Papua New Guinea's conservation efforts are at an impasse. Unsustainable logging and resource exploitation, a rapidly increasing population and an unequal income distribution among local inhabitants are ensuring a rapid decline in biodiversity. There is a pressing need to reconcile pure conservation efforts with the complex web of interests guiding resource owners, resource developers, and the state. But how can people with such varied interests be encouraged to promote conservation? A collaborative process referred to as integrated conservation and development projects (ICADPs), spearheaded by the UN Development Programme's Global Environment Facility and Papua New Guinea's Biodiversity Programme, could possibly provide an answer.

Interestingly, close to 97 percent of Papua New Guinea's inhabitants own their own land; usually under collective arrangements. Paradoxically, there is little current evidence of sound stewardship of natural resources. Indeed, the reverse is often true. With few incentives to seek ecological sustainability, resource developers often engage in exploitative practices through the manipulation of indigenous patronage systems and lax national environmental regulations. Faced with this complicating array of factors, past conservation and development efforts have met with mixed results. There has been a growing realisation of the need to merge integrated conservation efforts with income generation projects and development. For the purposes of the Report, "development" is synonymous with income generation or, more loosely, access to goods and services.

Integrated conservation and development projects (ICADPs) are designed to induce and support innovative conservation management strategies among local communities. ICADPs are different from integrated rural development projects (IRDP) in that they emphasise biodiversity conservation and environmental maintenance with "development" envisioned as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Underlying the ICADP approach and distinguishing it from previous initiatives, is the belief that resource holders must perceive conservation to be in their long-term interest if stable environmental conservation is to be achieved.

ICADPs can be desegregated into four broad categories:

• The in situ exploitation of forest products
• Eco-tourism and other uses of ecological products
• Commercial agricultural development and support to improve food crops
• Emerging markets for ecological services.

The Report illuminates a series of ecological, economic and social factors that might potentially affect ICADPs and their prospects for long-term success. Stressing the need to bridge the "knowledge gap" between specific indigenous ecological phenomena and local knowledge systems, the Report highlights a number of critical issues relating to the need for participatory planning and community motivation in ICADP strategies.

The Report also raises a number of important issues relating to alternative development

• The need to develop positive conservation-development incentive linkages through local markets
• The importance of regionally-specific niche markets and the possibilities for potential diversification
• Further exploration of the relationships between subsistence production and commercial markets
• Alternative income markets (ie. green timber or organic coffee)
• The need for additional exploration of non-material or "moral" incentives
• The need for strong social impact assessments with regards to the regional distribution of income

Source(s):
Rural Development Forestry Network Paper 19b, Summer 1996 ODI, Portland House, Stage Place, London SW1E

Funded by: Papua New Guinea Department of Environment and Conservation and UNDP Global Environment Facility, Ongoing

id21 Research Highlight: 1998-Apr-16

Further Information:
Nikhil Sekhran
Rural Development Forestry Network
Overseas Development Institute (ODI)
Portland House
Stage Place
London
SW1E
UK

Contact the contributor: 100352.641@compuserve.com

Rural Development Forestry Network, ODI, UK