IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/natres/v42y2018i1p19-31.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring conservation success beyond the traditional biological criteria: the case of conservation projects in Costa Rica, Mekong Valley, and Cameroon

Author

Listed:
  • Jessica Gruber
  • Richard Mbatu
  • Rebecca Johns
  • Barnali Dixon

Abstract

Traditionally, the criteria used to measure conservation success or failure are based on biological factors. Biological factors include changes in the amount of targeted conserved species, biodiversity, and total area conserved. However, conservation efforts are not simply a matter of biological concern; environmental, political, social, and conflict pressures on different scales (ranging from local to global) also have strong influences on the outcome of conservation. These other factors can either pose threats to or enhance conservation, but are not addressed by current criteria. Using a proposed holistic rubric that includes interdisciplinary fields, this paper examines a set of conservation factors on different scales – ranging from local to global – to determine their importance in conservation. The paper analyses positive factor influences with more successful conservation and negative factor influences with less successful, or failed, conservation attempts. Neutral and non‐applicable factor influences are also identified, defined, and ranked as a standardization mechanism. The determination of success changed when the holistic rubric was applied to conservation projects in Costa Rica, Mekong Valley, and Cameroon. In the Costa Rica case study, conservation success for Guanacaste and Talamanca national parks is rated ‘moderately low’. In the case of Mekong Valley, conservation success is rated ‘low’ for Lower Mekong, ‘moderately low’ for Greater Annamites, and ‘low’ for Phong Nha‐Ke Bang national parks. Cameroon's Congo Basin and Sangha Tri‐National conservation efforts are both rated ‘low’, while Dja Faunal is rated ‘very low’. We conclude that if conservation efforts are to attain a high level of success, the strategy for global conservation must move away from the traditional biological approach, which focuses mainly on biological concerns, and embrace a holistic approach, which in addition to biological concerns, addresses environmental, political, social, and conflict pressures, which have strong influences on the outcomes of conservation.

Suggested Citation

  • Jessica Gruber & Richard Mbatu & Rebecca Johns & Barnali Dixon, 2018. "Measuring conservation success beyond the traditional biological criteria: the case of conservation projects in Costa Rica, Mekong Valley, and Cameroon," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(1), pages 19-31, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:natres:v:42:y:2018:i:1:p:19-31
    DOI: 10.1111/1477-8947.12132
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-8947.12132
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1477-8947.12132?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ralph L. Keeney, 1974. "Multiplicative Utility Functions," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 22-34, February.
    2. Agrawal, Arun & Gibson, Clark C., 1999. "Enchantment and Disenchantment: The Role of Community in Natural Resource Conservation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 629-649, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chao Ma & Xiabing Wang & Wenhao Zhang, 2019. "A relict habitat became an isolated habitat in the Luoshan Nature Reserve from 1977 to 2017: Natural or man‐made disaster?," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(3), pages 164-180, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Krott, Max & Bader, Axel & Schusser, Carsten & Devkota, Rosan & Maryudi, Ahmad & Giessen, Lukas & Aurenhammer, Helene, 2014. "Actor-centred power: The driving force in decentralised community based forest governance," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 34-42.
    2. Purnamita Dasgupta, 2007. "Common Property Resources as Development Drivers: A Study of Fruit Cooperative in Himachal Pradesh: India," Working Papers id:917, eSocialSciences.
    3. Skutsch, Margaret & Turnhout, Esther, 2020. "REDD+: If communities are the solution, what is the problem?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    4. Schusser, Carsten, 2013. "Who determines biodiversity? An analysis of actors' power and interests in community forestry in Namibia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 42-51.
    5. Gadamus, Lily & Raymond-Yakoubian, Julie & Ashenfelter, Roy & Ahmasuk, Austin & Metcalf, Vera & Noongwook, George, 2015. "Building an indigenous evidence-base for tribally-led habitat conservation policies," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 116-124.
    6. Burger Ronelle & Owens Trudy & Prakash Aseem, 2018. "Global Non-Profit Chains and the Challenges of Development Aid Contracting," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 9(4), pages 1-12, December.
    7. Zhan, Shaohua, 2015. "From Privatization to Deindustrialization: Implications of Chinese Rural Industry and the Ownership Debate Revisited," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 108-122.
    8. Gomez-Limon, Jose A. & Riesgo, Laura, 2004. "Irrigation water pricing: differential impacts on irrigated farms," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 47-66, July.
    9. Suhardiman, Diana & Karki, Emma, 2019. "Spatial politics and local alliances shaping Nepal hydropower," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 525-536.
    10. Saeed, Abdul-Razak & McDermott, Constance & Boyd, Emily, 2018. "Examining equity in Ghana's national REDD+ process," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 48-58.
    11. Barbara Quimby & Arielle Levine, 2018. "Participation, Power, and Equity: Examining Three Key Social Dimensions of Fisheries Comanagement," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-20, September.
    12. Grillos, Tara, 2017. "Participatory Budgeting and the Poor: Tracing Bias in a Multi-Staged Process in Solo, Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 343-358.
    13. Mengina Gilli & Muriel Côte & Gretchen Walters, 2020. "Gatekeeping Access: Shea Land Formalization and the Distribution of Market-Based Conservation Benefits in Ghana’s CREMA," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-15, September.
    14. Sirisha C. Naidu, 2005. "Heterogeneity and Common Pool Resources: Collective Management of Forests in Himachal Pradesh, India," Others 0511004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. William B. Haskell & Wenjie Huang & Huifu Xu, 2018. "Preference Elicitation and Robust Optimization with Multi-Attribute Quasi-Concave Choice Functions," Papers 1805.06632, arXiv.org.
    16. Abbas El‐Zein & Rola Nasrallah & Iman Nuwayhid & Lea Kai & Jihad Makhoul, 2006. "Why Do Neighbors Have Different Environmental Priorities? Analysis of Environmental Risk Perception in a Beirut Neighborhood," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(2), pages 423-435, April.
    17. Lambini, Cosmas Kombat & Nguyen, Trung Thanh, 2014. "A comparative analysis of the effects of institutional property rights on forest livelihoods and forest conditions: Evidence from Ghana and Vietnam," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 178-190.
    18. Ana Guzman Ruíz & Edwin Hes & Klaas Schwartz, 2011. "Shifting Governance Modes in Wetland Management: A Case Study of Two Wetlands in Bogotá, Colombia," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 29(6), pages 990-1003, December.
    19. Ting Ma & Lizhi Jia & Linsheng Zhong & Xinyu Gong & Yu Wei, 2023. "Governance of China’s Potatso National Park Influenced by Local Community Participation," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-19, January.
    20. Bene, Christophe, 2003. "When Fishery Rhymes with Poverty: A First Step Beyond the Old Paradigm on Poverty in Small-Scale Fisheries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 949-975, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:natres:v:42:y:2018:i:1:p:19-31. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1477-8947 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.