In the second scenario, preserving isolated forest “islands,” the animals living within them no
longer breed with animals in other areas, resulting in genetic drift. Less movement of populations
results in less genetic diversity and, therefore, less potential to adapt to environmental changes. And
as a result of inbreeding, the impact of negative recessive genes becomes much more significant,
including possible catastrophic outcomes from disease. Furthermore, as the habitat surrounding the
protected island is destroyed, habitat compression may occur, with increasing numbers of displaced
animals taking refuge in the remaining pristine area, leading to heightened levels of competition
over diminished resources. BCI's goal, in contrast, was to establish a network of reserves linked
by corridors, within which wild animals could move as they wish, with the opportunity to join and
breed with other groups.
The challenge with avoiding the national park model lies in making conservation a viable and
attractive option for local communities. To do this, one of the concepts on which BCI based their
work was the conservation agreement. Dick Rice, BCI advisor and former chief economist at the
nonprofit organization Conservation International, pioneered the use of this approach in developing
countries. As Rice explained to me, “The lack of tangible economic value is one of the most serious
threats facing the world's dwindling stock of biodiversity.” Rice's solution to this dilemma was to
make conservation itself a source of economic benefit through formal quid pro quo agreements. In
Kokolopori, the clear agreements between local communities and BCI/Vie Sauvage stipulated pro-
tection of bonobos and their reserve's habitat in exchange for employment, health care, and other
benefits.
“These agreements are some of the most cost-effective investments around,” Rice said. “It's a
way to connect the supply and demand for conservation. That is, the people on the ground who are
willing to protect a particular place or species in exchange for the willingness and ability of those in
developed nations to pay for that. The problem is that without a mechanism to put those two things
together the funding often gets diverted into paying for meetings and travel rather than conserva-
tion. Formal agreements are a way to break out of that cycle and channel money into incentivizing
concrete results.”
