Community-based conservation

<p>Community-based conservation is a <a href="/facts/Conservation_movement/Vnqkdddv">conservation movement</a> that emerged in the 1980s, also in response to escalating protests and subsequent dialogue with local communities affected by international attempts to protect the <a href="/facts/Biodiversity/GruakEzs">biodiversity</a> of the earth. These contentions were a reaction against 'top down' conservation practices, imposed by governments or large organisations and perceived as disregarding the interests of local inhabitants, often based upon the <a href="/facts/Western_culture/rPbgAhzI">Western</a> idea of <a href="/facts/Nature/CRC3KQUg">nature</a> being separate from <a href="/facts/Culture/c5JgMqpX">culture</a>. The objective of some community-based conservation initiatives is to actively involve some members of local communities in the conservation efforts that affect them, incorporating improvement to their lives while conserving nature through the creation of national parks or wildlife refuges.
</p><p>A more radical understanding of 'community conservation' highlights the conservation value of the historically careful, sustainable and in many ways protective interaction of human communities with their natural environments. In this light, Indigenous Peoples and local communities have the capacity of being 'custodians' of their 'territories of life'. This capacity comes to life depending on a combination of factors, some of which are intrinsic to the communities themselves and others depend on their ecological, economic and political context. In particular, State governments, international agencies and the private sector need to allow and support communities, rather than impeding them in their custodian role. Colonialism, neo-colonialism, economic growth 'at all costs' and perennial war are the true enemies of Nature. Empowered, aware and self-determined communities are her natural allies. The clearest example is offered by the hundreds of community members killed, and the thousands maimed and oppressed, every year, as they try to defend ther environments from extractive and destructive imposed developments.
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Community-based conservation open-in-new

Community-based conservation