86 V. Schreer et al.


comment stuck with me, as I cared about the place and hated that my behaviour did not reflect that.While I had close relationships with the people I worked with in the forest, I realized that I knew little about people in the village. This sense of disconnect between my work and the issues on the ground became a really thorny and insur- mountable issue. I was not even beginning to address the root causes of the problems I was seeing. I felt powerless and alienated from the larger goal of conservation. In response, I slowed down and paid more attention to the aims of the communities as well as the bigger social, economic and political contexts of my work. Sharing and devel- oping these critical reflections with my co-authors has been very in- fluential for re-imagining my role as a conservationist, researcher and director of projects. It has led me to actively address the deeper, root causes of conservation problems—from starting to read the political ecology literature to changing my research and conservation activi- ties. (Personal reflections of a conservation researcher)


The social science literature indicates this is not an isolated case but can be seen as a structural effect of the project model. The short-term nature of projects impedes working with the rhythms of a place, fostering meaningful relation- ships or understanding the complexities of communities (Li, 2016). Moreover, even when staff care about communities, the relationships that do develop are often terminated when projects end. Simplifications and project exits are usu- ally built into proposals, as funders prefer clear deliverables, budgets and timelines (Perez, 2010), and the question of what will happen after the project is rarely answered satis- factorily (Sayer &Wells, 2004). Alienation between communities and conservation


workers is a serious concern, not least because of local expectations of long-term relations of mutual care, benefit- sharing and reciprocity (VS; Chua et al., 2021). Although scientists increasingly see such relationships as indis- pensable for effective conservation (Adams et al., 2016; Toomey, 2020; Staddon et al., 2021), there have been numer- ous documented cases of conflicts between NGOs and com- munities because of conflicting land claims, restricted resource access or a perceived lack of inclusion, transpar- ency and benefit-sharing (West, 2006; Griffin et al., 2019). Sometimes communities experience projects as impositions from outside or view them as ways for NGOs to capture international funds (Cepek, 2011). Community members who feel alienated from conservation projects may actively resist (Brockington, 2004), lack the motivation to partici- pate (Perez, 2010; Schreer, 2023 ) or use projects as an op- portunity for personal monetary gain. This example also highlights that conservation profes-


sionals are already critically reflecting on the project model (cf. Tallack & Bruno-van Vijfeijken, 2022). Researchers could themselves realize, sometimes through informal encounters, that project requirements pressure them to oversimplify complex questions and neglect rela- tionships on which their work depends. In this case, the re- sult was a feeling of alienation from the community and a sense of deep regret about this situation and, in response, an attempt to think and act beyond the boundaries of pro- jects by slowing down research activities, taking community


concerns more seriously, designing locally meaningful pro- jects and developing critical thinking about conservation.


Example 3: Disconnects from more-than-human temporalities


During their ethnographic research on soil conservation in Haiti in 2012, one author spent time with NGO workers, who reflected on the difficult choices they have tomakewithin theconstraints of theproject model. Theresearchfound that the restrictions on timelines and activities discussed above caused disconnects with non-humans, including the very trees and ecosystems that conservation projects seek to protect.


After the 2010 earthquake, there was an increase of funding for hu- manitarian, environmental and development projects in the country- side. Channelled through the United Nations (UN), European donor funding was envisioned as a long-term initiative but reached the coun- tryside in the form of a variety of projects for sub-contractors. Reflections from two agronomists demonstrate the problems of pro- ject funding on the ground, which they openly expressed to the social science researcher because of their independent background. During ameeting in the localUNoffice, a Haitian agronomist noted


that the UN’s funding timeframes were too short. A sub-contracting organization aimed to boost rural incomes by planting fruit trees but, because of the long period of time necessary for trees to grow, fruit to form and markets to develop, he calculated that it would take 10 years to see results. But, he said, the financing for projects occurs for 6 months, or 3 years at the most. Similarly, anotherHaitianNGOwas caught between the demands of


seasonal plantings and the constraints of project financing. The NGO was promised a second year of funding, but the process had been de- layed. When they finally got administrative approval, the seasonal planting time had passed.Without the funding to support their exten- sion workers, efforts to replant hillsides and graft trees were put on hold, awaiting the next funding cycle. During the weekly meetings, the technical director often threw up his hands in exasperation, la- menting how the system was oriented not to agricultural needs but to administrative ones. (Findings of ethnographic research)


The demand for greater attention to be given to non-human life-forms shared by these professionals has also been a rallying point for social scientists. Scholars have noted the mismatches between the short timescales at which people are used to thinking and acting and the much longer time- scales in which ecosystems operate (Metcalf et al., 2015), but also more fundamental mismatches between the ‘abstract time-reckoning’ of capitalism and ‘concrete experiences of time’ based in biological, geological and planetary rhythms (Bear, 2014,p. 3; Gibson &Warren, 2020). One challenge that this literature raises for conservation is


how best to account for more-than-human rhythms within project frameworks. The above examples show how financia- lized project time can take priority over arboreal time. As Bear (2014,p. 19) theorized, this ‘centrality of [capitalist] time is a symptom of inequalities in social relationships’.In this case, the inequalities between funders, conservation and aid workers and the trees and plants they cultivate made the aid workers powerless to change project timelines. Responding to these challenges, the field of multi-species


studies has argued that the fundamental entanglements be- tween people and other living beings are best attended to


Oryx, 2025, 59(1), 81–90 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324000747


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