Susanne Stoll-Kleemann

Opposition to the Designation of Protected Areas in Germany

Opposition to the establishment of nature protection areas in Germany is widespread and growing to the point where any designation is becoming increasingly difficult to implement. This paper seeks to make explicit how and why that opposition has arisen. It draws on two socio-psychological theories, namely the social identity theory and the theory of psychological reactance, to provide an explanation. The analysis shows that many motivations are involved, even for the same individuals. Popular resistance does appear to create group solidarities and to reinforce insular attitudes. These outcomes in socio-psychological behaviour in turn create serious misunderstandings between protagonists and antagonists. The paper concludes by discussing possible ways for reconciling different outlooks, and for reinterpreting prejudices, by introducing more reliable forms of effective partnerships between proponents and possible opponents.

Multi-level discrepancies with sharing data on protected areas: What we have and what we need for the global village

Protected areas present a global heritage. Assessing conservation achievements in protected areas is of crucial importance with respect to the on-time delivery of international biodiversity conservation targets. However, monitoring data from publicly accessible databases for comparative studies of conservation achievements in the protected areas of the world are very scarce, if not non-existent. At first glance this is surprising because, with regards to protected areas, at least according to well established protected area management guidelines and widely accepted public mandates, a great deal of monitoring work and data gathering is to be conducted. This would imply that data on changes of biodiversity in protected areas could be expected to exist, and the constant progress in information technologies and Web tools engenders hope that some of it might even be available online for the global public. This review article presents the results of an extensive online search and review of existing monitoring data from freely accessible online databases for its use in an assessment of conservation achievements in a larger sample of protected areas. Results show two contrary sides to the status quo of accessible data from the World Wide Web for conservation science: data overkill and data scarcity with poor metadata provision. While ever more research is, in fact, based on open-access online data, such as extrapolations of species ranges used in conservation management and planning, it remains almost impossible to obtain a basic set of information for an assessment of conservation achievements within a larger number of protected areas. This awareness has triggered a detailed discussion about the discrepancies in sharing data at the level of protected areas; mismatching relationships between expected activities in protected areas and the capacity for delivering these requirements are certainly among the main challenges. In addition, the fear of data misuse potentially resulting in harm for nature, careers, and competencies still seems to be a critical barrier strictly controlling the willingness to share data. Various initiatives aimed at tackling technical and cultural obstacles are introduced and discussed to reach the goal of a modern resource management based on adaptive management using digital opportunities of the new millennium for a sustainable global village.

Stakeholder Dialogues in Natural Resources Management

CONCEPTULAIZATION ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION CONCRETE EXPERIENCE

Conservation in a Biodiversity Hotspot: Insights from Cultural and Community Perspectives in Madagascar

High levels of endemic biodiversity, habitat loss and degradation have made Madagascar one of the planet’s biodiversity hotspots. While protected areas are a sensible approach to preserving valuable ecosystems and their services, they are a conservation concept that often struggle to fully consider the local social and cultural characteristics of the areas where they are established. Protected areas are frequently inhabited by local people who directly depend on natural resources for their livelihoods, and whose beliefs and customary tenure systems have often become closely intertwined with the land over long periods. The conservation movement in Madagascar has made considerable efforts to develop viable models for conservation incorporating local communities, for example through community-based natural resource management models. However, a closer examination of the implementation of these models illustrates a cultural clash between the different ways of life, ambitions and world views of local recipients and external implementers.

Voices for Biodiversity Management in the 21st Century

nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, the introduction of invasive alien species, and activities that have led to habitat change and anthropogenic climate change—have taken the planet to the edge of a massive wave of species extinctions. This represents a loss of biodiversity that threatens human well-being: natural processes are less able to deliver key services such as purification of air and water, protection from disasters, and the provision of medicines (see the box on page 27).1 To a large degree, significantly reducing the rate of global biodiversity loss depends on managing protected areas. Often, effective management involves enhancing the ecosystem services of protected areas by integrating local livelihoods into action plans. Although more than 100,000 Voices for Biodiversity Management in the 21st Century

How Effective is the Buffer Zone? Linking Institutional Processes with Satellite Images from a Case Study in the Lore Lindu Forest Biosphere Reserve, Indonesia

Biosphere reserves seek to reconcile nature conservation with local development goals, for example by delineating buffer zones of sustainable resource use around core areas with primary conservation objectives. Here we evaluate buffer zone effectiveness in reducing deforestation within the Lore Lindu Biosphere Reserve in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Socio-economic and remote-sensing data were combined in an integrated approach. We applied a systematic qualitative social research design and carried out in-depth interviews with local, sub-national, and national authorities. Data collected through the interviews were used to interpret satellite images: (1) spatially, that is, forest cover change in the buffer zone versus the core area and, (2) over time, that is, forest cover change as a response to changing management regimes and socio-economic processes in the region. For this purpose a time series of LANDSAT scenes from 1972 to 2007 was used to classify homogeneous areas of forest cover to detect deforestation. According to the satellite image analysis, the buffer zone in Lore Lindu was ineffective at reducing forest cover clearing in the core area between 1972 and 2007. Since management establishment in 1998, the deforestation rate within the core area even increased fourfold. The gathered data suggest that there are three main institutional drivers to account for this ineffectiveness: (1) Low awareness of boundary demarcation among the villagers due to the lack of participation during management and boundary establishment, (2) The fall of the national president Suharto in 1998, which subsequently triggered deforestation activities in the core area, as the park was perceived to be the local branch of the national, suppressive regime, and (3) The lack of implementation of the biosphere reserve concept at the national level, which leads to unclear responsibilities in the buffer zone as the legal backing for any cooperation in the buffer zone is lacking. Although it appears that the forest status in Lore Lindu is still good compared to other regions in Indonesia, attention must be given to the protection of the core area. We thus conclude that the biosphere reserve concept needs to be strengthened in Indonesia. Its implementation at the national level, including adoption of clearly defined regulations, would substantially contribute to reducing negative impacts on biosphere reserve management through, for example, carefully designed awareness raising programs.

Biodiversity, Sustainability and Human Communities: Enhancing biodiversity and humanity

This chapter is written in the unfolding aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. It is still impossible to forecast all of the consequences of those terrible events. Huge amounts of money will be diverted to a wide array of anti-terrorism activities, involving military, financial and diplomatic initiatives. In addition civil liberties will be affected, hopefully in such a way as to respect honest people and well-meaning associations of benign interests. It is possible that the sums of money involved in this necessary co-ordinated effort to bring peace and security to the daily lives of many millions will exceed all that could be directed into safeguarding and expanding biodiversity. Norman Myers offers some figures in Chapter 3, and there are other estimates in Chapter 1. 500 million dollars could save the hot spots and some

The Sustainability Challenges of Our Meat and Dairy Diets

3 billion annually could safeguard all biodiversity world wide. Some more figure are provided later in this chapter. These are not ‘either-or’ matters. Safeguarding peace of mind throughout the globe is a desirable sustainability objective. Building and reinforcing social capital in every corner or humanity is also a desirable sustainability objective. Any global coalition against terrorism contains the scope for a companion coalition in favour of biodiversity for sustainability. The globalisation forces about which many feel uneasy will foster a demand for social distinctiveness and identity but within a sustaining whole. There is more scope for local economies in a world where mobility could usefully be curtailed to some extent. It is far too early to tell what will be all of the consequences of the new world order. Hopefully the meeting of world leaders in Johannesburg in September 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (wwe.worlsummit2002.org) will continue the global healing process so falteringly initiated in Rio de Janeiro a year earlier. The Johannesburg 2002 event will focus on poverty, health, human rights (especially for women, children and indigenous peoples) and the safeguard of water and biodiversity. This text is aimed, in part, at this summit. It is possible that the coalitions of human security will metamorphose into partnerships for peace and mutual understanding. It is also possible that the kind of effort to recognise cultural diversity and to infuse locality into globalisation processes will evolve out of the current moves to establish a world order against terrorism. It is simplistic and naive to suggest that bringing sustainability into that world order will help to climate terrorism and anger. This is a process that will take generations to ease. All we can hope for is that world economic summits combine with world sustainability summits into the kinds of common wish for a healthy planet and healthy people that could be reached by protecting beyond the protected. If world political, religious and economic leaders combined the centrality of wealth, health, stability and security with sustainability, then there is a chance that the outcome of the unforgettable events of 11 September will generate a profoundly transformative legacy. This at least, is the spirit in which this final chapter is written.

The Rationale of Socio-Economic Research for the Successful Protection and Use of Wetlands: The Example of Participatory Management Approaches

Continuing high consumption of livestock products in nearly all developed countries, and increasing demand for livestock-based foods in large transition economies, are creating serious problems of prolonged and persistent environmental and social degradation. These problems are further exacerbated and affected by climate change and risks, biodiversity loss, water stress, and water pollution. How do the associated socioeconomic aspects such as food security and personal health, together with impoverishment and displacement of communities, associated with livestock production consumption figure into the challenges? And how can we change livestock production consumption to reduce future environmental destruction going forward?

The Challenges of Changing Dietary Behavior Toward More Sustainable Consumption

Concern for wetlands should connect ecology and society through science, partnerships and ethics. It is therefore very welcome that a paper with a social science focus such as ‘‘Socio-economic values and traditional strategies of managing wetland resources in Lower Tana River, Kenya’’ by Terer et al. (2004) is published by a natural science journal such as Hydrobiologia. This important step helps us to realise what is required in the majority of research committees (e.g. DIVERSITAS), namely to put into practice a more integrative, interdisciplinary approach to environment related research. Given that human activity is the primary threat to wetlands, then effective solutions for the sustainable management of wetlands lie in understanding how individuals, social networks or indigenous communities (as outlined in the article by Terer et al. (2004)) value wetlands, especially those who have ownership of, and who directly utilise the living resources on which they depend. However, international conventions (like Ramsar), national policies and local regulatory experience have not resulted in the sustainable management of wetlands. This is because such arrangements do not recognise and respond to the underlying motivations of individuals and political processes. There has been considerable progress in understanding the more proximate mechanisms threatening wetlands, such as habitat fragmentation and destruction, as well as the effects of such change on ecosystem functions, goods and services. But incorporating such values into strategies which provide incentives for the sustainable use of wetlands requires the integration of social sciences. The socio-economic assessment of wetland management efforts has been neglected hitherto and there is a lack of detailed studies in this area. Terer et al. mention in this context that, ‘‘in Kenya, major management decisions are usually implemented by government departments and institutions with very little community participation or involvement. This has made the implementation of government policies difficult’’. They close with the statement that ‘‘strategies of involving communities in natural resources management depend on people’s perception, value system and use of those resources’’ but that ‘‘this is often not well understood’’. Terer et al. are right and make a fundamental point with this statement. There are many good reasons for participation, while at the same time there are major difficulties in implementing it. Stoll-Kleemann & O’Riordan (2002) have summarized the reasons that support participatory approaches in natural resources management.