378 C. Howe et al.
conservation organizations have increasingly emphasized the potential for community conservation, and many con- servation managers now seek to stimulate flows of economic revenues from protected areas for poor people in neighbour- ing communities (Adams et al., 2004).However, such devel- opment aims are, for supporters of this position, incidental to biodiversity conservation goals and the maintenance of key supporting and regulating ecosystem services, while forms of ecosystem management threatening the latter will not be accepted even if they promise poverty alleviation opportunities. For such conservationists, the priority of bio- diversity over development remains a powerful normative position informing ecosystem management and the accept- ance of trade-offs. Those who adhere to this strict conservation position
would typically include donors, non-governmental organi- zations (NGOs) and government agencies involved in pro- moting or managing protected areas, usually aimed at conserving charismatic or endemic species, as well as bio- logically rich ecosystems. The priority of biodiversity over development remains a powerful normative belief inform- ing ecosystem management.
(2) Ecosystems should be managed to deliver services in ways that maintain their functional integrity.
This position emphasizes functional rather than struc-
tural dimensions of ecosystems—how they work rather than their particular composition in terms of biodiversity. It accepts that human welfare depends on functioning ecosys- tems (to deliver clean water, air and harvests), and therefore also the role of ecosystem functions in relation to poverty alleviation (Juniper, 2013; Diaz et al., 2018). This position supports ecosystem management approaches that can in- crease local income and support livelihood diversification, such as sustainable agriculture and forestmanagement pro- grammes, ideally integrated within landscape management approaches. However, this position differs from the first in that it accepts some measure of ecosystem transformation, assuming ecosystem function is maintained (e.g. low levels of wildlife or timber harvesting or introduction of exotic species). Under this position, poverty alleviation is accepted as an important policy goal, but the maintenance of ecosys- tem functions takes priority over poverty alleviation needs (Naeem et al., 2009). Some conservation organizations base their work on a gen-
eral case for the importance of areas of natural habitat for human welfare and they show elements of this thinking in their literature. For example, Conservation International de- scribe themselves as ‘helping to build a healthier, more pros- perous and more productive planet’, because ‘human beings are totally dependent on nature—and that by saving nature, we’re saving ourselves’ (Conservation International, 2017). The prioritization of ecosystem function can be applied at a variety of scales. At the global scale the benefits of
carbon sequestration provided by trees and other vegetal biomass could be an argument to preserve forests, although a plantation forest may deliver this service as well (or con- ceivably better) than an old-growth forest. At the scale of a river catchment, headwater forests or floodplain wetlands (whether natural or managed) may be important to flood control, or clean water delivery downstream. Each of these might produce co-benefits for poor people, but the primary motivation for management interventions in these cases is to maintain ecosystem function rather than to maximize benefits to the poor or to maximize ecosystem biodiversity.
(3) Ecosystems should be managed to deliver services in ways that protect and secure the existing lives and live- lihoods of the poor.
This position recognizes the dependence of the poor on
ecosystems, and seeks to maintain these flows of benefits (Turner et al., 2012). Poverty alleviation is given a high pri- ority, but within the bounds of a limited degree of environ- mental transformation. Arguments based on this position propose ecosystem management to maintain supporting and provisioning services that sustain the livelihoods of the poor and buffer them from shocks. This position is re- flected in arguments that the livelihoods of the poor depend directly on ecosystem services of various kinds (Turner et al., 2012), and by those who advocate small-scale farming and rural livelihoods to sustain present lifestyles (e.g. Peters, 2013). It is also revealed where it is argued that ecosystem services can protect poor people from shocks that might ex- ceed coping capacity. Such protection might derive directly from physical buffering against natural hazards (e.g. coral reefs; Ferrario et al., 2014), or famine foods fromlocal ecosys- tems intimes of drought oreconomic catastrophe(Mortimore &Adams, 1999). The forms of poverty that are identified in this position include those that pertain to insecurity, risk and uncertainty, rather than just increasing income. With respect to conservation debates, this position has
come to the fore in contests surrounding the Forest Rights Act in India (Ramnath, 2008). This legislation legitimized long-standing individual and customary use and occupation of forest areas, which had been deemed illegal as a result of imperfect and incomplete forest settlement processes that had been implemented by both colonial and post-Independence forest administrations in India (Kothari et al., 1989). Forest dwellers have been given rights to continue their existing for- est use and access practices, recognizing that accessing such resources reduces poverty and vulnerability to misfortune. This position supports similar ecosystem management
that may look like the outcomes of positions 1 or 2; for ex- ample promoting the preservation of habitat. However, management will diverge depending on the relative import- ance given to preserving biodiversity (position 1) or the needs of the poor, if these are perceived to be in conflict. Trade-offs are obviously possible between the positions.
Oryx, 2020, 54(3), 375–382 © 2018 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605318000261
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