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known variously as 'community-based conservation', 'integrated conservation and
development programmes', or 'conservation-with-development', sought to integrate
the objectives of environmental conservation and local economic and social develop-
ment. These efforts gave impetus to a variety of modifi ed protected areas models,
such as the biosphere reserve model, which allow for zones of sustainable resource
use (Lean et al., 1990).
'Participation' thus became a watchword of international conservation policies
in the 1980s and 1990s, as national and international NGOs - which fl ourished
with the emergence of neoliberal economic policies in the 1980s - sought to imple-
ment conservation programmes that met the needs of nature protection and local
livelihoods alike (Fortwangler, 2003). Many transnational environmental NGOs
sought to incorporate local populations into the management of protected areas,
wildlife, forests and other resources. Such efforts met with mixed results, however.
Conservation, organisations and state environmental agencies were often frustrated
by seemingly uncooperative local populations who failed to adopt 'appropriate'
environmental practices. For their part, indigenous peoples and other rural popula-
tions frequently saw state agencies and environmental organisations as a threat to
traditional resource rights and management practices (Sundberg, 1998). As Chapin
(2004) has demonstrated, such frustrations have led many international environ-
mental organisations to back away from the conservation-with-development
approach, adopting once again a 'fortress conservation' approach that excludes
resource uses by local populations, who are seen as a threat to the goals of biodi-
versity conservation. Retrenchment of this sort raises questions regarding the appar-
ent contradictions between nature conservation and resource-dependent rural
livelihoods, another key theme of environment and development geography, to
which this chapter now turns.
Livelihoods
The concept of livelihood has long been a mainstay of environment and develop-
ment geography, and has fi gured as a central analytical category for cultural ecology,
political ecology and development geography. 'Livelihood' has been conceptualised
variously as 'entitlements' (Leach et al., 1999), 'strategic assets' (Chambers, 1995)
and 'capitals and capabilities' (Sen, 1997; Bebbington, 1999). The use and accep-
tance of the term far exceeds the level of agreement as to its exact meaning, though
as Bebbington (2004) notes, there is considerable convergence among various
approaches to livelihood, even if there is disagreement as to the precise language
used to describe the term. Irrespective of exact defi nition and analytical metric,
'livelihood' implies the making and re-making of social life, maintaining some sem-
blance of continuity and security. The notion of livelihood connotes relatively
localised and immediate strategies of subsistence and use of resources (broadly
conceptualised), aimed at ensuring the stability of life and lifeways. Indeed, despite
its ambiguity, the enduring utility of livelihood as an analytical concept rests in large
part on the way in which it highlights the everyday practices employed by individu-
als, households and communities to 'make themselves a living using their capabilities
and their tangible and intangible assets' (de Haan, 2000, p. 343).
Geographers employ diverse methodological approaches in ways that shed light
on the complex relations between livelihood and resource management, combining,
for example, archival and ethnographic research with geographic information
