Are We Really Getting Conservation So Badly Wrong?

In October 2010, some 18,000 delegates from 193 nations met in Nagoya, Japan, for the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the international treaty to protect biodiversity. In Nagoya, governments reaffirmed their concern over the continuing loss of biodiversity and set new targets to address the crisis. Among the national delegations, indigenous people, and diverse stakeholders present, lobbying by international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) contributed to a COP decision to expand protected areas to 17% of terrestrial ecosystems (up from the current 12.9% coverage globally) and marine areas to 10% (currently at just over 1%). Against this background, Rosaleen Duffy argues that mainstream conservation efforts are failing in her new book, Nature Crime: How We’re Getting Conservation Wrong. Duffy, a professor of international politics at Manchester University, questions the importance of international NGOs in setting global and national conservation agendas, the development of alliances between NGOs and the private sector, and the alienation of local communities by conservation practices (which constitute, in Duffy’s words, ‘‘the darker side of conservation’’). With chapters that cover the international wildlife trade, global markets, the local costs of conservation, poaching, ivory trade bans, and the role that conflicts play in habitat and resource loss, Duffy addresses many controversial topics in this thought-provoking book. She questions the need for biodiversity conservation to be linked to the concept of wilderness and the exclusion of local people, illustrating her arguments with studies based on her own field work and other publications. The book challenges the idea that poverty is a primary driver of habitat and wildlife loss; many conservationists would agree. The global trade in wildlife, for instance, is big business and so profitable that it is often run by organized crime syndicates that also specialize in drug running and human trafficking. The trade is global, dramatically impacting rare and endangered wildlife in developing countries but also targeting countries such as the United States and United Kingdom as well. It is horrifying to realize that bears are being killed in US national parks so that their gall bladders can be shipped to the Far East for the ‘‘traditional medicine trade’’ and that illegal immigrants lost their lives harvesting cockles in the treacherous sands of Morecombe Bay to provide gourmet dishes for Western Europe. Because of the influence of global markets on resource use—everything from rhino horn to sapphires and coltan, a metallic ore used in mobile phones—Duffy believes that conservationists, especially the large international NGOs like WWF, Wildlife Conservation Society, Conservation International, and The Nature Conservancy, are taking the wrong approach to saving wild nature. She feels that conservation initiatives focus too little on the real drivers of biodiversity loss—the resource demands of the rich world—and too much on local problems, so that efforts to conserve wildlife criminalize local communities and even promote violence against them. While most conservation funding is targeted to protected areas and supplementing national efforts to protect unique habitats and wildlife, NGOs such as WWF, Conservation International, and Flora and Fauna International are all also involved in awareness campaigns to change resource use patterns in the richer nations. TRAFFIC and Wildlife Conservation Society are working with national agencies to address cross-border illegal wildlife trade. Nevertheless, protected areas are the cornerstones of biodiversity conservation, and for some large-ranging species will be the only places where they can survive. Not all reserves need to be managed by state agencies, however; there is good evidence that reserves managed by indigenous and local communities can be equally or more effective in protecting habitats and species. Conservationists in general are very aware that establishing new protected areas may reduce access to resources for poor communities. The World Bank and other development agencies even have specific operational policies to mitigate such impacts, and many projects have tried to reconcile the legitimate needs of conservation and local people. Unfortunately, there are no silver bullets in conservation, and most successes involve ‘‘trade-offs’’ and an integrated menu of enforcement, incentives, and champions. Sadly, many integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs), though well-intentioned, have failed to meet either their conservation or development objectives. New livelihood Duffy R (2010) Nature Crime: How We’re Getting Conservation Wrong. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 288 p. ISBN 978-0300154344 (hardcover). US$42.00. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001010.g001