Augustin Berghöfer

‚Participation’ in Development Thinking — Coming to Grips with a Truism and its Critiques

Participation is increasingly popular in environmental discourse as it has been for decades in development thinking: it can take on multiple forms and serve seemingly incompatible interests. If participation is to mean more than a mainstream acclaim, its different levels and objectives need to be made explicit. A vague definition confuses the public and may lead to abuse of the term. Furthermore, a tool-based and solution-oriented understanding of participation risks overlooking and disguising the dimension of political power involved. Inspired by Cohen and Uphoff (1980), we propose four defining questions to serve as axes of differentiation for the manifold interpretations of ‘participation’: (1) Who participates?, (2) In what dimension?, (3) How does the process take place?, and (4) For what purpose?. In doing so, we explore definitions and structure recent critiques, laying open the merits and pitfalls of ‘participation’ in development discourse and practice. The defining questions effectively clarify the haziness around this “warmly persuasive word” (Nelson and Wright 1995: 2). They also put ‘stakeholder dialogue’ in a wider context.

Prospects and Challenges for Biodiversity Conservation in Guatemala

Located on the land bridge between North and South America, Guatemala is characterized by exceptionally diverse ecosystems, which make the country one of the foremost repositories of biodiversity in Latin America (Detlefsen et al. 1991). Guatemala has signed the Central American Convention on Biological Diversity in 1992 and the global Convention on Biological Diversity in 1995. To support the implementation of these conventions, a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan was elaborated in 1998/99 (CONAMA 1999). Various categories of protected areas cover almost 30% of the country’s surface (CONAP 2002 : 14). Under an innovative model of co-administration, civil society plays an important role in biodiversity conservation. At the same time, Guatemala is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, which suffers from slow economic development, high levels of poverty, unequal land distribution, a highly segmented society, and the effects of more than three decades of civil war which only ended in 1996. High population increase as well as commercial interests in natural resource extraction cause considerable threats to biodiversity conservation. Thus, Guatemala represents a prime example of the potentials and challenges of biodiversity conservation in developing countries. The research on biodiversity conservation presented in the contributions to Part III was conducted at the national level and in the Department of Alta Verapaz.

Ecosystem services for conservation finance: applying the TEEB stepwise approach in Côte d’Ivoire

Ecosystem service (ES) evidence and arguments can mobilize support for biodiversity conservation. However, the ES concept’s impact on the ground seems unclear: It is reliant upon a range of pre-requisites at the science-policy nexus and it tends to be science-driven and demanding in terms of data and required capacity. The TEEB stepwise approach (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Local and Regional Policy Makers, Earthscan, London, 2012) guides purpose-driven ES assessments and seeks to enhance the usefulness of the ES concept in difficult real-world settings. An application of this approach has not yet been appraised. Also, beyond the instrumental use of ES data (e.g. for the design of payment schemes for ES), there is little documented experience with strategically using ES arguments for mobilizing financial resources for conservation. As many other countries, Côte d’Ivoire does not have a strong knowledge base on ecosystem services (ES). Such circumstances can preclude the use of the ES concept for convincing potential donors to co-finance conservation. We examine the recent ES assessment for the Parc national de Taï (PNT), Côte d’Ivoire, which followed the TEEB stepwise approach. We look at process, results and outcomes to address three questions: (i) How did study results contribute to mobilizing funds for the PNT? (ii) In which ways was the TEEB stepwise approach useful in practice? (iii) What lessons can be drawn for ES assessments geared to conservation finance?