Gerard A. Persoon

Illegal logging in the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, the Philippines

Illegal logging is a threat to biodiversity and rural livelihoods in the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, the largest protected area in the Philippines. Every year between 20,000 and 35,000 cu. m wood is extracted from the park. The forestry service and municipal governments tolerate illegal logging in the protected area; government officials argue that banning an important livelihood activity of households along the forest frontier will aggravate rural poverty. However this reasoning underestimates the scale of timber extraction, and masks resource capture and collusive corruption. Illegal logging in fact forms an obstacle for sustainable rural development in and around the protected area by destroying ecosystems, distorting markets, and subverting the rule of law. Strengthening law enforcement and controlling corruption are prerequisites for sustainable forest management in and around protected areas in insular southeast Asia.

Conflicts Over Trees and Waves on Siberut Island

ABSTRACT The paper describes some recent developments with respect to logging operations and the tourist industry on the island of Siberut (West Sumatra, Indonesia). It discusses these developments from the perspective of the notions of equitable access and benefit sharing and prior informed consent. These are often referred to as basic principles in dealing with external intervention within the territory of indigenous peoples. After the initial logging boom during the 1970s and 1980s about half of the island was declared a nature reserve in the early 1990s. All logging operations were terminated. Backpack tourism started to develop more or less simultaneously, stimulated by the lure of a Stone Age culture on a tropical paradise island. This contributed greatly to the efforts to safeguard the islands rich biodiversity. Recently, however, a new form of logging started on the island, with a university as concession holder. But also a new kind of tourism discovered Siberut: its waves are supposed to be of excellent quality and allow for first‐class surfing. As a result of regional autonomy and the process of democratisation in Indonesia, the local people are not willing to accept these new forms of resource use without at least sharing in their benefits. This paper is based on extensive periods of fieldwork on Siberut over the past twenty years.

Limits to Indigenous Participation: The Agta and the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, the Philippines

Increased attention for indigenous rights in relation to nature conservation has in the Philippines resulted in legislation formalizing indigenous peoples’ participation in protected area management. We discuss the implementation of this legislation, based on the case of the Agta inhabiting the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park. The Agta are hunter-gatherers who settle along the coasts and rivers of northeast Luzon. Being indigenous to the park, they hold one third of the seats in its management board. However, our content analysis of this management board’s meetings, combined with qualitative observations of the Agta’s position in the park, show that their participation in its management is hampered by socio-cultural, practical, financial and political barriers. We demonstrate that formalizing indigenous participation in protected area management is not enough to break through existing power structures that inhibit marginalized stakeholders to defense of their interests in natural resources against those of more powerful actors.

Whose Consent? Hunter-Gatherers and Extractive Industries in the Northeastern Philippines

There is increasing international recognition of indigenous peoples’ right to influence development activities in their territories. Free, Prior and Informed Consent is the strongest available instrument to assert this right, and this article provides a case study on its implementation in the northeastern Philippines. Under the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act of 1997, extractive companies must seek consent from indigenous communities if these inhabit the proposed concession areas. The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, a government agency, facilitates this process. This article documents how extractive companies have obtained consent from the Agta, a resource-dependent indigenous group. The results, which cover the period 2003–2011, show that the implementation of Free, Prior and Informed Consent fails in terms of the process and its outcome. Consent is manipulated, the role of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples as facilitator is problematic, and the agreements are culturally inappropriate, weakly operationalized, and poorly realized.

'Why must we protect crocodiles?' Explaining the value of the Philippine crocodile to rural communities

What are valid arguments to protect the Philippine crocodile in the wild? And how are we to explain the normative foundations of biodiversity conservation to rural communities in the developing world? Conservationists mainly rely on economic values to justify in situ wildlife conservation. In this article, we argue that these utilitarian reasons are often based on inaccuracies and flawed assumptions. By focusing narrowly on economic incentives, conservationists risk undermining their credibility and obscuring other valid reasons to protect nature. Cultural and intrinsic values can also form a strong motivation for poor people in non-western societies to conserve biodiversity. In the northern Sierra Madre on Luzon, respect for nature, interest in wildlife ecology and pride in the occurrence and conservation of a rare and iconic species proved to be effective incentives to protect the Philippine crocodile.

The Influence of People’s Practices and Beliefs on Conservation: A Case Study on Human-Carnivore Relationships from the Multiple Use Buffer Zone of the Panna Tiger Reserve, India

Abstract The case presented in this paper is a unique situation of livestock pastoralists, living in the buffer zone of Panna Tiger Reserve in India, displaying unusually high tolerance towards large carnivores in spite offrequent predation incidents. The researchers dissect the case, examine local people’s practices anddraw attentionto factors influencing peoples practices.Through interviews and personal observations the researchers collecteddetailed information on peoples practices and the factors influencing such practices. They collected informationon large carnivores near 29 villages in the buffer zone and looked at factors influencing their presence in theseareas. Their findings reveal the play and working of several social factors that are instrumental in influencingpeoples tolerance and people’s behaviours towards forests and wildlife and recommend that carnivore conservationprojects focusing outside protected areas should critically assess the influence of such aspects on their conservationgoals. And wherever applicable, find ways to innovatively model them into their conservation plans.

Exploitation, management and conservation of marine resources: the context of the Aru Tenggara Marine Reserve (Moluccas, Indonesia)

The establishment of the Aru Tenggara Marine Reserve (eastern Indonesia) is a new element in the traditional and present day use and management of the marine resources in the area. This article discusses the exploitation of that environment by different groups, including local people as well as various kinds of outsiders who are attracted to the extremely rich marine resources, including pearl oysters, sharks, turtles and shrimps. This poses particular problems for the actual implementation of the reserve, which is basically established for the conservation of the turtles and the dugongs. The conditions for the successful implementation are treated, paying particular attention to the role of the local population.

Wild versus domestic prey in the diet of reintroduced tigers (Panthera tigris) in the livestock-dominated multiple-use forests of Panna Tiger Reserve, India

Grazing livestock in openly accessible areas is a common practice in the multiple-use forests of India; however, its compatibility with the reintroduction of tigers to these areas requires examination. Here, we investigated the diet of tigers in a livestock-dominated multiple-use buffer zone of the Panna Tiger Reserve, India. We hypothesised that the presence of feral cattle, along with open-access grazing practices in multiple-use forests, would increase the incidence of predation on livestock by tigers, even when wild prey are available. We used generalised linear models to test whether predation of livestock versus wild animals was influenced by (1) the sex and age class of tigers, (2) season, and (3) the distance of prey from the core-zone boundary of the reserve. Overall, sub-adult tigers and male tigers killed more livestock than wild prey, even when wild prey was available. In the winter and rainy seasons livestock were killed in higher numbers in the buffer zone than in summers, this may be because of the seasonally changing livestock herding patterns in the area. Further, with increasing distance from the core-zone boundary, all tigers killed more livestock, possibly because livestock were more easily accessible than wild prey. Our results show that open-access and unregulated livestock grazing is not currently compatible with large carnivore conservation in the same landscape. Such practices will lead to an increase in negative tiger-human-livestock interactions. In conclusion, we suggest the need to encourage locals to corral valuable cattle, leaving feral/unwanted livestock for tigers. This simple strategy would benefit both local inhabitants and tiger conservation in the multiple-use forests of India.

Constructing the Future: Dynamics of Local and External Views Regarding Community-based Resource Management

In the global sustainability debate the emphasis is on the future, the long-term future. Unlike anthropologists, environmental scientists and conservationists are obsessed with the future: scenarios and models are their most important instruments, environmental concepts (sustainability, regeneration) and policies (including conservation, restoration of ecology) are outcome- and future-oriented. This future orientation has two faces: first, visions of an apocalyptic future are used to justify conservation interventions (Western 1994; Leach and Mearns 1996; McNeeley 1996); second, images of a wanted and preferably better ‘green’ future can confine opportunities for innovation and change. Signs of hope (often inspired by non-Western cultures) are urgently needed to generate sufficient support for these alternative visions. All kinds of models, scenarios and policy instruments are being developed to turn these alternatives into reality.

Spatio-temporal patterns of attacks on human and economic losses from wildlife in Chitwan National Park, Nepal

Wildlife attacks on humans and economic losses often result in reduced support of local communities for wildlife conservation. Information on spatial and temporal patterns of such losses in the highly affected areas contribute in designing and implementing effective mitigation measures. We analyzed the loss of humans, livestock and property caused by wildlife during 1998 to 2016, using victim family’s reports to Chitwan National Park authorities and Buffer Zone User Committees. A total of 4,014 incidents were recorded including attacks on humans, livestock depredation, property damage and crop raiding caused by 12 wildlife species. In total >400,000 US dollar was paid to the victim families as a relief over the whole period. Most of the attacks on humans were caused by rhino, sloth bear, tiger, elephant, wild boar and leopard. A significantly higher number of conflict incidents caused by rhino and elephant were observed during full moon periods. An increase in the wildlife population did not coincide with an equal rise in conflict incidents reported. Underprivileged ethnic communities were attacked by wildlife more frequently than expected. Number of attacks on humans by carnivores and herbivores did not differ significantly. An insignificant decreasing trend of wildlife attacks on humans and livestock was observed with significant variation over the years. Tiger and leopard caused >90% of livestock depredation. Tigers killed both large (cattle and buffalo) and medium sized (goat, sheep, pig) livestock but leopard mostly killed medium sized livestock. Most (87%) of the livestock killing during 2012–2016 occurred within the stall but close (<500m) to the forest edge. Both the percentage of households with livestock and average holding has decreased over the years in buffer zone. Decreased forest dependency as well as conflict mitigation measures (electric and mesh wire fences) have contributed to keep the conflict incidents in control. Strengthening mitigation measures like construction of electric or mesh wire fences and predator-proof livestock corrals along with educating local communities about wildlife behavior and timely management of problem animals (man-eater tiger, rage elephant etc.) will contribute to reduce the conflict.