Effective Conservation - Web-Only Chapters

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CHAPTER 1.

INTRODUCTION A NOTE ABOUT VALUES There is general agreement that our planet is in the midst of a massive extinction spasm, also known as the Sixth Extinction Crisis. As well, several authors agree that to halt this crisis we need to increase the area (and the quality of management) of protected areas so that they cover around 50% of the world’s land surface.1 This scientific agreement has given rise to widespread concern, national policies, and international agreements such as the Global Convention on Biodiversity. Very few people or decision-makers would dare to say openly that they do not care about the conservation of natural ecosystems or biodiversity loss. The degree to which these issues are considered as priorities varies but we can at least say that it is very difficult to find any person or organization that states honestly that they do not “give a damn about the whole issue” and that we should “completely give up” on nature reserves, conservation actions, and environmental laws. At this point I should add that I assume that whoever is reading these pages believes in the need to conserve and/or restore natural ecosystems.

Since there are already dozens of excellent books explaining why we need to expand and improve land devoted to conservation, this book focuses on how to carry out such tasks more effectively.

Neither does the book enter into the discussion of the relative importance of ecocentric or anthropocentric values in conservation. I deliberately chose to avoid the debate as to whether or not nature should be protected for its intrinsic value or as a means to improve people’s quality of life. Although these are important issues that need to be discussed, I rely on other authors and texts to enter into details. I do not seek to win the reader over this discussion; rather, my aim is to create a space where anyone interested in conservation – and for whatever reason – can focus on the most effective way to advance such endeavor, be it for the sake of Nature itself or for our human conspecifics. Nor do I think that both visions are inherently exclusive. My opinion is that there is room for everyone on the conservation boat and I am equally comfortable working with either group as long as they really care about natural ecosystems and the species living in them.

Though I personally tend to defend an ecocentric world-view where humans are just one species amidst myriads of other different creatures sharing the planetary evolutionary process, I am also sympathetic to the notion that natural ecosystems should produce the greatest possible benefits to the people who live in and around them. I leave it up to those interested in conservation to choose their own reasons for preferring one type of value to another.

Hence, my purpose is more pragmatic than moralistic. The reason why this book insists so much about connecting nature with the needs of people is not because I personally believe that this should be the main reason for conservation but because I think it is the best way to make it happen. If we want to halt the extinction crisis we will need to rally the support of a much wider constituency than just the hard-core ecocentric conservationists (even if we are actually part of this group). Today and in the coming decades hundreds of millions of hectares of public, communal, private, and indigenous lands are and will be given over to protecting and restoring natural ecosystems. Some of them are already considered as reserves and others are abandoned rural areas waiting for someone to propose a new use for them. Hence, let us think about how to manage these territories and their surroundings so that they can provide the maximum benefits for both biodiversity and humanity.

And let us view these spaces as an essential part of the productive matrix of any country (produc-

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tive at multiple levels: ecological, social, environmental, ethical, cultural, spiritual, and economic) and start caring for them with this in mind. In short, I see a natural ecosystem not as a space that has been excluded from the productive fabric of a country or society but the opposite: these areas should host healthy populations of all their native species and should also provide people from neighboring areas and faraway places alike with the greatest possible amounts of material, spiritual, and symbolic services and goods.

However, to ensure that this is the case it is not enough simply to protect reserves and species by passing legislation and setting up squads of law-enforcement agents and rangers. We must work and sweat in earnest with both ingenuity and honesty. “Sweat” because it’s a job that requires a lot of hard work to get solid results and “ingenuity” because there are few tasks more complex than managing ecosystems and the societies that surround them. Often we will have to develop experimental and adaptive programs without previous models to guide us on how to act in particular cases. These challenges are compounded by myths and institutions that have been designed over the centuries to destroy or alter natural ecosystems rather than to care for them and restore them. Finally, “honesty” and transparency are needed because, unlike private property, biodiversity is generally considered to be legally and emotionally a public asset and so we are obliged to let people know in a proactive and sincere fashion what we are doing with that which belongs to all.

REFERENCES 1 The extinction crisis and the need to conserve around 50% of our planet: Locke, H. (2013). Nature Needs Half: A necessary and hopeful new agenda for protected areas.

Parks 19: 9-18.

Wilson, E. O. (2016). Half-earth: our planet’s fight for life. WW Norton & Company.

Dinerstein, E., Olson, D., Joshi, A., Vynne, C., Burgess, N. D., Wikramanayake, E., ... & Hansen, M. (2017). An ecoregion-based approach to protecting half the terrestrial realm. BioScience, 67(6), 534-545.

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CHAPTER 2.

FULL NATURE Box 2.1

ST LUCIA AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH A PROTECTED AREA: A FAMILY’S STORY Mario Georgiou, local entrepreneur, St Lucia, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa My parents were Greek immigrants who came to South Africa from Cyprus to escape from a possible Turkish invasion and also to look for economic opportunities. After some time working in Johannesburg, in 1974 my father and my mother (who was pregnant with me) were invited by his uncle to help him with his very small trading store in St Lucia, a village on the coast of Kwazulu-Natal. At first, my father wasn’t happy at all in the village but he did not leave because he felt he owed it to this uncle, who had vouched for him to get the immigration permits to live in South Africa.

When they arrived, there was nothing here, not even a tar road. The St Lucia where I and my two older brothers grew up was a fishing village and a “seasonal town” that people would only visit during the South African holidays: Christmas and Easter. Fishermen would come on those dates but as soon as the holidays were over there was absolutely nothing going on. There were not even restaurants at that time. When I was a kid there were no deliveries to St Lucia and the people would have to drive on a dirt road to Matubatuba, the nearby town where supplies would be delivered by train.

Even so, there were some very skilled and passionate rangers from the old Natal Park Board who were mainly occupied patrolling the small St Lucia estuary with its population of hippos and crocodiles and providing bait for fishermen. I think that the first change in the village economy started when 4x4 vehicles became cheaper and people started using them as everyday ways of getting around.

This probably happened in the 1980s and it created the first spike in tourism as people started arriving in their 4x4s and driving along the pristine beaches all the way to Cape Vidal or Sondwana to choose their own fishing spots. The most popular activities from the 1980s to the mid-1990s were fishing from the land (instead of from a boat) and driving on the beach.

However, everything changed with the end of apartheid in the mid-1990s when a big struggle with a multinational company that wanted to mine the dunes around St Lucia for titanium took place. This created a national movement that first promoted the idea of conservation in the area, which led to the setting up of the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park that would later become Isimangaliso Park. The promise was that this park would create jobs through tourism and so the 4x4 fishermen backed the campaign against the mining. Paradoxically, around that time a national law was passed that forbade unrestricted driving on beaches and many people thought (and still think) that this was a decision taken by the local park authorities. Given that this restriction affected the most typical tourist activity, many people thought that it would really harm the village and an animosity grew up that is still alive in the sectors that are against the park and wildlife tourism.

Before these changes took place my father decided to buy the business from his uncle and, what is most important, to invest in properties in the village. By that time he already had a passion for the area and a vision that this was a good place to live and raise his children. As well, there were good opportunities for business. Thus, he took a big risk and opened a larger supermarket (Spar) to secure full-time delivery to what was then a growing market based on sports fishing. This also led to the advent of new self-catering accommodation. After years of working this market, my father

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decided to create a second development in what today is called Georgiou’s Center, which was aimed at the sports fishing market. When the beach ban came into effect it really pulled the rug out from under everybody’s feet and the village was left rather disconcerted. We had not seen any clear signs of international tourism yet and it was all very confusing. Those were very difficult times for the whole village.

Fortunately, my father had kept very meticulous records for 20 years that showed a constant increase in business, which made him confident that things would be alright and convinced him that we should carry on. Also around that time the first international tourists started appearing. They were mostly young backpackers (of around my age at that time) and they would talk to me about their travels, interests, and reasons for visiting St Lucia, which were basically its underdeveloped natural beauty and the fact that it had not yet become over-commercialized. In this sense it was also critical that another local family like ours, with four children of our age, saw the opportunity offered by this new market and converted some of the rooms used by fishermen into accommodation for backpackers. In spite of this rise in backpacking, I don’t think anybody could have predicted at that time that the international market would reach the levels that we see today. At that time 90 percent of South African visitors would come for the fishing, while foreigners would come in search of nature and wildlife-watching experiences.

When the Isimangaliso Wetland Park and World Heritage Site was set up we did not see much change. I think it took the park several years to get organized, improve infrastructures, and boost wildlife numbers, while at the same time the people in the village carried on talking about the beach ban and how to reverse it. It probably took local people up to eight years to understand the Isimangaliso vision and to appreciate the changes that were taking place. Little by little the nature-based international tourism started to grow and a new industry appeared: bed-and-breakfast accommodation (B&B) that was previously unknown and focused on this growing international market.

Before this, the South Africans would stay in self-catering units and cook there. The first B&B was opened by a couple from outside the village who could speak Dutch and German. They converted their house into rooms for guests, and their B&B received several tourism awards and helped put St Lucia on the international map. Other people started buying properties, building houses, and opening more guesthouses, which was the start of a massive change in accommodation. I believe that St Lucia has now over 40 B&Bs, as well as hotels, self-catering accommodation, and hostels.

Thanks to the B&Bs and the international tourism that it attracted, the number of restaurants and new kinds of stores aimed at this clientele also started to grow.

At the same time as the amount of accommodation and visitors grew, the Isimangaliso Wetland Park gradually started to become very popular thanks to, for example, a speech by Nelson Mandela about the area, the rediscovery of coelacanths in Sondwana Bay, and the reintroduction of rhinos and elephants. Another big impulse for the Isimangaliso brand was the idea of the “Big Seven,” which are the typical “Big Five” (lion, elephant, buffalo, rhino, and leopard) plus whales and dolphins.

Whale-watching is another interesting case of entrepreneurial adaptation, in which a local business that was devoted to sports fishing for the national market saw an opportunity and, with the help of the Isimangaliso authorities, started a new business offering whale-watching and hippo/crocodile tours on the lagoon for international tourists.

By then I had finished my electrical apprenticeship and I was ready to start my own business in a larger town. Since I was also helping my family with the business, I persuaded my parents to go on holiday to Cyprus because they had not been on holiday together for 20 years. During the days I was left in charge of the family business I really fell in love with the place and sensed its potential, both in economic terms and for raising my own family. I loved the lifestyle of the place where

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I had grown up – surfing, fishing, running in the bush, cycling, and so on – and so I abandoned my plans to start an electrical business and decided to work instead for the family business in St Lucia.

This brings us to the present. St Lucia is today a prosperous village of 500 people, with around 3000 beds for tourists, three ATMs, three supermarkets, more than 10 restaurants, curiosity shops, pedicurists, and hairdressers. In our family business – which now has one supermarket, two guesthouses, restaurants, and several shops – I estimate that 70% of our customers are from abroad, although the number of South Africans is increasing, mostly because there has been an increase nationally in the number of people interested in wildlife. This steady increase in tourism has brought huge economic benefits and the amount of local labor needed has risen greatly so that today several thousand people are employed in the village. We estimate that around 50,000 people have been attracted to work in the area and are now living in neighboring communities. This may be the only negative effect of St Lucia’s boom: it has attracted more people than there are jobs in the village and many of these people now live in temporary housing and contribute to the deforestation of the surroundings and some areas of the park. Even so, I don’t think that this is unique to our area as it is a general problem when people are looking for work. The civil war in neighboring Mozambique also led to greater pressure from immigration, as St Lucia was an easy stopover for refugees looking for work.

Unlike places such as Ibiza and Goa, we have been lucky and have not seen any great loss of traditional values since our kind of tourism is not associated with nightlife or partying. When I look forward to St Lucia’s future I think that the people and businesses that will be successful will be those that are able to predict and adapt to changes on an international scale. We need to understand what people want. Obviously, the main reason why people come here is for nature but we also need to know how to improve simple things like Internet access, which is considered an absolute must by many travelers. This is just one example of the products we have to offer.

Whether intentionally or not, more than other communities St Lucia has become the gateway to the park because it offers a great variety of activities (game-drives, whale watching, snorkeling, turtle nesting, hippo and crocodile tours, horseback riding) all centered on the park. This will allow us to take the park to “the next level” and I think it could even eventually outstrip places like Kruger National Park as South Africa’s top tourism destination. Since St Lucia cannot grow in size (due to its geographic position, surrounded by water and public forests), I believe that this growth will be more qualitative than quantitative, although the physical growth may spill over into neighboring villages where new jobs and opportunities will appear.

I trust that nature will always be there because the Isimangaliso park authority is exceptionally well run. That is the number one priority for us. Without the park, the whole social and economic system would collapse. In my opinion, Isimangaliso is the beginning and the end of the village.

However, we have the responsibility to work with the park and improve the services we offer to our national and international clientele.

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Box 2.2

MANU NATIONAL PARK. A MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT? Created in the 1970s, Manu National Park in Peru covers an area of over one million hectares. It is situated at the confluence of the Andes and the Amazon Basin and has an altitudinal gradient exceeding 3000 m that ranges through lowland rainforests and cloud forests to high snowy peaks. This park is one of the most biologically diverse places on the planet and is home to some of South America’s most charismatic wildlife species including jaguar, tapir, giant otter, vicuña, condor, macaws, and Andean cock-of-the-rock. During the 1990s it became popular worldwide thanks to a prize-winning documentary by the Discovery Channel, Spirits of the Rainforest. This was the first time I heard of Manu.

Interestingly, at the same time as it became popular internationally, the Manu National Park also became a national symbol in Peru. These two processes do not always occur simultaneously but in this case they did. On the one hand, Alejandro Guerrero, an extremely popular documentary filmmaker (his programs were as popular as football, a Peruvian friend once told me), devoted several programs to Manu and the surrounding area. As well, Barbara D’Achille, a highly respected journalist (who was later killed by Sendero Luminoso), decided to make Manu one of her main focuses of interest. Finally, a coffee-table book entitled El paraíso amazónico del Perú: Manu. Parque nacional y reserva de la biosfera became a bestseller and established Manu for many Peruvians as the jewel in the crown of the country’s national park system. And, just in case there was a missing piece to the puzzle, the park also hosts one of the most famous of all tropical biological research stations: Cocha Cashu. In the words of Peruvian colleague: “in those days any cab driver in Lima would know about Manu.”

I was fortunate to visit Manu in 2013, attracted by its fame and the opportunity to meet John Terborgh, the renowned conservation biologist who was the director of Cocha Cashu. However, when we started asking questions about public support for the park, how people used it, and potential threats a completely different picture emerged from what we had expected for a place of such great international prestige. After talks with the managers of the lodges and the director of an international conservation program in the region, we realized that the park – an extremely biodiverse and internationally recognized place that can guarantee sightings of large flocks of macaws and giant otters, and good chances of seeing jaguars – only received about 1,200 visitors a year. I calculated that in good years the numbers of visitors peaked at about 5,000. We found it shocking that one of the best known and most biodiverse parks in the world could have such low visitor numbers. This was even more surprising bearing in mind that Manu is relatively close to major tourism centers such as Cuzco and Machu Picchu and is part of a country that was clearly projecting itself as a major global tourist destination! In fact, we were told that there used to be an airstrip in Boca Manu village giving access to the heart of one of the best parks in the Amazon but that it closed a few years ago due to lack of use. These figures were inconceivable but did not seem to surprise anyone who we talked to. For them it was the normal scenario: business as usual.

For me, it seemed unbelievable that Iberá, a place far less well known as a tourist destination than Manu, could have more than 20 times more visitors per year. What had happened to preclude well-positioned Manu from taking off as a major ecotourist destination? From our talks with research biologists, protected area managers, and workers in the tourist sector, we deduced (since the biologists did not admit it openly or perhaps had never even thought about it) that the conservationists and park managers were so intent on preserving the place as a pristine natural gem that they had opted to rule out any possible impact from tourism. The upshot was that the national authorities had

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never invested in promoting the region to the public by improving access roads from the Andes or by keeping the airport working. Park managers seemed committed to placing all kinds of obstacles to tourist entrepreneurs wanting to establish themselves in the area in an effort to prevent any damage being done to the park. Requirements by the park authorities to hotels hoping to operate within the protected area seemed to be more aimed at driving them away than encouraging them. And this disdain seemed to be bearing fruit: during that visit I heard that several hotels had already closed but that no new ones were planning to open in the area. It is worth repeating the figure because it is so striking: 1,200 tourists per year in one of the best-known and most attractive reserves in the world!

Such a low number can only be achieved through a deliberate policy aimed at preventing tourism from taking off in the area and by inventing so many impediments that entrepreneurs choose to go elsewhere, for example to the nearby Bahuaja-Sonene reserve.

All this could be taken sadly as a missed opportunity for local development, especially since the Manu National Park had attained one of the most sought-after of all requirements for ecotourism: it already existed as an international brand. However, the story transcends the development angle and enters the realm of pure conservation. During our trip to the area, we detected a great concern amongst conservationists about two impending processes: the growing demands by indigenous people to recover part of the National Park as their own territory and the arrival of oil interests that were aware of vast oil reserves in the area. That is, two groups with strong political clout (at least more than the conservationists and the lackluster tourism sector) were positioning themselves to change property- and land-use in the park. And I couldn’t see anything that would prevent these groups forming an alliance, probably with support from local mayors and the small groups of gold miners that were already working local rivers. If so, how could the park authorities and biologists working in the area counterweigh any proposal from these two interest groups? What allies would fight alongside them during the political struggle over the best way to develop this region? Maybe then – and only then – would they regret not having established a viable ecotourism industry in the region giving jobs to thousands as an alternative to oil extraction, gold mining, the exploitation of precious tropical woods, agriculture, and livestock. Perhaps then it will be too late to defend the region using just biodiversity indicators, past publications, press articles from the 1990s, and the law declaring Manu as a protected area.

Box 2.3

GAINING PUBLIC AND POLITICAL SUPPORT BY RENAMING OUR WORK AS PRODUCCIÓN DE NATURALEZA Sofia Heinonen, President of The Conservation Land Trust in Argentina In 1992 Douglas Tompkins founded The Conservation Land Trust (CLT), a California-based organization dedicated to the creation of large national parks. Governments create national parks but nothing prevents a private citizen from playing a major role in this great task. At that time CLT was focused on buying up large tracts of land, which ideally bordered on public lands, in order to create large reserves to be managed as if they were national parks with public access. The ultimate goal was to bequeath these lands to the respective nations as national parks and encourage governments to include neighboring public lands within even larger and more ecologically viable parks.

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This work began in Chile with the creation of Corcovado National Park and in Argentina with the setting up of Monte León National Park. In 1997 the Argentinian government’s national parks administration invited Douglas to collaborate with the expansion and creation of corridors between the country’s protected areas. A tour of Salta, in the northwest of the country, followed by a flight over the Esteros del Iberá, located in the northeast, aroused a great interest in Doug, who started considering not only the creation of a large national park in Iberá but also the restoration of species including the jaguar, a top predator, that had become extinct in this vast wilderness. With this dream, Doug was heeding the recommendations of his American conservation colleagues who were proposing the full rewilding of large ecosystems.

At first glance Esteros del Iberá, with a million hectares almost devoid of people and livestock but also lacking several species of large mammals owing to decades of hunting, seemed to be the ideal site for this great wildlife management experiment in South America. This vision was the genesis of CLT Argentina, which was founded by Douglas and Kristine Tompkins in 1998 specifically as a framework for the Iberá Project. Gradually, CLT Argentina acquired old cattle ranches in Iberá, built basic infrastructure, started to control hunting on their land, removed hundreds of kilometers of fences, and, above all, established a team of Argentinians who were also deeply committed to their vision. Each country, each culture, each territory has its complexities when it comes to nature conservation and this was especially true of the case of Iberá, located in the idiosyncratic and conservative province of Corrientes, fiercely proud of its traditions. This became apparent when our intentions were publicly announced: change the use of the lands by restoring them to their natural state, donate them to the Argentinian government as a national park, and reintroduce locally extinct species including the jaguar.

Buying the land was clearly the easiest part; communicating our vision in a way that local, provincial, and national authorities would accept it as in their interest was the hardest. The Iberá wetlands were seen as a source of water for irrigating rice in an otherwise dry land; as cheap land that could be acquired with forest subsidies to establish plantations of exotic pines; as unproductive places that should be drained and transformed to make them “productive.”

In the first place, we had to fight disbelieving local and national public opinion that a “gringo millionaire” would buy large expanses of land and make them public. In a society with almost no tradition of philanthropy, especially in conservation, it was easier to believe alternative conspiracy theories, however outlandish they were. After a while, it dawned on us that we still needed to seduce the Correntinean society with the idea of a large national park in a place as locally symbolic as Iberá. During those years, public positions were irreconcilable: production versus conservation; the need to reduce poverty against “impositions by rich countries from the North.” We needed a new concept of a national park, whereby each Correntino (and especially their political leaders) would appropriate it as their own and integrate it into their dreams and hopes for the future. Our message had to be easily understandable and seductive, both for rural people and for the mayors who run the towns, provincial ministers, and the media.

The establishment of a team of locals with vast knowledge of the territory – gauchos and former workers at the ranches that were acquired by CLT – who were joined by urban professionals with good knowledge of local idiosyncrasies and styles of governance was designed to promote the project’s objectives. The project expanded from the bottom up, reaching the provincial governor himself in a journey that took around 10 years. During the whole process we relied on the support of brave Correntinos who knew how to withstand the conflicts and correct their peers during the first years of misunderstanding of our new ideas and proposals. To a large extent, change starts when conflict erupts and if you are unprepared you can end up thinking that conflict is clearly personal or that things are going really badly. We just had to acknowledge that conflict was an important and natural part of change.

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News, public opinion, and achievements do not usually spread all at the same pace. However, we worked hard to make sure that rumors and tales were neutralized by results and facts since it was crucial to be able to show tangible results and products of our work to those who visited Iberá.

During the controversy, our strategic policy was to maintain media interest in Douglas Tompkins (misunderstood, innovative, and a visionary philanthropist) so that the debate would tackle key issues regarding the negative impact of the global economy and the need for ecological restoration.

In parallel, this allowed us to promote the immense values of this region and set up the “Iberá brand” nurtured by its enormous ecotourist potential tied to its vast landscapes, the diversity of birds, and the abundance of certain charismatic species such as marsh deer, capybaras, and caimans. But, as well, it was essential to talk of the professional and committed Argentinian and Correntino team and not just an American millionaire and a foreign organization with an English name.

An event as minor as the release of the first giant anteaters into Iberá in 2007 became a turning point. The provincial governor, a politician aware of public opinion and the media, had the courage to openly stand alongside the controversial Douglas Tompkins at the start of our rewilding program. His presence alone was enough to bring ministers, local mayors, and a large number of local people aboard. The donation and inauguration of the first public campground and port in the municipality of Colonia Carlos Pellegrini, locally designed in an architectural style that reflected the community’s heritage, was another important step towards changing local perceptions as to what was happening in these wetlands.

There were positive news and heightened expectations. Colonia Pellegrini developed into one of Argentina’s most special tourist destinations. Other municipalities soon wanted in on the new established “Iberá brand” and so we proposed setting up a tourist circuit – the Iberá Scenic Route – to connect them all. As we advanced simultaneously on these multiple fronts, we were constructing a regional economic vision shared by multiple stakeholders, based mainly on the good news provided by the Rewilding Program: public announcements, press releases, annual events in towns to celebrate the return of the giant anteaters, the first reintroductions of pampas deer, tapirs, and collared peccaries, and, finally, the arrival of the first jaguars in the onsite breeding center. It was clear that things were changing in Iberá! Nature kept producing good news. The engine of change began to have political repercussions too and during the party elections Esteros del Iberá was the epicenter of the agenda of the provincial candidates for governor.

When a vision manages to penetrate the public sphere beyond the parties or government of the day, changes come thick and fast. What was hitherto bad, contradictory, and unmentionable could now be presented as a new political proposal and as an all-embracing vision. Wetlands previously considered unproductive became the source of a new type of production: services, beauty, identity, international branding, restorative economy, handicrafts. The crux is that the concept we created in CLT had neither owner nor logo and anyone could own our work, which is a key feature of a truly public process. A few months later, the newly elected governor presented a book, Iberá Provincial Park: Nature Production and Local Development, in front of his entire cabinet of ministers and the leaders of provincial opinion.

Donating our lands to the Argentinian government to establish a national park, which was initially sternly resisted by the province as representing a loss of sovereignty, now made sense and could be understood by Correntino legislators as an opportunity to promote national investment in all surrounding communities. Promoting nature in Iberá required investment from the national government so that the positive impact could filter into a “second circle” of communities beyond those closest to the scenic route and the future national park.

Once this process had gained momentum in Iberá, with local, provincial, and national authorities sharing the vision (and also competing to make it their own), the concept of Full Nature began

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to permeate into other Argentinian provinces. If Iberá could change the future of 20 municipalities and 20% of the population of one of the most deprived provinces in northern Argentina, might it not also serve as an example for neighboring provinces, with natural and cultural values as attractive as those in Iberá? Suddenly, a local idea went national.

On a visit to our Rincón del Socorro reserve, the then governor of the neighboring province of Chaco became interested in the concept of Full Nature associated with high quality design and architecture based on local traditions. It was precisely this idea of Producción de Naturaleza, whereby national parks become engines of a new type of economy and greater well-being for neighboring communities, that motivated the authorities of the province of Chaco and the Argentinian government to create the 128,000 ha Impenetrable National Park. Once this park was created, we dreamt of connecting the new national parks of Impenetrable and Iberá with an internationally recognized site such as the Iguazú National Park. The three parks together could become the basis of a great territorial vision that would boost northern Argentina as a tourism destination and attract investments to support provincial park systems and local communities. This concept was grasped by the new national Minister of Tourism, once his peers in the Province of Corrientes had explained the success of Iberá. As a result, this vision for northern Argentina, known as the “Northern Ecotourism Corridor,” was incorporated into President Mauricio Macri’s national vision.

At the same time, the achievements of the Tompkins in South America were attracting the attention of other philanthropists who were interested in financing a new national park in Patagonia in collaboration with the same CLT team. A further challenge here was to set up a bi-national park with Chile, where the Tompkins Conservation was in the final stage of creating the Patagonia National Park on the Chilean side of the border in agreement with President Bachelet of Chile. Once again, the concept of Full Nature was essential for gaining support from local people and local, provincial, and national authorities. In fact, the idea of parks as sources of employment, pride, and well-being was decisive in stopping an open-cast mining venture in the heart of the future national park, a few kilometers from Cueva de las Manos (one of the most important archaeological sites in South America) and Route 40 (possibly the most iconic road in Argentina).

Recently, Mauricio Macri, the president of Argentina, announced his intention to double the number of national parks in the country based on the belief that they are motors for local economies. Meanwhile, CLT continues to learn from these political, economic, and ecological processes, which are promoting the recovery of threatened or locally extinct wildlife, and generating well-being and pride in rural communities. In Iberá, the Chacoan Impenetrable, Patagonia, at sea, and in all Argentinian regions, we are working to find ways to promote conservation through innovation in Full Nature.

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CHAPTER 4.

PROMOTION: BASIC CONCEPTS THE SIX MORAL FOUNDATIONS In his book The Righteous Mind,1 John Haidt provides abundant empirical evidence of how people use logical arguments to justify a posteriori events that touch our heartstrings or our most deeply held values. He uses the metaphor of the mind as a large elephant with rider, where the elephant represents our intuition (the things that provoke immediate rejection or well-being) and the rider our logical thoughts. In this case, the rider is at the service of the elephant, ready to generate arguments that justify our innermost values. This explains classic situations such as arguments between the supporters of two football teams who, despite having watched exactly the same game, are absolutely convinced – and are able to supply all kinds of details – that the referee was against their team. It is as if each one had seen a different match, filtering and excluding any events that would contradict something as deep and emotional as “my team deserved to win.”

After years of study, Haidt and other researchers have identified six major moral foundations that act as the main sources of myths and norms in different groups and societies. Table 4.2 illustrates these concepts as dualities contrasting right and wrong behavior.

Different moral systems or collective myths arise as a result of the relative importance bestowed on each of these pillars or moral foundations. Each has emerged during our evolution as a social and complex species in response to some kind of adaptive challenge. I will summarize them very briefly so we can use them effectively in discussing promotion and managing conflicts.

The moral foundation of care against harm as opposed to cruelty probably arose in response to the challenge of having to bring up human offspring, which are helpless during the first years of their lives.

As a consequence of this adaptive response, a behavioral trend has been generated in most humans that disapproves of actions that harm defenseless beings (e.g. children, unprotected groups, or baby seals).

Another moral foundation has to do with fairness or proportionality as opposed to cheating, which makes us especially adept at identifying and appreciating those who are good at “returning favors” and assume their part of a shared task; at the same time we loathe (and discredit or even violently punish) those who cheat and want to benefit from what they “have not earned or does not belong to them.”

In response to the need to form coalitions or coordinated groups (e.g. to compete with other groups for territory and scarce resources), the moral pillar of loyalty – that is, the opposite of betrayal – arose. This attribute makes us especially sensitive to any indication that another person is or is not a good “team player.” It makes us trust and reward loyal people and criticize, expel, or even kill those who betray us personally or our group. The pillar of authority tends to reward those who are respectful of symbols of rank and social status within any group, and deprive of recognition or punish those who are subversive or disrespectful of status, hierarchies, or simply “good manners.”

Care against harm vs. cruelty

Fairness or roportionality vs. cheating

Loyalty vs. betrayal

Authority or respect vs. subversion

Sanctity or purity vs. degradation

Liberty vs. oppression

Table 4.2 The six moral foundations presented as dualities of what is right and wrong. Source: Haidt.1

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The pillar of sanctity (as opposed to degradation) promotes the establishment of the sacred symbols and rules that represent our groups (typically in comparison to others) and therefore define us as true group members. This stimulates sensations of disgust and repulsion in the case of behavior that could be unhealthy in evolutionary terms (e.g. incest or eating carrion or even pork in some religious groups). Thus, feelings of sanctity favor the generation of taboos whose practical utility does not seem obvious, socially established hygienic practices, and religious or patriotic symbols of particular significance (e.g. the figures of certain virgins and saints for Catholicism, totems for traditional tribes, sacred mountains, the flags of our countries and nations, soccer clubs, large carnivores for nature lovers, and so forth), all of which serve to enhance group cohesion. This also favors the branding of certain symbols or acts as highly negative or as the incarnation of all evil, perversion, or sin (e.g. the Devil, homosexuality, abortion, the flag of the opposing sports team, or cougars for Patagonia ranchers and wolves for landowners in Montana). This pillar promotes conservative attitudes that tend to view negatively those that are “different from us,” mostly because these outsiders do not respond in the same way as the group to sacred symbols and rituals.

Finally, our species has also evolved a tendency to defend its freedom from the oppression exercised by people of high rank or powerful groups (supported in many cases by the authority foundation) who abuse their positions of power to mistreat, subjugate, or “parasitize” the rest. This foundation triggers processes in which certain groups unite to dethrone the “bullies” or tyrants (e.g. the French Revolution and the struggle against apartheid).

All the moral systems governing the behavior of individuals and, above all, groups, as well as the fundamental values that define us as individuals or a group, arise from some combination of these six moral foundations. How can understanding these six moral foundations benefit conservation processes? First, interest groups use a combination of these six pillars to morally justify their standpoints of support for, indifference, or opposition to particular conservation initiatives. Second, once we understand this, as shown in Table 4.3, these foundations can be used to either promote or attack specific conservation policies; for instance, the principle of loyalty can be used to justify or condemn whale hunting. Knowing this allows us to improve the design of our communication strategies so that they embrace the moral values of interested parties and, especially, of those that think differently from us.

In third place, one of the major findings of research in this area is that the relative importance of these six moral pillars varies greatly between rural and urban groups, and equally between people with progressive and conservative political outlooks. This realization is an extremely powerful tool when designing messages that best fit each of these groups, i.e. the choice of appropriate symbols and avoidance of those that would leave groups indifferent or even offend them. In this sense, more rural and conservative groups and societies tend to place equal importance on all six major moral pillars and erect value systems and rules that defend community traditions and values over individual ones. For these groups, despite the importance of defending the foundations of individual well-being such as freedom and care against harm, it is equally essential to protect the moral pillars such as authority, loyalty, fairness, and sanctity that have evolved to promote social cohesion.

By contrast, as commented above, urban and more progressive groups in general tend to be more selective in the pillars they defend, promoting individual freedom, innovation, and well-being grounded in foundations such as freedom and care against harm. This makes it imaginable that these groups (and people) will react negatively to proposals or policies defending the principle of authority or loyalty (mainly because they tend to restrict people’s freedoms) and will despise behavior that defends the pillar of sanctity, touting them as “irrational” or “magical.” The importance of care against harm is so great in many progressive or “leftish” groups in many countries that it even

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leads them to relinquish in some cases the value of individual freedom – prompting state intervention to regulate certain rights or assets – in order to better protect and care for “unprotected groups” that they see as vulnerable.

Thus, much of conservation mythology has been created by progressive urban groups concerned about the damage that humans (i.e. the “powerful”) are inflicting on the rest of the creatures that inhabit the planet (i.e. the “weak”). And if these creatures look especially familiar to humans and resemble in some way human babies (e.g. pandas, baby seals, and kittens), then this awakens still further a love of conservation as a way of avoiding doing harm. But it is important to know that this is not the only route to a conservation mentality, which can also be accomplished using the

Moral foundation

Arguments in favor of conservation

Arguments against conservation

Care against harm vs. cruelty

We must stop killing whales because it makes no sense to kill (inflicting so much pain) such intelligent animals just so that a few can eat their meat, especially since there is no real need for it.

Conservationists do not care if the inhabitants of a particular community live in poverty and starve as result of forbidding access to and certain activities in the Park.

Fairness vs. cheating

It is not fair that we all have to suffer the effects of pollution while a few businesses reap the economic benefits.

It is not fair that these ecologists who come from the city and only know how to write reports tell us what we can or cannot do, especially when we have to work hard to earn a living.

Loyalty vs. betrayal

Stopping whaling is a question of national concern for the government and citizens of New Zealand.

All the inhabitants of the Faroe Islands must defend the annual killing of the whales that come to our coast because it is something that unites and defines us as a community.

Authority vs. subversion

In his new encyclical, Pope Francis I criticizes the loss of biodiversity as a sin before God.

The Bible says Man has the moral duty to tame and civilize the Wild.

Freedom vs. oppression

The construction of this dam is the result of an agreement between the same old dominant forces: crooked rulers corrupted by a large multinational.

The government has no right to tell me what I can or cannot do on my property. Protected areas are created by an urban elite without consulting local people.

Sanctity vs. degradation

Only in being a part of Nature do we find the true connection with Eternal and Timeless Beauty. The wolf represents all that is pure, natural, and wild in contrast to avarice and so-called “human progress.”

Private property is a sacred and inalianable value in which neither governments nor environmentalists should interfere.

The wolf represents the cruelty and barbarism of backward societies that lack basic decency.

Table 4.3 Each of the six moral foundations can be used to generate arguments for or against Conservation.

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foundations of loyalty (preserving the last tigers may be a patriotic mandate for the inhabitants of India), authority (the Christian tradition talks of love and respect for other creatures and the role of people as “stewards” of Creation), and sanctity (transcendentalists like Thoreau or John Muir or native leaders who attribute a sacred value to “Mother Nature”). The six moral pillars can also help us understand and therefore manage more effectively typical conflicts within conservationism such as between those who view Nature as something sacred (who typically refer to its intrinsic value) and those who see it as something to be used (i.e. natural resources) and therefore “negotiable.”

In the words of Jonathan Haidt: “Morality binds and blinds. This is not just something that happens to people on the other side. We all get sucked into tribal moral communities. We circle around sacred values and then share post hoc arguments about why we are so right and they are so wrong.

We think the other side is blind to truth, reason, science, and common sense, but in fact everyone goes blind when talking about their sacred objects. (…) Morality binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.” In light of this, it is extremely important to identify our sacred values and those of other groups since this knowledge will help us think much more strategically when designing our messages and communication tools.

Yamamura’s video about the whales is a good example of how to reframe a story to avoid head-on collisions with sacred values and how to use other equally important values that work in favor of conservation. It is the equivalent of a jiu-jitsu move in the world of communication. Another fascinating example of the use of sacred symbols to appeal to different group values is the TV series National Parks: America’s Best Idea3 discussed in Chapter 2 on Full Nature. In its six chapters the creators of the series select a variety of resources to appeal to contrasting sectors of an American society currently divided into two groups (conservatives vs. liberals) that extol very different doctrines, rules, and symbols. The series uses symbols such as the Bible, the military, and the power of the individual that resonate within conservative mythology, as well as others including the role of central government, biodiversity conservation, civil rights, activism, and the importance of science that ring true to the progressive audience, as well as a further group of symbols including country, family, and democracy that are shared by both groups. Through the combined use of all these symbols the series manages to convey the message that national parks are a treasure belonging to “all Americans” regardless of the political group they belong to.

REFERENCES 1 About the six great moral pillars Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. Vintage.

2 TV series about national parks in the US: <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Parks:_America%27s_Best_Idea>

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Box 4.1

THE DEATH OF THE LION KING: AN INDIVIDUAL TRAGEDY THAT MOVED MASSES Talia Zamboni, The Conservation Land Trust Argentina On July 2015, I remember watching the news that Cecil, a lion being monitored by researchers in Zimbabwe, had been shot by a trophy-hunting American dentist. Like millions of other people around the world, the news generated in me a mixture of deep sadness and anger. A year later, fate took me as a graduate student to WildCRU, the University of Oxford research unit where the researchers studying Cecil and other lions in Zimbabwe were working. Here, I learned more details about how Cecil’s case became widely known, and realized how a simple story or tragedy can elicit such a massive response and have an unexpected effect in conservation.

This remarkable episode was unleashed by Jimmy Kimmel, an American comedian, who expressed his opinion about Cecil’s death on his talk show just a few days after the incident. He took time to condemn the American dentist and encouraged Americans to show that they were not like him, and ended his speech by providing a link to WildCRU’s web page supporting lion conservation. This four-minute monologue triggered an unforeseen reaction in the American public to something that had happened in a country that most could not even place on a map. Within the next hour 4.4 million people visited the WildCRU webpage, which caused it to crash, along with the main Oxford University webpage. This event, along with thousands of articles, news, and reports about Cecil’s death provoked a massive public response generating for WildCRU 1.06 million dollars in revenue from more than 13,000 donors, mostly from the United States.1 Knowing that thousands of animals are killed annually by hunters, I still wonder why this specific incident attracted my attention and that of many others. Most surprising is that the story caused the public to take action in support of wildlife by either expressing their feelings on social media, protesting actively, or donating money. The paradox is that Cecil’s death actually had very little importance in a pure conservation sense. He did not represent the last specimen of some endangered subspecies and in demographic and genetic terms his loss was totally insignificant for the future of the species. So, why was there such an amazing global response to an event with such a paltry effect on lion conservation? The answer is that it was a good story.

This question has also been analyzed by experts who suggest that several factors could have awaken such global interest: Cecil was a beautiful animal (both as a species and an individual lion) with a defined identity (he had a name, so he was not an “unknown lion”), the circumstances of his death, which implied he had suffered for several hours after being wounded, the ultimate reason for his death (as a trophy), and the nationality of the hunter, among other factors, may all have influenced people’s response.4 This timely mention of the case by Kimmel during his show had a tremendous impact on an American public who felt that they had to cleanse their national honor after their hunter compatriot was publicly condemned. In this sense, it is probable that the identity of the hunter had much to do with the commotion: a wealthy professional from a rich country, flying across continents to kill a beautiful animal in a poor country. A similar outcry occurred when pictures of the King of Spain, Juan Carlos II, with an elephant he had just killed in Botswana were made public; this had very negative effects for both the public image of the country and the Spanish monarchy. Context builds the characters of these stories and it was probably key too that Spain, at that moment, was suffering one of its worst economic crises in recent history whilst its king was having fun shooting elephants in Africa.

These are just two examples of the many stories that go viral in the media and social networks.

Every day different news items from different parts of the world are massively shared on social

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media and generate thousands of articles and mentions in the news, while other very similar stories go unnoticed. Countless public stories seem anecdotic or even dumb to many people. However, it is probable that some specific pattern can be found in all successful stories. In this specific case, the basic elements of a popular story can be recognized: a main character turned into a martyr (a beautiful lion), a villain who represents evil interests (a “rich” American professional travelling to a poor country to kill the protagonist as a trophy), and a number of heroes that can help funnel the audience’s rage and frustration (the researchers who have been studying the last lions in Africa for several years). Probably these simple but efficient ingredients of a good story worked particularly well, encouraging people to be part of it, condemning evil, clearing a nation’s honor in some cases, and helping the good guys.

Whatever worked in Cecil’s story, the takeaway message is how a good narrative (in this case a tragedy) can move people’s hearts and generate a global response. In this case, an event that took place in southern Africa provoked immediate feedback that helped a scientific institute located thousands of kilometers away in the United Kingdom, all of which was set in motion by a TV personality in the USA. And it is probable that most of the people who helped WildCRU will maintain their support because of Cecil, creating a movement whereby common people can engage and support wildlife conservation.

Public pressure was also heeded at high political levels as six month after Cecil’s death the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added two lion subspecies (one in India and the other in western and central Africa) to its endangered species list.2,3 Even conservation groups, which had been petitioning for the inclusion of lions on the list for a long time, admitted that “the killing of Cecil was a defining moment.”2 It was also a key moment for more than 40 airlines that decided to ban the transport of hunting trophies, which motivated a huge change in the trophy-hunting industry.

Cecil’s death also meant something for the conservation and management of lions in Zimbabwe.

After the episode, restrictions on trophy hunting were applied to lions and other species.4 For most conservationists these restrictions will have a positive effect on lion populations by boosting their recovery.5 At the same time, some African colleagues complain that Cecil’s story has had a negative impact on lion conservation in Zimbabwe, since it has reduced the benefits for communities living with lions who were being paid by trophy hunters. This seemed to lead to an increase in the number of petitions to the Zimbabwean wildlife authorities to cull “problem lions” that were no longer valuable.6 Either positively or negatively, Cecil’s story had an outstanding effect on multiple levels on lion conservation throughout Africa. Even if thousands of animals are killed in similar circumstances, very few will ever generate such a massive response. Whatever the reason, this case exemplifies how a good story can have a huge impact on conservation.

REFERENCES 1 Ferry, G. (2016). The lion, the web and the WildCRU. medium.com 2 Macdonald, D.W., Jacobsen, K.S., Burnham, D., Johnson, P.J., & Loveridge, A.J. (2016). Cecil: A Moment or a Movement? Analysis of Media Coverage of the Death of a Lion, Panthera leo. Animals 6(5): 26.

3 Goodedec, E. (2015). After Cecil Furor, U.S. Aims to Protect Lions Through Endangered Species Act. The New York Times: A16.

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4 Macdonald, D.W (2016). Report on Lion Conservation with Particular Respect to the Issue of Trophy Hunting. WildCRU, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford.

5 Panthera, WildAID, WildCru (2016). Beyond Cecil: Africa’s lions in crisis.

6 Thornycroft, P. (02/20/2016). ‘Cecil effect’ leaves park’s lion at risk of cull. The Telegraph. <www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/12166651/Cecil-effectleaves-parks-lion-at-risk-of-cull.html>

Box 4.2

EVIDENCE AND BELIEFS Juan Jiménez, Head of the Wildlife Service, Valencian Regional Government, Spain Conservation Biology assumes that research, experimentation, and scientific publications should form the basis of species and natural area conservation. However, Sutherland et al.,1 for example, were surprised to discover that, after interviewing conservation practitioners in the United Kingdom, decisions were mostly based on such unscientific concepts as common sense, personal experience, and conversations with peers. Assuming that this lack of rigor was due to a difficulty in accessing scientific publications, they proposed a work system based on the experience of doctors in the health sector (i.e. the Cochrane Collaboration) that would make the vast amount of published research accessible to managers. This was the origin of the Centre for Evidence-Based Conservation (www. cebc.bangor.ac.uk).

However, those of us who recognize the importance of research in conservation often find that publications or experimental results have little relevance outside the academic world to which only 10% of our interlocutors (e.g. citizens, land-owners, hunters, journalists, and politicians) belong.

Bonoma and Crookston2 have described the inverse relationship between data rigor and relevance to the public, that is to say, experimental laboratory models and designs have less influence than fieldwork. Moreover, they note that myths and legends are much more relevant to the general population than findings published in scientific journals, which should not surprise us given the nature of human behavior.

Beliefs play a key role in human relationships. Due to their very nature they cannot be refuted, either by alternative ones or – even more unlikely – by scientific evidence. Religious and patriotic feelings are good examples of this. This is so for many areas of human relationships — and conservation is no exception. Hatred and fear of the wild and particularly of dangerous species have a well-founded basis in self-protection but are exacerbated when dressed up with secular values and myths (e.g. wolves are perverse and bloodthirsty and attack for pleasure).3 Wilderness is associated with a lack of order and the need for human intervention; anything foreign is perceived as inherently bad. This latter consideration deserves further reflection as it is linked to the successful and relatively recent campaigns against invasive species, as Thompson points out in his provocative book.4 In a recent work, Miguel Delibes-Mateos5 shows how the local proliferation of rabbits in Spain, favored either by the release of animals in some areas or their acquisition of resistance to disease, has helped spread the myth that this “plague” was caused by an “unnatural” introduction of American or Australian rabbits, since native (and, hence, “good”) Spanish rabbits “could not be so disruptive.” The notion that harmful species are always foreign is embellished in

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many cases by rural beliefs that wolves, snakes, and rodents have been introduced by conservationists or government agencies for obscure reasons that no doubt clash with the interests of rural inhabitants. It is clear that, with these myths so strongly embedded in rural populations, it is difficult to move forward in environmental restoration.

However, beliefs can also be useful for conservation. Due to its anthropomorphic form, in northern Europe the bear was once regarded as a sacred animal and bear-hunting was the preserve of the aristocracy. This indirect protection disappeared with the Christianization of the continent, in which the ideology of Eastern Christian origin ousted the bear as the “king of animals” and replaced it with the lion.6 With the Christianization of the European continent, the bear changed from a noble species to a harmful beast and ended up being exterminated or being the object of derision in circuses.

In medieval Spain, the monasteries – and, in particular, those of the ascetic orders derived from the rule of Saint Benedict (which prohibited the consumption of meat, hunting in large groups as sport, and damage to forests) – were located by royal decision in mountain areas. This allowed the monks to act as “park rangers,” if only to manage hunting for the lord who had granted them their lands.7 This relationship between religion and conservation has also been documented in Tibet, where the current distribution of the snow leopard closely matches the location of Buddhist monasteries.8 Surrounded by sacred mountains, the influence of monasteries on local uses may be more effective in conserving wildlife than government protected areas, which are typically poorly equipped with surveillance personnel. Also in Asia, it has been shown that the survival of monumental individuals of certain tree species endangered by the growing Chinese population can only be explained by the respect for fengshui forests and the belief in divine trees held by local ethnic minorities.9 Returning to Conservation, there is not always a clear separation between evidence and beliefs.

Since the foundation of conservation biology as an academic discipline by Soule and others in 198510, the ethical values of sacred nature have developed and now include concepts defending the idea that biological diversity is good per se and so must be protected. In the same vein, Miguel Delibes de Castro11 defends this discipline as science with values, whose ultimate goal is conservation. In my opinion, these values and ends lie far from the inherent objectivity of science, but they do help to promote its cause. Hence the success of scientific journals that incorporate Conservation in their title, a term that contrasts with the neutrality of terms such as Limnology, Neurology, Psychiatry, or Economics.

Thus, beliefs can be useful or harmful to conservation and this will not be corrected by scientific evidence, at least in the short or medium terms. Conservationists are good at handling evidence and beliefs, but they should realize that many “opponents” cope badly with the former but are excellent at defending the latter and at spreading powerful myths. As a final example, the Conservation Land Trust campaign to support the reintroduction of the jaguar in Iberá (Corrientes, Argentina) was not based on ecological arguments about the role of this top predator in these wetlands or the trophic cascade effect that its return would provoke; rather, the success of the reintroduction was due to associating the powerful image of the jaguar with the bold Correntino personality via the slogan Corrientes becomes Corrientes again. This achieved something hitherto almost unheard of: a cattle-ranching community supporting the reintroduction of a region’s largest predator.12,13

REFERENCES 1 Sutherland, W.J., Pullin, A.S., Dolman, P.M. Knight, T.M. (2004). The need for evidence-based conservation. TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution, 19 (6): 305-308.

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2 Bonoma, T.V. (1985). Case research in Marketing: Opportunities, problems and a process. Journal of Marketing Research 22: 199-208.

Crookston, R.K. (1994). Proceedings, Systems-oriented research in agriculture and rural development: International Symposium. Montpellier, France, 803-806.

3 Musiani, M., Boitani, L., Paquet, P.C. (eds.) (2009). A new era for wolves and people: wolf recovery, human attitudes, and policy. University of Calgary Press, Calgary.

4 K. Thompson (2014). Where Do Camels Belong? The Story and Science of Invasive Species. Profile Books.

5 Delibes-Mateo, M. (2016). Rumours about wildlife pest introductions: European rabbits in Spain.

Ambio. DOI 10.1007/s13280-016-0817-2 6 Pastoureau, M. (2008). El Oso: Historia de un Rey destronado. Paidos. Barcelona.

7 Valverde, J.A. (2009). Anotaciones al Libro de la Montería del Rey Alfonso XI. Edited by José Antonio de la Fuente Freyre. Universidad de Salamanca. Biblioteca de las Ciencias nº 82.

8 Li, J. et al. (2013). Role of Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries in Snow Leopard Conservation. Conservation Biology, 28: 87-94.

9 Liao, H.Y., Ren, M.X. (2015). Distribution patterns of long-lived individuals of relict plants around Fanjingshan Mountain in China: Implications for in situ conservation. Collectanea Botanica 34: e002 10 Soulé, M.E. (1985). What is conservation biology? BioScience, 35: 727-734 11 Delibes de Castro, M. (2014). Ciencia y Compromiso: la Biología de la Conservación. Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Madrid.

12 Video from the Corrientes Vuelve a Ser Corrientes campaign in Argentina. <youtu.be/iKkjVvsR7kc> 13 Miquelle, D.G., Jiménez-Peréz I. et al. (2016). ‘Rescue, Rehabilitation, Translocation, Reintroduction, and Captive Rearing: Lessons From Handling the Other Big Cats’. 324- 338, in McCarthy T., Mallon, D., (eds.) Snow Leopards. Biodiversity of the World: Conservation from Genes to Landscapes. Academic Press.10 Soulé, M.E. (1985). What is conservation biology? BioScience, 35: 727-734 11 Delibes de Castro, M. (2014). Ciencia y Compromiso: la Biología de la Conservación. Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Madrid.

12 Video from the Corrientes Vuelve a Ser Corrientes campaign in Argentina. <youtu.be/iKkjVvsR7kc> 13 Miquelle, D.G., Jiménez-Peréz I. et al. (2016). ‘Rescue, Rehabilitation, Translocation, Reintroduction, and Captive Rearing: Lessons From Handling the Other Big Cats’. 324- 338, in McCarthy T., Mallon, D., (eds.) Snow Leopards. Biodiversity of the World: Conservation from Genes to Landscapes. Academic Press.

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CHAPTER 5.

PROMOTION: TOOLS AND PRACTICALITIES YOUR TEAM MUST EMBODY THE MESSAGE Promotion begins at home. It is very difficult to convince society that they should jump on board if they see a crew that looks unhappy or apathetic, or who are not fully focused on the challenge at hand. I have seen how people queue up to help or join a project whose members transmit commitment and passion and, when asked about their work and why they do it, provide consistent answers reflecting a collectively shared vision. This is not easy to achieve. Often, when we interact with conservation organizations, some of the first things we hear are complaints about shipmates, contradictory versions of the ship’s destination (if there is one), constant messages of frustration due to a scarcity of resources, and the lack of interest towards their work shown by superiors or “politicians.”

Enthusiasm, commitment, and collective illusion, on one hand, and disillusionment, frustration, and resentment, on the other, are all immediately detectable and highly contagious. When we note the former we want to jump on board but when we detect the latter we prefer to stand aside, even if we feel a certain degree of sympathy for the unsatisfied crew.

Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to welcome dozens of visitors of all sorts – journalists, potential donors, policymakers, researchers, and so forth – to our reserves. And what struck them most, beyond the beautiful scenery, abundant wildlife, and the quality and beauty of our facilities, was the human quality of our team members; that is, their energy, commitment, humor, and warmth, their willingness to admit to mistakes, their curiosity and desire to improve, and – above all – the fact that “they all tell the same story.”

Besides energy and contagious enthusiasm, it is important that a conservation team exhibits through its actions the same values that it claims to represent. It is vital that there is no disagreement between what it says it wants to achieve (the why) and what it actually does (the what). If you say you care about local people, it helps that your team has a significant amount of local employees.

If you say that you care about the problems of neighboring communities, then the key members of your team must treat them with respect, spend time with them, and listen to them with the care and patience that their codes and values dictate, which may well diverge from the standards and codes of behavior of the ship’s officers that originate from distant urban areas. It is important to avoid contradictory messages: for example, you work in an area because you want to “help” local people but the project staff mostly consists of outsiders who dash through communities in brand new 4x4s; or you work in an area for two or three years but then leave when the funding runs out, as happens in many international aid projects.

This kind of jarring behavior will not only hinder the acceptance of your project by local and national stakeholders but can generate significant “antibodies” to future projects led by external groups with similar objectives. Communities and public opinion tend to respect conservation organizations whose members (or at least a good number of them) get their hands dirty, sleep in the same place as the locals, and eat the same food, who don’t lie when dealing with difficult issues, who know the terrain, the local language, people, myths, stories, and jokes, and who can ride, walk, and navigate a boat like anyone else in the area.

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The story of the establishment of new federal protected areas in the state of Alaska, which stirred a national conflict in the 1970s, exemplifies many of these ideas.1 Many inhabitants of the state were up in arms at President Carter, the central government, and the new national park authorities. In the middle of the conflict, the federal government sent a representative to promote or, at least, explain the advantages of the new national parks. That envoy, John Cook, was an interesting character: he understood the local codes of language, values, and clothing, and also “had national parks in his blood,” being the son and grandson of park rangers. In other words, he deeply identified with the logic behind these parks, as they were part of his intrinsic values, and was admitted as a legitimate interlocutor by the “other” side. Thus, when arriving in Alaska, he chose to meet the locals in the bar where it had been announced that they would kill the first park officer who dared enter. In front of 200 people, “half of who were pretty tanked up,” he stood up, looked in their faces, showed them maps, and explained “what was going to happen and what wasn’t going to happen.” Subsequently, he handpicked a task force whose task was to promote the parks and manage the conflict. He sent them out with the following instructions: “Whatever you do, never lie to people. Don’t whitewash anything. Go from to town to town. Live in the towns. Be truthful. It’s awfully hard to stay angry at your neighbor if your neighbor is a good neighbor.” Meanwhile, together with the governor of Alaska, the national park authorities created and promoted the concept that tourism associated with the new parks would be “Alaska’s permanent pipeline, because we won’t run out of visitors after the oil would run out.” That is, they generated their own Casa Grande based on an inclusive message that satisfied both conservationists and those who had the economy and local jobs as their main concerns. With this, the animosity of the local population to the new parks dwindled and after years of negotiations at both state and national levels an agreement was reached that gave the green light to the greatest ever increase in the surface area of protected areas in the country’s history. Currently, some of the areas that were most opposed to the establishment of national protected areas depend on nature tourism as their main source of jobs and income. One Alaskan community passed two resolutions condemning the creation of a nearby protected area but years later, after seeing the benefits accruing from tourism, called for the very same protected area to be expanded.1

ASSESSING PROMOTIONAL TOOLS IN LIGHT OF LOCAL CONTEXT AND VALUES All the promotional tools described above have certain advantages but also a number of drawbacks.

It is imperative to choose the correct promotional tool at each particular moment bearing in mind the social context of each area, the political timing, the urgency of the threats to the ecosystem, available financial, technical, and human resources, and the potential network of partners. Activism and legal cases may generate unnecessary conflict in certain cultures and so, before undertaking any such action, we need to assess the relative costs of doing nothing or of carrying out an alternative strategy. This will help us judge whether or not provoking a conflict is the best way to stop a particular threat. If we believe it is, we just have to steel ourselves and go for it. Conservation organizations may have to agree to play different roles. For example, in environmental conflicts in northwest Argentina Greenpeace played the role of the activist aggressively attacking business and government, while the ProYungas Foundation acted as a mediator and facilitator once the issue had been put in the spotlight by the former. In any case, we will always need “annoying” conservation organizations to place contentious issues (i.e. scandals) in the public sphere. It should be realized that all mobilizations led by external groups regarded as foreign or elitist (as has happened with many conservation groups) will have serious problems in generating broad-based legitimacy, which is why we need the

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support of respected members of local groups in activist campaigns. It is also important to formulate campaign messages using local myths, as shown by the example of the anime video of the old schoolteacher and the whales conceived for Greenpeace Japan. This reframing does not imply communicating any false information. We must be consistent and honest, as illustrated by the story of the national parks envoy in Alaska. A good example from rural Chilean Patagonia of the use of local symbols, expressions, and humor to promote an activist campaign is described in the book relating the Patagonia Without Dams campaign2 (see also Box 5.1).

Sometimes focusing our promotional efforts on educational activities with schoolchildren, theatrical performances and videos, or handing out leaflets is simply a way to avoid confrontation with powerful enemies; this is what Whitten et al.3 describe as “displacement behavior.” In the case of conservationists who are trained as academics we must avoid preaching only to peers who attend scientific conferences and read scientific articles and, instead, try to talk to those who don’t attend the same church. This involves reviewing both the language we employ – terms such as biodiversity, homocygotic, metapopulation, logistic regression, and Akaike index won’t help communication with the general public – and using more face-to-face communication with influential decision-makers consisting of visually attractive presentations, internet-based social networks, short videos, and motivational talks to large audiences.

REFERENCES 1 Chapter 6 of the series National Parks: America’s Best Idea. Section Last chance to do it right.

1:19:30 2 To download book for the Patagonia without dams! Campaign: <www.patagoniasinrepresas.cl/ final/descargas/patagoniasinrepresas.zip> 3 Whitten, T., Holmes, D., & MacKinnon, K. (2001). Conservation biology: a displacement behavior for academia? Conservation Biology, 15 (1), 1-3.

Box 5.1

CHILEAN PATAGONIA WITHOUT DAMS! A PUBLIC AWARENESS AND EDUCATION CAMPAIGN Daniela Castro Polanco, Defense Council of Chilean Patagonia In 2005 there was great concern within Chile about energy scarcity and, particularly, about the vulnerability of its electricity-supply sector. From the perspective of the country’s main electricity companies, backed by an important part of the political apparatus and the national government, it was suggested that demand for electricity in Chile would double over the coming 10 years and triple in 20, mainly due to the opening up of new mining projects in the north of the country. With this in mind, the multinational company Endesa and Chile’s Colbún, allied under the name Hidroaysén, proposed building a series of huge hydro-electric power or HEP dams on the largest rivers in Chilean Patagonia, the Baker and Easter, at an estimated cost of 2.5 billion dollars. The dams would flood at least 9,000 ha and produce 2,400 megawatts of power. This energy would be transferred to Santiago along a direct transmission line of more than 2,000 km at a cost of around 1.5 billion dollars.

This power line would cut a clear swath across several national parks and through the landscapes

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of seven regions of Chile. Other companies that owned water rights in Chilean Patagonia soon announced their own plans to build large dams. Thanks to the great HEP potential of its pristine rivers, the Aysén region of Chile thus became known as the “battery of Chile.”

As a reaction to these announcements, a local and national citizen’s movement began mobilizing under the simple but explicit slogan of Chilean Patagonia without dams! For those leading the campaign, the main causes of energy vulnerability in Chile were linked to the strict application of a doctrine based on the free market and technological neutrality, coupled with the trend to externalize environmental costs and equate the concerns of the large electricity companies with national priorities.

In October 2007, a book Chilean Patagonia without dams was presented in public. It contained a combination of images showing the visual impact that the dams and power lines would have on the beautiful landscapes of Chilean Patagonia, with texts written by various personalities from Chilean society outlining the main arguments of the opposition to the proposed projects. For many Chilean activists, this book kick-started the national crusade against the dams.

The public awareness and education campaigns proposed a solution to the perceived electricity shortage that would benefit the whole nation: decentralized energy generation, diversification and greater efficiency, and no large HEP projects in Patagonia that would push in precisely the opposite direction. The task was not easy since in Chile the belief that electricity generation depended on damming its Patagonian rivers was widespread; likewise, it was thought that, despite the great environmental and social impact that these projects would have, the “sacrifice” of the Aysén region was inevitable and necessary for the progress of the country as a whole. In April 2008, 54.7% of respondents to a poll were in favor of the dams, while only 37.4% were against. These percentages had been even more pro-dams in previous years.

However, despite a powerful communication campaign promoting the HEP projects sponsored by the electricity companies, opposition to the dams slowly grew. Activist groups were organized under the umbrella of the Chilean Patagonia Defense Council, a collective that shared a common vision of the spirit and development options for Chilean Patagonia. It was organized in several thematic areas that interacted and collaborated with each other. Individual task forces were entrusted with citizen participation, communication, technical and legal issues, and international collaboration, just to name a few of the fields of operation. This allowed many organizations and people who

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identified with the campaign to get involved in their own areas of interest and expertise. The Council was never established as a legally constituted entity and had no overall budget, and so each organizational area sought its own funding and chose to collaborate in areas linked to their resources and areas of proficiency. An initial group of a dozen environmental, social, and neighborhood organizations was quickly joined by over 40 other groups and hundreds of individuals of diverse origins and interests who were able to act on many fronts at local, national, and international levels. Outside Chile banks and institutions interested in financing the HEP projects were warned about the growing public opposition to the project and its environmental and social impact. The campaign grew quickly and extended beyond the borders of Chile, and soon grabbed international attention.

The cause increased its public visibility progressively. A well-established communication campaign was organized in Chile that included regular inserts in the written press, as well as posters and billboards on the streets of Santiago and along the roads in Chilean Patagonia. With the support of universities and other prominent institutions, various technical and economic studies were conducted on alternative options for power generation in Chile and the great potential for energy efficiency that our country possesses. For example, the University of Chile published a study entitled Are dams necessary in Patagonia?, while Acera (Chilean Association of Renewable Energies) made public a report analyzing the potential and costs of non-conventional renewable energy in Chile. The potential impact of the dams and the power lines on the incipient tourist industry in Patagonia was also brought up. To complement the technical and economic arguments, the campaign also targeted the emotions of the country’s people by presenting Patagonia at both national and global level as an area of exceptional natural beauty and possessor of a remarkable cultural heritage. For example, advertisements were placed in the press and large billboards erected depicting a beautiful face scarred by electricity power lines, thereby equating the pylons and cables with the wounds inflicted on a loved one. The campaign also included a series of paid advertisements in the main Chilean newspapers that used satirical humor and professional graphic design to expose several aspects of the dam project and the environmental impact assessments.

In parallel, peaceful and creative public activities were held to demonstrate opposition to the construction of the dams: public marches, concerts, and countless other activities were organized, of which arguably the most symbolic was the November 2007 cavalcade. Around 100 horse riders, many of them dressed in traditional gaucho costume, rode into the regional capital of Coyhaique after over 300 km and a week in the saddle from the southern city of Cochrane. More and more riders and artists, young and old alike, joined the march in each locality along Chile’s Ruta Austral, probably the country’s most famous and scenically impressive road. When they arrived in Coyhaique, they were received as heroes by thousands of people in a large cultural event set up in the capital’s main square. For the first time the national media covered the campaign, which it hitherto had pointedly refused to take any interest in.

Websites, Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks became important tools for the cause, transmitting in real time the information and events described above, as well as the main milestones of the environmental impact assessment of the HEP projects. The website Chilean Patagonia without Dams! compiled a vast amount of information at varying levels of complexity, and encouraged interested people to organize informative meetings on the subject in their local communities. The campaign’s official Facebook account mostly posted positive information highlighting the great natural and cultural heritage of Chilean Patagonia. However, specific issues were also broached and calls to demonstrate peacefully were made if the situation warranted. As a result of this grassroots work, the movement against dams expanded and thousands of people volunteered to join the campaign, bringing with them hundreds of ideas and initiatives that surpassed the capacity of the orig-

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inal organization and initial promoters. Several other websites and Facebook profiles were created, and new independent organizations opposed to the dams sprung up. All this work paid off and in May 2009 another study was published stating that 57.6% of interviewees did not agree with the HEP projects in Chilean Patagonia, while 31.9% still endorsed them.

However, despite the growing popular rejection of the project, the official plans continued apace via an official environmental assessment process. In 2008, Hidroaysén presented an environmental impact study of the dam project to the Ministry of Environment. The public bodies responsible for its evaluation issued more than 2,500 allegations and, in the light of this information and after their own analysis, the detractors of the project presented a further 3,000 allegations from private citizens stressing the low technical quality of the study and how the environmental and social impacts of the project had been underestimated. Hence started one of the longest environmental assessments in the history of Chile. For about four years, the study was evaluated by different public bodies through countless queries made to the hydroelectric companies until, finally, in May 2011, the project’s business consortium managed to obtain from the regional evaluation commission the approval of the impact study. While initially regarded as a defeat by the organizations opposing the project, this decision in fact became a turning point for the campaign. Public outrage was such that thousands of people throughout Chile and the world over marched through the streets demanding the withdrawal of the authorization for the project. In Santiago, thousands of people (18,000 according to the government and 90,000 according to the organizers) marched along La Alameda, Santiago’s main thoroughfare, to express their rejection of the go-ahead for the dams.

Numerous legal cases were brought against the approval of the project and so the conflict was transferred to the courts to await the resolution of several legal questions. In national surveys, the rejection of the construction of the dams in Patagonia reached 75%, according to La Tercera, a conservative and pro-business newspaper. This was unprecedented and the issue took center stage in the political debate in the run-up to the 2013 presidential election.

The candidates pledged to develop a participatory and sustainable energy policy for Chile that would allow for alternatives to the dam project in Patagonia. Michelle Bachelet, who was president when the evaluation of the project began, was running for re-election. During her previous term, her government had been favorable to the building of the dams in Patagonia. However, this time Bachelet took a critical position stating that “the project was not viable and alternatives should be analyzed.” The struggle concluded in June 2014 when the Council of Ministers of the new government rejected Hidroaysén’s environmental impact assessment, a decision that many considered to be the result of grass-roots mobilization. Widespread national opposition against the dam project was determinant in the government’s decision.

By 2017, three years after the rejection of the project, Michelle Bachelet’s government launched a participatory process aimed at defining a power-generation policy for Chile towards the horizon of the year 2050. The building of HEP plants and large dams remains on the cards and is a policy that is often backed by the Ministry of Energy. From time to time arguments arise in the press for and against the construction of large dams in Patagonia. However, the forecasts of the energy emergency made in a previous decade have not been fulfilled. With the slump in copper mining, Chile now has a surplus of electricity that it exports to Argentina. Although there is no energy shortage, the Chilean Patagonia Defense Council continues to be actively involved in counteracting any attempts to put large-scale HEP projects back on the public agenda.

Following the rejection of the project, Hidroaysén presented an appeal to the environmental courts challenging the decision of the Council of Ministers and defending the legitimacy of its project. Hidroaysén still owns the water rights to the Baker and Pascua rivers, and continues to affirm

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its right to build dams in Chilean Patagonia. However, it was being heavily taxed for continuing to hold non-consumptive water rights without using them and so in August 2016 Endesa Chile reported in a statement that it would waive the water rights associated with five projects after analyzing their profitability and socioeconomic impact. “The will of the company is that only initiatives that are technically and economically viable and that have the acceptance of local communities will be carried out,” they announced publicly.

Chilean Patagonia Without Dams! was a powerful grassroots awareness campaign, which not only stopped the construction of a huge high-impact HEP project but also changed the way decisions are taken in Chile. This campaign contributed to the awareness and empowerment of civil society, demonstrating that not only economic, technical, and political factors need be taken into account in energy planning but social and environmental aspects too must be evaluated. The business and political worlds came to realize that their projects would henceforth have to be environmentally and socially evaluated and now appreciate the great impact that a citizen information campaign can have on the completion – or otherwise – of large-scale initiatives such as Hidroaysén. Grassroots mobilization, with well-founded and broad-based arguments using social networks and other unofficial channels of communication, constitutes an important force that can even counteract the power of traditional means of communication and powerful political and economic lobbies. The judicialization of the project after exhausting all the administrative procedures contemplated by the system also constituted an important factor in this case since, although they failed to definitively halt the project, the courts did manage to impose sufficient constraints on the project that affected its economic viability and legitimized the demands of civil society.

For many sectors of Chilean society, the Hidroaysén case was a symbol of change. Citizen opposition groups became aware of the importance of information in discussions on energy policy, private companies were made to appreciate the importance of socially acceptable projects, and government authorities were forced to acknowledge the need for more citizen participation in the country’s energy policies. These changes that sprang forth from citizens’ demands are today making themselves felt in other sectors of our country including transportation, education, health, and social security, which suggests that there is a need for a shift in the paradigm regarding established models of governance.

Box 5.2

HOW TO WIN THE MATCH IN THE NINETY-FIRST MINUTE: THE ACTIVIST CAMPAIGN IN DEFENSE OF THE PIZARRO RESERVE Emiliano Ezcurra, former campaign manager of Greenpeace Argentina The vast dry forest of the Gran Chaco, located between the tropics and the subtropics, represents the largest continuous forest in South America after the Amazon. It hosts a great diversity of species of fauna and flora, as well as being home to dozens of indigenous groups well adapted to an environment that European colonizers found too hostile. Some of these groups – for example, the Wichí – include some of the world’s last hunter-gatherers. The Gran Chaco occupies part of four countries (Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil, and Argentina), although around 60% belongs to Argentina. At the end of the last century, this ecoregion, which seemed to have been overlooked by previous waves of changes in land-use in South America, began to suffer large-scale deforestation motivated by the increase in

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global grain prices and the emergence of new agricultural technologies such as direct sowing combined with herbicide-resistant soybean varieties. As a result, it is estimated that between 1985 and 2013 more than 142,000 km² of Chaco forests (the equivalent of 20% of the original forest area) were carved up into land for agriculture or livestock.1 In 1995 the Argentine province of Salta created by decree the Pizarro Provincial Reserve covering a surface area of around 25,000 ha. The objective was to preserve a continuous sample of the transition area between the dry Chaco forest and the higher cloud forest or Yungas. However, in February 2004 the governor of Salta province, Juan Carlos Romero, instructed parliament to remove the reserve’s protected status so that the land could be auctioned off to private buyers interested in food production, an activity that, obviously, would involve the clearing of forests for agricultural land. During the public auction, two companies managed to acquire several sectors of the protected area, the income obtained being destined to the construction of roads in the province. Besides its intrinsic natural values, Pizarro was also home to hundreds of natives of the Wichí ethnic group, who were threatened with being deprived of the environment in which they practice their traditional activities. This flagrant embezzlement of a public resource and the environmental damage it would cause turned into one of the greatest environmental battles in the history of Argentina.

First, several civil organizations such as the University of Salta, Greenpeace, Fundación Vida Silvestre/WWF, and FARN made legal protests against an action that violated several environmental laws and even the Argentinian Constitution. At the same time, the legal representatives of the Eben Ezer Wichí community filed an appeal against the environmental impact studies presented by the land purchasers, in which they denounced the violation of the constitutional rights of native groups to participate in the management of their natural resources and other processes affecting them.

Despite having solid legal foundations, each of these complaints was thrown out by the provincial and national courts, which revealed just how far the influence of the governor of Salta extended and exposed his close ties to the national government.

At the same time, Greenpeace Argentina set up a media campaign from a stable base-camp in the area, from where groups of “jaguars” started to operate in an attempt to stop the bulldozers – who lacked the requisite logging permits – from obliterating the area. These “jaguars” were groups of volunteers dressed up as this large feline on quad bikes who physically faced up to the heavy machinery that was uprooting trees in the Chaco. The idea was to replicate the classic image of the pneumatic boats used by Greenpeace when confronting whaling ships in an Argentinian context. As the activist campaign progressed, the environmental groups in partnership with the Wichís developed a narrative that included both the inherent values of biodiversity conservation and the rights of native people. This combination was essential, as the rights of this indigenous group would become a key factor in the resolution of the conflict.

These actions helped bring to the attention of both provincial and Argentinian public opinion the scandalous sale and subsequent dismantling of the Pizarro Reserve; the greater the coverage of the subject in the media, the more heated the confrontation between the environmentalists and Governor Romero became. His struggle with Greenpeace became increasingly personal as up to then he had run his province as he wished. I was working as the campaign coordinator for Greenpeace Argentina at the time, which allowed me to witness this battle from close-up. In August 2004, the Salta police arrested 11 Greenpeace activists (including myself), together with its CEO, when we were protesting against illegal forest clearings in the area. The conflict continued throughout 2005 with the team of “jaguars” now acting permanently to denounce the deforestation being carried out in the reserve at the behest of the new landowners.

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By that time the judicial process had been exhausted without success, which obliged us to opt for other ways of stopping the felling of Pizarro: gain massive support from national public opinion and the backing of the Argentinian government at the highest level. In September 2005, President Néstor Kirchner received a delegation of national celebrities including Wichí chieftains who asked him to intervene in the conflict. Although the president agreed to intercede, he in fact did nothing of the sort, preferring to ignore it and hope it would go away, claiming it was a regional rather than national matter. Months passed, the bulldozers continued to do their job, while the “jaguars” were becoming increasingly demoralized and exhausted from living in a precarious camp in the middle of the jungle, and were truly beginning to resemble “miserable cats.” Given the inaction of the judiciary and the lukewarm response of the national executive, time was clearly playing in favor of the governor and the logging companies. We needed something – a last-minute winner, a surprise that would turn the tables – that would break the status quo of what had become a war of attrition that we could only lose.

The opportunity came in a most unexpected way on September 2005 on one of the most popular TV programs in Argentina, La Noche del 10. In this program, a good-looking Diego Maradona (Argentina’s most revered soccer player of all time), leaner after a bowel-reduction operation and recovered from a long history of substance-abuse, interviewed celebrities from Argentina and other countries.

The program was a tremendous success. We learned that actor Ricardo Darín, who was a good friend of the former footballer, was going to appear on the program. Darín (who years later would star in El Secreto de Sus Ojos, awarded an Oscar as the best foreign language film) was not only one of Argentina’s most famous actors but also a highly respected public figure due to his commitment to social and environmental causes; furthermore, he had already spoken out against the clear-cutting of Pizarro.

We knew it was a unique but challenging window of opportunity. Maradona’s show was so tightly managed that it left no space for its host to diverge from the script. We needed to convince Darín to “abuse” his friendship with Maradona so that he could go off-script and voice his concern for the events in Pizarro. The day came and Darín smiled as he came on to the set where Diego was waiting for him. The program was being broadcast live. We waited nervously, some of us feeling that this was our “last bullet.”

Darín began talking to Maradona about various issues and then suddenly started explained what was going on in Pizarro, commenting that in two days’ time he and members of Greenpeace and the Wichí community would be meeting President Kirchner to deliver a letter of protest. The emphasis on the rights of the Wichí people was absolutely decisive at this point. After listening to him, Maradona turned to the camera and began speaking directly to the President of the Republic(!): “Mr. President: I’m tired of old Westerns where all the Indians get killed; this is what will happen if this request remains unfulfilled.” After Maradona’s intervention, dozens of Argentinian celebrities and artists joined the call to save Pizarro. Maradona said he could not be at the meeting but that he would be morally present.

Two days later, the President received the delegation composed of Darín and other celebrities, Wichí chieftains, and members of Greenpeace and promised to collaborate with Governor Romero in the resolution of the conflict. Suddenly, years of delays and excuses vanished after the intervention of “God” (as Maradona is known by many Argentinians) in a television program. The Argentinian National Park authorities promised to reimburse part of the purchase price that the two companies had paid when acquiring the land two years before. To this were added funds obtained by Greenpeace and other organizations through donations by Argentinian citizens.

On 11 August, 2006, President Néstor Kirchner hosted an act at the Casa Rosada (the Argentinian equivalent of the White House) in which he formalized the establishment of the Pizarro National Reserve of around 21,000 ha, managed by the National Park Authority, which included an area of

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800 ha set aside for exclusive use by the Wichís. The ceremony was attended by Wichí chieftains and dozens of personalities and celebrities who had petitioned the president a year earlier, as well as by Governor Romero himself. Years of activism by dozens of volunteers, the commitment of multiple organizations and personalities from the Argentinian world of celebrities, the combination of the environmental cause with the rights of native peoples, all topped off by “divine” intervention at the last moment, made the miracle possible!

REFERENCES 1 Gasparri, N.I., & Grau, H.R. (2009). Deforestation and fragmentation of Chaco dry forest in NW Argentina (1972–2007). Forest Ecology and Management, 258: 913-921.

Box 5.3

CONSTITUENCY AND BRAND BUILDING FOR GORONGOSA NATIONAL PARK, MOZAMBIQUE Marc Stalmans, Greg Carr, Vasco Galante and James Byrne, Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique The building of a brand and of an associated constituency is a powerful tool that assists with the protection, development, and financial sustainability of Protected Areas. Constituency building has been an integral and necessary process without which the first Protected Areas (PA), such as Yellowstone National Park, would probably never have been contemplated by society as a whole or by politicians in particular.

Where PA managers engage with the outside world, it is often with a like-minded audience of conservationists, birders, and outdoor enthusiasts. Most PA managers have little training or interest in marketing. They generally also object to the PA being recognized as a tourism commodity rather than being appreciated for its intrinsic natural values that led to its identification and setting aside as a PA. Given this outlook, there is a negative perception about the value of marketing.

A brand has been defined as “a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them which is intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors.”1 A new brand is created each time a name or logo is being defined by a conservation agency.2 Even the categories of PAs, such as national parks and world heritage sites, represent broad brands by themselves. These brands, as well as specific PAs, engage people at individual and collective level, both on an emotional plane as well as in terms of behavior. The latter includes adopting more nature-friendly practices and financially supporting these PAs. This can be a strong positive force for PA conservation. However, managers frequently fail to utilize these brands to their maximum potential, which limits the tangible and intangible benefits they could bestow if more effectively employed.3 The continued rise in the number of PAs worldwide offers opportunities and challenges in branding. How does one support the global brand of PAs whilst capitalizing on the individual characteristics that set one PA apart from the others? In particular, how does one build a constituency for a PA that is emerging from a long period of crisis?

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The 4,000 km² Gorongosa National Park was proclaimed in 1960 as the first national park in Mozambique. It is located at the southern terminus of the Great African Rift Valley that is the emblematic location of well-known PAs such as the Serengeti National Park, Masaai Mara National Reserve, and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. In common with those areas, Gorongosa was historically characterized by one of the highest wildlife densities in Africa on account of the fertile soils, high rainfall, and frequent flooding. Gorongosa was the flagship national park of Mozambique. It enjoyed wide brand-recognition as exemplified by the visits in the 1960s by Hollywood stars and other well-known personalities as well as by its appearance in the National Geographic Magazine.

Following the war against the colonial regime and the subsequent independence from Portugal in 1974, the Park soon became engulfed in the protracted civil war. The first post-war aerial census in 1994 revealed catastrophic declines in wildlife numbers with 90–99% losses in the numbers of elephant, buffalo, hippo, zebra, and wildebeest. Restoration efforts started in the early 2000s. In 2008, the Government of Mozambique signed a 20-year Public-Private partnership with the US-based non-profit organization Gorongosa Restoration Project (GRP). The Government of Mozambique provided a dual mandate to the GRP: protection of biodiversity in the Park itself and advancement of human development in the region around the Park known as the Buffer Zone. The agreement was renewed and extended in 2016.

Whereas the financial support for the GRP was initially exclusively provided by the Carr Foundation, it was immediately apparent that a broader support base would be required to achieve the dual mandate of conservation and human development. From the onset, it was decided that a Gorongosa “brand” and supporting “constituency” would do much in mobilizing the required political and financial support. At national level it involves the general public, visitors to the Park, government institutions, and politicians. At international level it includes potential visitors to the Park, donors, media professionals, and decision-makers with regard to international wildlife policies.

The role of media has now been formally defined as one of the six strategies in the Park Management Plan. The three main spheres of activities within the media strategy are, firstly, maintaining a strong social media presence and high level of engagement with the Park’s audience, secondly, facilitating the production of nature, science, and cultural long-form documentaries and short online films, and, thirdly, continuous reporting on progress. The actions within these three spheres are closely intertwined and mutually supporting (see Box 1).

The earliest actions were to invite journalists to witness the restoration efforts. This created exposure in several high-profile international publications. In Mozambique, national newspapers and magazines such as the in-flight publication of the national airline featured the Park. The restoration efforts also appeared in programs on national and international television. In 2010, with in-kind Park support, a National Geographic special Africa’s Lost Eden, about the restoration of Gorongosa, premiered around the world. By 2013, no longer did the Park have to offer film companies in-kind support. Gorongosa National Park was featured prominently in the final episode of the Africa series co-produced by BBC and Discovery. Famed naturalist David Attenborough hosts the episode in which acclaimed biologist E.O. Wilson and Gorongosa’s own budding young Mozambican scientist, Tonga Torcida, make an appearance for the Park. That same year, E.O. Wilson, wrote about Mount Gorongosa for the June 2013 issue of National Geographic Magazine. He would follow this up in 2014 with the book A Window on Eternity: A Biologist’s Walk Through Gorongosa National Park.

More recently, a six-part series Gorongosa Park: Rebirth of Paradise was aired on PBS (United States Public Broadcasting System) and National Geographic who co-financed the two-year long production process. The Park has sponsored visits by local and international celebrities such as musicians, film stars, and business people, knowing that all would talk about the Park in their various realms

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and on their various social media platforms. Currently, the single largest visitor group consists of local people from the Buffer Zone, whose visit to “their” Park is being sponsored by the GRP. A positive feedback loop has been created. Early achievements, e.g. in terms of wildlife recovery or improved community health, are being reported upon favorably. This creates goodwill and support that has translated into more financial inputs, mostly through international donors. This in turns enables greater management and protection inputs which then translate into more good news.

Several challenges have been confronted during building of support from different constituencies.

It is not always sufficient to simply translate media material from one language to another. National constituencies respond better to local role models, whereas internal audiences like to personally identify with the narrator and presenter. Topical issues, for example in terms of education and human-wildlife conflict, are more relevant to local audiences, whereas global issues of biodiversity loss and climate change resonate more with international audiences. An appropriate selection of subject matter and sensitive contextualizing are critical for achieving the desired impact.

Even more important is achieving a balance between looking backwards and moving forwards.

The original Gorongosa “brand” was never fully lost. Once the restoration efforts started, many people would again identify with the Park and hunker back to its “heydays.” Yet, this nostalgic past is imbued with the memories of a colonial era with its pervasive injustices and disenfranchisement of local communities. Gorongosa is looking forward and is now focusing more on a vision of joint conservation and human development.

The brand is also being expanded. Firstly, it is becoming wider and now goes beyond the original conservation brand and represents the other sustainable activities such as the shade-grown coffee being grown as part of the restoration strategy for Gorongosa Mountain. Secondly, it is expanding spatially. A viable population of lions for example requires a larger conservation area. The vision is to link up the Gorongosa National Park with the Marromeu Reserve through a number of community conservancies, forestry concessions, and hunting areas. These other stakeholders around Gorongosa are recognizing the strength of the brand and are becoming partners in achieving this larger landscape vision. This is creating a new positive feedback loop that will ultimately assist in the protection and sustainable development across an area of 30,000 km², almost an order of magnitude larger than the original Gorongosa.

REFERENCES 1 Kotler, P.H. (1991). Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, and Control, 8th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 2 Keller, K. (1993). Conceptualizing, measuring and managing customer-based brand equity. Journal of Marketing 57(1):1-22.

3 King, L.M., McCool, S.F., Fredman, P., Halpenny, E. (2012). Protected Area branding strategies to increase stewardship among Park constituencies. Parks 18(2): 54-63.

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CHAPTER 6.

INTELLIGENCE Box 6.1

THE IMPORTANCE OF RIGOROUS THREAT ANALYSIS When deciding how to save an endangered species, it is essential to have a clear idea of exactly what is threatening its survival to ensure that the right corrective actions are selected. Often, the list will be long and replete with hypothetical threats whose pertinence has never been proven; if so, typically, will we end up focusing our efforts on the simplest factors to resolve or on those that best fit our own preconceived ideas.

In some cases, the factors behind the decline of a species are obvious to all who have studied its behavior and distribution. Nevertheless, in other cases where various processes are operating simultaneously (i.e. habitat loss, overhunting, pollution, presence of exotic species, and disease) it is often a very tricky task to decide which particular threat holds the key to the future of the target population. Nevertheless, a good way of identifying where to focus efforts is to carry out rigorous studies that will help predict the magnitude of each threat; it is here that formal science and, more precisely, the hypothetico-deductive method comes into play.1 At times, simply studying a threat hypothesis and its predictions we realize that we already possess all the data we need, which enables us to discard the menace without having to indulge in a fresh study. The key is to make a mental list of all the hypotheses and their associated predictions, an exercise that may reveal that we already have enough information to reject certain hypotheses. In other cases, this mental exercise will serve as the first step in the design of studies to test predictions and the hypotheses they derive from.

A good illustration of how to test hypothetical threats was the study carried out by researchers from the Doñana Biological Station into the causes of the decline in Spain’s lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni) populations. By the end of the past century, ornithologists had begun to notice that the populations of this small falcon, found in open landscapes, often in rural areas with traditional agriculture and extensive livestock production, were declining in the Guadalquivir valley in southern Spain. The problem was to decide just which was the most critical out of a number of plausible factors: a) competition with other birds (doves and jackdaws) for breeding sites in places such as old churches and farm buildings; b) contamination by pesticides that weakened egg shells and so negatively affected breeding success; c) habitat loss due to changes in land use in the region; and d) high mortality rates in winter quarters in Morocco.

To identify the main threat, the Doñana researchers postulated a series of predictions linked to each hypothesis and then analyzed to what extent these predictions were being fulfilled on the ground. The results of this exercise are shown in the following table.2

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Prediction

Fulfillment

1) Lack of breeding sites due to interspecific competition.

Lack of holes in which to make nests.

No. An examination of potential breeding sites showed that there were sufficient nest holes.

Lower productivity as dove and jackdaw numbers increase.

No. No correlation was found between dove and jackdaw numbers and kestrel breeding success.

Fewer holes wherever there are more doves and jackdaws.

No. There were still nesting holes unoccupied by doves and jackdaws.

Presence of high levels of contaminants in eggs.

No. Analyses showed the levels of contaminants in eggs were not particularly high.

Low hatching rates.

No low hatching rates were detected.

Loss of habitats selected in recent years.

Yes. The surface area of selected habitats had fallen in recent years.

Larger home range in the Guadalquivir valley (intensive agricultural production) than in the Ebro valley (traditional agricultural production).

Yes. Radio-tracked birds had larger home ranges in areas where the population was falling than in the stable control population in the Ebro valley. This indicated that the birds in the Guadalquivir valley had to travel further to find food.

3) Habitat loss due to changes in land use.

Less prey-capture success in the Guadalquivir valley.

Yes. In the area with the threatened population, kestrels needed more time to catch prey.

4) High mortality in winter quarters in Morocco.

Higher mortality in kestrels that migrate than those that remain in the area in winter.

No. Researchers found no evidence that survival in migratory birds was lower than in resident birds.

2) Contamination by pesticides.

3) Habitat loss due to changes in land use.

2

Thanks to the rigorous analysis and the testing of hypotheses and their associated predictions, researchers were able to determine with a certain degree of confidence that the main cause of the decline of the lesser kestrel in the Guadalquivir valley was the change from traditional to more intensive and industrial agricultural techniques.

REFERENCES 1 On the importance of the hypothetico-deductive method for discarding false hypotheses in conservation: Caughley, G., Gunn, A. (1996). Diagnosis of declines. In Conservation biology in Theory and Practice, 223-270. Blackwell Science.

Macnab, J. (1983). Wildlife management as scientific experimentation. Wildl. Soc. Bull. 11: 397401.

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Romesburg, H.C. (1981). Wildlife science: gaining reliable knowledge. J. Wildl. Manage. 45(2): 293-313.

2 This case study of the lesser kestrel and the studies aimed at identifying the causes of its decline are the fruit of conversations with J.A. Donázar and the study of the following publications: Donázar, J.A., Negro, Hiraldo, J.J., Hiraldo, F. (1993). Foraging habitat selection, land-use changes and population decline in the lesser kestrel. Falco naumanni. Journal of Applied Ecology, 30: 515522.

Forero, M.G., Tella, J.L., Donázar, J.A., Hiraldo, F. (1996). Can interspecific competition and nest site availability explain the decrease of lesser kestrel Falco naumanni populations? Biological Conservation, 78: 289-293.

Tella, J.L., Forero, M.G., Hiraldo, F., Donázar, J.A. (1998). Conflicts between Lesser Kestrel Conservation and European Agricultural Policies as Identified by Habitat Use Analyses. Conservation Biology, 12: 593-604.

Negro, J.J., Donázar, J.A., Hiraldo, F., Hernández, L.M., Fernández, M.A. (1993). Organochlorine and heavy metal contamination in non-viable eggs and its relation to breeding success in a Spanish population of lesser kestrels (Falco naumanni). Environmental Pollution, 82: 201-205.

Box 6.2

HOW TO MINIMIZE THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS ON WILDLIFE OF POTENTIALLY DAMAGING DECISIONS: THE USE OF HIGH-QUALITY INFORMATION AND ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT Juan Jiménez, Head of the Wildlife Service, Valencian Regional Government, Spain We civil servants working in conservation know that our jobs consist not only of designing species or habitat recovery plans but also of writing documents that authorize, modify, or reject projects instigated by other government departments. Although the process often works reasonably well, at times when it involves large-scale investment with powerful political or financial backing – and a predictably grave impact on the environment – biological information represents a serious obstacle for the development of a project and so runs the risk of being ignored. Once the political decision has been taken at the highest levels, often all that we can do is to try to avoid being excluded from the public process, thereby ensuring that the impact of the proposed project is at least monitored and minimized, and that we can have some say in its execution.

I was involved in a case of this nature in 2005 when I was Head of the Biodiversity Service of the Valencian Autonomous Government (Spain). This regional government was involved in promoting an ambitious plan for developing wind energy. One of the areas chosen on account of its potential for energy production was an upland area that held the region’s largest population of griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus). Thanks to a series of previous studies, it was known that some of the best sites for the wind turbines were much frequented by these vultures, unsurprisingly given that both turbines and vultures use the wind to move! Although we rejected some of the proposed sites, the politically well-connected utility company refused to accept that their investment be totally dependent on the movements of the region’s vultures. At that time, wind energy was beginning to take off in Spain, although as yet there was little scientific information on the impact that these installations

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might have on large raptors. We thus evoked the cautionary principle based on the potential risks described in other studies that had demonstrated great bird of prey mortality (e.g. a study of golden eagle deaths on the wind turbines at Altamont Pass, California). As is typical in these cases, no published information was available regarding sites with little or no mortality since articles based on non-significant or negative results (i.e. studies and evaluations that fail to show any effect or impact) are usually of little interest to the editors of scientific journals.

The quandary we were facing as a Biodiversity Service was quite typical. On the one hand, we had to reply to a legitimate request by a large energy company that would mean jobs and profits and, consequently, had much public support; but, on the other, we had to listen to the concerns of environmental groups regarding the possible effects of the project on the local vultures. The former claimed that the vultures should not be an impediment for their business interests, whilst the latter wanted to prevent the installation of any turbines, which would not benefit the vultures in any way and only put their populations at risk.

Once we had rejected all the turbines in high-risk areas, our main task was to approve the installation of the remaining turbines. However, we had an ace up our sleeve: we made the installation of the turbines dependent on rigorous monitoring of bird mortality and an exhaustive census of local vulture populations, which would allow us to calculate critical levels of vulture mortality above which the turbines would have to be stilled. Our idea was to “let the vultures do the talking” and, in a roundabout way, let them determine what was acceptable rather than deciding on a figure a priori or opting for an “all or nothing” strategy. I remember that one of the stickiest points of debate with our environmental impact team was the idea of having to fix a maximum number of vultures per year that could die on a turbine before it would be stopped or dismantled. Our figure was immediately rejected by the energy company, who proposed a higher number. I do not like this kind of indicator.

In the first place, it struck me as being totally arbitrary and could give rise to the belief that we were actually authorizing the killing of a certain number of vultures per year. Additionally, although we had a good idea of the numbers of vultures that were breeding locally, we had no real knowledge of survival rates, the proportion of non-breeding birds in the population, or whether or not the area was used by vultures from other, more distant populations. Thus, we imposed a condition whereby, if the number of breeding pairs decreased, corrective measures would have to be applied (at the time we had detected a steady increase: 34 pairs in 1986, 91 in 1996, 275 in 2006). This indicator was accepted by all sides and was accordingly included in the official authorization for the project.

Once permission had been obtained, work began and within a couple of years almost 260 turbines were spinning in these mountains. However, almost immediately we found the number of vulture deaths was disturbingly high, almost 100 birds a year, which was much higher than the original predictions; moreover, they were occurring at the sites that hadn’t been singled out as dangerous.

What was going on?

In the three years between the initial study of this vulture population and the installation of the turbines the vultures’ food sources had changed radically. Originally, the vultures fed wherever animals perished but this local tradition was banned overnight in response to the “mad-cow” crisis provoked by Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome. A new European regulation was enacted that obliged farmers to pay for the removal of all dead animals, thereby putting an end to the practice of just leaving them where they lay. So, the vultures suddenly found themselves deprived of their habitual food supply and gravitated towards a new resource: a rubbish dump located near a line of turbines that had not been flagged initially as dangerous because it was not frequented by the vultures; however, this installation soon developed into a kind of vulture “shredder.” To boot, irrespective of the number of actual vulture deaths, within two years the local vulture breeding population began to

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fall for the first time. Without entering into the details of all the political, judicial, and administrative intricacies, which included numerous legal demands by environmental groups, 50 turbines were eventually ordered to be stopped and corrective measures implemented.

These measures involved modifying how vultures behaved by eliminating the rubbish tip that had attracted many to a sad demise and installing instead vulture feeding stations far from the lines of wind turbines. Although on paper it seemed simple, this idea took over a year to be put into practice.

Firstly, the closure of the rubbish tip meant finding a new location that raised the hackles of some local people; secondly, the installation of the alternative feeding sites came up against administrative opposition from the animal health authorities who saw no reason to alter their strict policy of removing animal corpses in favor of a bird in which they had no interest. Fortunately, and probably thanks to political backing for the utility company, whose main interest was to get its turbines up and running as quickly as possible, the proposed changes were implemented and soon bore fruit. After it was noted that the vultures’ use of the space had changed, the turbines that had been stopped were allowed to start turning again. Overall, these fresh changes reduced vulture mortality by 54% and within two years the local vulture population had returned to its previous levels and recovered its positive trend.

What did we learn from this confrontation? Firstly, a long data series is a crucial weapon when analyzing the impact of an infrastructure on a species or habitat. Secondly, if a project can’t be halted because it is backed by powerful economic and political interests and provides important opportunities for local development (however great or small its environmental impact), then at least the decision-making process must be based on high-quality biological information. Thirdly, an unanimously agreed upon and easy-to-follow monitoring protocol must be established and in the project documentation approved by the environmental authorities watertight thresholds should be set above which corrective measures must be implemented.

Notwithstanding these simple rules, we must remain on guard and even skeptical of our own data as our baseline information may be insufficient and, in a rapidly changing world, may become outdated due to factors beyond our control. In the case of the vultures and wind turbines, the “spanner in the works” was the impact of a disease discovered in Great Britain (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome) on vulture feeding habits in a remote region of Spain. The data analyzed a few years later showed that the deaths on the turbine blades were not the only factor behind the fall in the vulture breeding population as the temporary loss of food sources was also a significant factor. Thus, the population began to rise again as soon as the vultures’ lack of food was alleviated and not just because the deaths on the wind farms were reduced.

REFERENCES Martínez Abraín, A., Tavecchia, G., Regan, H. M., Jimenez, J., Surroca, M., Oro, D. (2012). Effects of wind farms and food scarcity on a large scavenging bird species following an epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Journal of Applied Ecology, 49: 109-117.

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Box 6.3

“INTELLIGENCE” BELOW ZERO: EMERGENCIES AND ACTIONS IN THE CONSERVATION OF A CRITICALLY ENDANGERED SPECIES IN PATAGONIA Ignacio Roesler and Laura Fasola, CONICET, Argentina The hooded grebe (Podiceps gallardoi) was only discovered in 19741 and its range was not fully pinpointed until its winter quarters were identified in the mid-1990s.2 It is remarkable that the existence of a grebe species (order Podicipediformes) should be overlooked until so recently as in general the birds of this order are easy to identify and anything but unfamiliar. That said, if we study its range, this oversight is perhaps somewhat more understandable for it only breeds in lakes on the high plateaus – or mesetas – of Santa Cruz province in Argentinian Patagonia, which is one of the most remote and least densely populated areas in the whole Southern Hemisphere; furthermore, its whole population winters in the inhospitable estuaries along the Atlantic coast of this province. This exciting discovery attracted the attention of many of the world’s ornithologists, as well as funding for studies, and soon the hooded grebe – known locally as the macá tobiano – became the best-known grebe in the whole of the Neotropics. Regarded as the most endangered bird species in Argentina, in 1994 it was classified as Near Threatened on a world scale as its population was estimated to total less than 5,000 birds4 but was not initially considered to be seriously endangered given the remoteness of its populations.5 Towards the mid-2000s, the notion of this grebe as a rare but relatively well-protected species began to change as data from semi-standardized counts performed in its winter quarters showed that its numbers were much lower than the estimates made in the 1990s.6 Next to raise the alarm was the tourist sector, as birding guides were finding it ever more difficult to locate the grebes in their usual haunts and some even talked of its complete disappearance from Los Escarchados, the lake where it was first identified in 1974, near the town of El Calafate.

Aroused by these wake-up calls, a group of professional environmentalists from two conservationist organizations (Aves Argentinas/BirdLife International and Ambiente Sur) set out in January 2009 to survey this grebe’s breeding populations and so compare fresh data with information from studies performed in the 1980s. They found few birds and failed to locate any of the hitherto known hooded grebe colonies; numbers at a site previously described as “the most important for the species” had plummeted to almost zero and in many areas grebe populations had dropped dramatically. In January 2010 a new campaign involving 15 experts, including park rangers, naturalists, and biologists, spent a whole month systematically surveying the grebe’s whole known breeding range. The results were disheartening – although somewhat better than those from the previous year – as only just over 700 grebes were detected. At this point, the institutions involved in the survey decided that, logically, the next step should be to learn more about the specific causes of this fall in numbers and just how many birds still remained. A biologist with a background in formal scientific research was incorporated into the team and Proyecto Macá Tobiano (PMT) was born as an alliance of conservationists from a number of NGOs backed by academics from the Institute of Ecology, Genetics, and Evolution of the University of Buenos Aires (IEGEBA) and CONICET (the Argentinian National Scientific and Technical Research Council).

One of the first results of this new conservation phase was the generation of solid data that prompted Birdlife International and the IUCN to reclassify the grebe as Critically Endangered.7 This paved the way in March 2010 for the start of an “intelligence-gathering phase” that was probably the most urgently needed such exercise for any animal anywhere in Argentina. This implied the study of basic aspects of the grebe’s behavior that would help halt the decline that was leading inexora-

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bly to its extinction. Right from the start – as occurred in the 1970s and 1980s – the urgency of the work, linked to the charisma of the species, meant that a minimum of funds were made available for essential research. The main questions to be answered were clear: How many grebes were left and where do they breed? What essential aspects of its life cycle do we need to know? What threats to its populations exist and which can be controlled? How and where should these threats be tackled?

What additional knowledge can other scientists and naturalists provide?

These questions were designed to help plan the research and management methods, that is, the intelligence and action, at three different temporal scales: 1) in the short term, it was necessary to identify the greatest threats to the grebe and design management actions that could be implemented immediately; 2) in the mid-term, it was vital to find out more about certain fundamental aspects of this grebe’s populations (and the species that were threatening it) to facilitate continuous management programs based on state-backed action plans; and 3) in the long term, it was necessary to identify key aspects of the species’ biology and life history as support for any future management action required in the aftermath of a stochastic or catastrophic event and to accelerate the recovery of grebe populations via, above all, ex situ management.

To identify the most serious threats, a number of hypotheses were postulated based on information gathered from various sources including scientific publications (mainly from the years 1974–1997), occasional news items appearing in newspapers and other general media, and local knowledge gleaned from long productive talks over a mate (the Argentinian national beverage) or at an asado (a traditional barbecue) with landowners and farm laborers. As a result of this compilation of “pre-existing intelligence,” three invasive species were identified as potentially serious threats to the grebes: two, the American mink (Neovison vison) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), are exotic introductions, while the third, the kelp gull (Larus dominicanus), is a native species. At the same time, the specialists and teams who would best work with these species were contacted. The challenge was to show the conservation community – including the official authorities and scientists – whether or not these three invasive species were having a negative impact on the grebe’s population and, simultaneously, to undertake urgent action to reduce the harm they were causing.

Creativity became one of the key aspects of the planned actions since the origin and status of the three invaders – a fish, a mammal, and a bird – were all very different (native or exotic, liberated or escaped). All this ensured that the research and management that was instigated varied greatly from one species to another.

The gravest threat turned out to be the American mink. Thanks to escapes and liberations, this exotic predator originating from North America had appeared in the area in the mid-twentieth century and had already been noted as a potential problem for the grebe.8 The first solid evidence appeared in 2011 when a sole mink was found to have wiped out a whole grebe colony that represented around 5% of the grebe’s total world population.9 Our task was to demonstrate that this mink habitually carried out these “surplus killings” to justify attempts to control it before we lost another grebe. We devised a system of trapping that revealed the mink’s patterns of occupation and movement, as well as its potential impact on the grebe population. Over 100 traps were placed in the summer months (December–April) along almost 200 km of rivers in the meseta of Lago Buenos Aires. Next, it was important to define the key areas where action would have to be taken based on a survey of all the lakes in the province where the grebes were known to breed or to have bred, an area embracing over 90,000 km². This mammoth task involved at least 200 volunteers, a couple of dozen qualified biologists, researchers specialized in the analysis of samples, specialists in occupancy modeling, input from foreign universities, and both local and national rangers. The results of these efforts showed that young male mink disperse from breeding areas into the high lakes where the

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grebes breed, above all in February, March, and April.10 The continuous monitoring also revealed (via an analysis of the excrements collected during the initial fieldwork) that these young dispersing mink increase the predation pressure on the region’s aquatic birds and have a clear preference for preying on the hooded grebe, probably on account of its confiding nature. We also noted that the control of the mink populations in the lower areas of the meseta reduced the risk of dispersal by young males into higher areas. In the end, the control measures, implemented concurrently with the “intelligence-gathering” activities, succeeded in eliminating from 2014 onwards all cases of predation by mink on the grebes wherever control measures were established.10 Nevertheless, these measures were only effective when they were combined with management of the kelp gull colonies via a program known as the Colony Guardians (Guardianes de Colonias).

This program got underway in 2012 at the same time as we began to study and manage the mink populations. The idea of the Colony Guardians program was to combat the impact of kelp gulls on the grebe colonies, an occurrence mentioned in the literature on the subject.12 This gull is a complex animal to study and manage because, from a “socio-scientific” point of view, it is a native species enjoying a certain degree of protection; in recent years, however, its populations have grown and expanded into areas where in the past it was not present, often following in the footsteps of human activity. There were past records of single gulls destroying whole grebe colonies in just a few minutes4 and so we decided to act and reduce the impact of this gull on the grebes to zero. Our aim was to evaluate presence/absence models for gulls in relation to distances from gull colonies to determine which grebe colonies should be protected from this predator’s activities. We decided that the selective removal of gulls would have to begin immediately: in other words, we would eliminate any gull that took an obvious interest in the grebe colonies. We chose not to evaluate the effects of the depredation because theoretically we would prevent all attacks from occurring – which as it turned out is what happened. Instead, we gauged the success of our work by quantifying the breeding success of the grebe colonies in relation to the presence of the Colony Guardians, the result being that the presence of these watchers doubled the grebe’s breeding productivity.13 The Colony Guardians strategy and its control of the invasive species affecting the grebe colonies was a resounding success that at times verged on the spiritual. A powerful mystique was created around the Colony Guardians and their work, which bestowed on them a special social status that became extremely beneficial for the biologists working in the field.

The guardianes camp out from December to April in remote areas of inhospitable climate with no means of transport, and devote their time to watching over the grebes. It is no simple task and previously guardianes are trained to take data, manage those who will work with them, establish security measures, get to know the terrain, and even handle firearms. The coordinators of the logistic and scientific arms of the whole project have complete faith in the ability of the guardianes to fulfill their tasks and take instant management and monitoring decisions in the field. They are thus both researchers and managers, which circumvents the need for lengthy decision-making chains that could hamper rapid action in an area with poor communication.

The case of the rainbow trout differs in essence from that of the two previous invasive species because this fish doesn’t reach the grebe’s breeding grounds under its own steam but, rather, as a result of releases motivated by its potential as an economic resource. As such, the management of a species of local economic interest inevitably has to be distinct. To evaluate the potential impact of the introduced trout we used two complementary methods. The first was based on a comparison of aquatic bird numbers in lakes with and without introduced rainbow trout, with special emphasis placed on lakes that were historically especially important for the grebe. The second strategy – and most important – was the contracting of specialist CONICET teams of limnologists from the

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University of Buenos Aires and the National Patagonian Center to study quantitatively at different scales the phytoplanktonic and macro-invertebrate communities, as well as the physicochemical properties, of the lakes with and without trout.

This work was undertaken by professional researchers backed up by volunteers and PMT field workers, in collaboration with the guardianes, who were once again to play a decisive role in surveying the most remote lakes. To date four studies have revealed that the trout generate trophic cascades in bacterial, algal, and macro-invertebrate communities14,15, which act in consonance with global climatic change.16 These changes directly and indirectly affect aquatic bird populations in general and the hooded grebe in particular. Studies of aquatic birds identified the Laguna de Islote as the strategically perfect site for an experiment designed to restore the lakes to their former glories because, before trout were introduced, this site boasted the presence of over 1000 grebes but registered a crash to a mere 20 birds by 2017. Accordingly, in 2017 we reached an agreement with local anglers and the owner of the lake and that summer we were able to remove over 3,000 kg of fish.

The process is still underway and initial results are promising as we detected an increase in grebes to over 120 birds in 2018. The conclusions are clear: the combination of planning and immediate action made it obvious that short-term action was necessary to control the dispersal of young male American mink, to reduce the density of trout in the most important lakes for the grebe, and to protect its breeding colonies from marauding kelp gulls.

In terms of mid-term management, we launched studies of the demographic trends in each of the mesetas inhabited by the grebes, which were backed up by genetic analyses of each population. This information enabled us to establish protection priorities in each meseta or group of mesetas, which furnished us with fresh rationales for setting up new protected areas. We also began to radio-track grebes as a means of improving our knowledge of their migratory patterns and wintering quarters. This afforded us vital information for opposing infrastructure projects such as the huge dams planned for the river Santa Cruz, whose estuary is winter home to almost all of the world’s hooded grebes. Other mid-term actions included genetic studies of the invasive American mink that provide clues as to the connections, migratory rates, and connectivity between the mink populations in different basins. As a result, we gained numerous tools that would help us manage this species at local, national, and international level.

Finally, research directed at pinpointing long-term strategies is now centered on “finer” aspects of the trophic ecology and reproductive and behavioral biology of the grebe. This work satisfies the need to intensively manage the species and involves hand-rearing chicks to be used to repopulate mesetas from where the species has disappeared, and learning how to heal birds directly affected by human and natural disasters such as oil spills in wintering sites or volcanic eruptions in breeding areas.

The combined simultaneous use of intelligence-gathering and management actions in the PMT at different scales with a variety of human groups, and the key role played by the guardianes de colonias as researchers-cum-managers, reverted the negative population trend in this critically endangered species and increased the total number of breeding birds and young birds recruited into the breeding population every season. Furthermore, the “intelligence” gained over the years has been extremely useful as a source of reliable information for use in many management actions and recent “conservation battles.” During the conflict over the construction of the dams along the river Santa Cruz, our researchers took on the role of communicators and activists given that in the PMT the work of the researchers, the guardianes, and the professional biologists overlapped – a case of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole; consequently, there was excellent communication within the project based on researchers’ scientific knowledge and the field experience of the guardianes and biologists. The robustness of the data generated by the guardianes and the capacity for collabora-

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tion between the “theoreticians” and the “practitioners” has meant that the process has spawned doctoral theses, articles in national and international journals, information on social networks, and reports in the written press in many countries. The quality of the information has warranted the support of local, provincial, and national authorities, as well as the backing of private institutions and both national and international conservation bodies. The serious research applied to field conservation – in other words, the collaboration between scientists and managers – has generated not only benefits for the hooded grebe but also numerous sub-projects that will bolster other threatened species and ecosystems. Finally, this positive synergy has already led to the establishment of regulations (i.e. the American mink has been declared a provincial pest species and the hooded grebe has been included in the national “Zero Extinction” plan), the creation of new natural reserves (e.g. the Patagonia National Park), and the setting up of centers of excellence such as the Juan Mazar Barnett Biological Station (backed by Fundación Flora and Fauna Argentina/CLT, Toyota Argentina, and Pan-American Energy), whose aim is to become a logistic center for research in southern Patagonia.

REFERENCES 1 Rumboll, M.A. (1974). Una nueva especie de Macá (Podicipitidae). Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia” IV:33–35.

2 Johnson, A. Serret, A. (1994). Búsqueda del paradero invernal del Macá Tobiano Podiceps gallardoi. Buenos Aires.

3 Erize, F. (1983). Observaciones sobre el Macá Tobiano. Hornero, Nº extraordinario: 256–268.

4 Beltrán, J., Bertonatti, C., Johnson, A., Serret, A., Sutton, P. (1992). Actualizaciones sobre la distribución, biología y estado de conservación del Macá Tobiano (Podiceps gallardoi). Hornero, 13: 193–199.

5 O’Donnel, C., Fjeldsa, J. (1997). Grebes: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. Page Group.

IUCNBSC Grebe Specialist Group.

6 Imberti, S., Sturzenbaum, S.M., McNamara, M. (2004). Actualización de la distribución invernal del Macá Tobiano (Podiceps gallardoi) y notas sobre su problemática de conservación. Hornero, 19:83–89.

7 BirdLife International (2018). Species factsheet: Podiceps gallardoi. Downloaded from birdlife. org.

8 Fasola, L. (2009). Distribución, alimentación e interacciones de dos mustélidos semi-acuáticos en los bosques andino patagónicos: El Huillín (Lontra provicax), nativo, y el Visón Americano (Mustela vison), introducido. Doctoral thesis. Universidad de Buenos Aires.

9 Roesler, I., Imberti, S., Casañas, H. Volpe, N. (2012). A new threat for the globally Endangered Hooded Grebe Podiceps gallardoi: the American mink Neovison vison. Bird Conservation International 22:383–388.

10 Fasola, L., Roesler, I. (2016). Invasive predator control program in Austral Patagonia for endangered bird conservation. European Journal of Wildlife Research, 62: 601–608.

11 Fasola, L., Roesler, I. (2018). A familiar face with a novel behavior raises challenges for conservation: American mink in arid Patagonia and a critically endangered bird. Biological Conservation, 218: 217–222.

12 Lange, C.E. (1981). A season of observations on Podiceps gallardoi (Aves Podicipediformes) ecology and ethology. Neotropica, 27: 39–56.

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13 Roesler, I., Fasola, L., Casañas, H., Hernández, P.M., De Miguel, A., Giusti, M.E., Reboreda, J.C. (2016). Colony guardian programme improves recruitment in the critically endangered hooded grebe Podiceps gallardoi in Austral Patagonia, Argentina. Conservation Evidence, 13: 62–66.

14 Izaguirre, I. Saad, J.F. (2014). Phytoplankton from natural water bodies of the Patagonian Plateau.

Advanc. Limnol., 65: 309–319.

15 Lancelotti, J., Marinone, M.C., Roesler, I. (2016). Rainbow trout effects on zooplankton in the reproductive area of the critically endangered hooded grebe. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 27:128–136.

16 Izaguirre, I., Lancelotti, J., Saad, J.F., Porcel, S., Marinone, M.C., Roesler, I., Dieguez, C. (2018).

Influence of fish introduction and water level decrease on lakes of the arid Patagonian plateaus with importance for biodiversity conservation. Global Ecology and Conservation, 14.

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CHAPTER 7.

PLANNING AND NORMING DIFFERENT TYPES OF PARTICIPATION Based on the work of Pimbert and Pretty1, in the following paragraphs I will outline the different types of participation that can be used in planning processes. It is important to know what we are talking about in each case as not all types of participation give rise to the same degree of shared commitment and backing for the taking of decisions.

Passive participation: People participate because they have been told what has happened or what is going to happen, usually as a result of a unilateral decision taken by a public administration or another type of institution. The objective is not to gauge people’s reactions and, if there are any, there’s no reason to necessarily pay them much heed. The information in this type of participation is shared between the professionals who decide which way the wind will blow. For example, passive participation in the context of the planning for the Natura 2000 network in Valencia would have been the upshot if the local authorities had limited their interaction with local people to merely informing them, either personally or in writing, of the content of the plans developed by their technical staff.

Participation by volunteering information: People participate by answering questions formulated by researchers via questionnaires, group meetings, and participatory diagnostic sessions. The information gleaned is then used by the planning team without any further input from interested or affected parties. Returning to the previous example, if they had employed this type of participation in Valencia, the government representatives would have consulted local people to diagnose the situation, and then would have used the information to draw up plans that satisfied the authorities — but with no further input from local people or any other external agent.

Participation by consultation: People are consulted and decision-makers listen to their points of view. The planners define the problems and the solutions, which can be modified depending on the results of the consultation. However, there is no common decision-making or any explicit commitment to include other people’s points of view in the final plans. In the case of Valencia and the Natura 2000 network, if the authorities had wanted to use this type of participation, they would have generated spaces for dialogue with local people and other interested parties as a means of understanding their territorial visions, their fears and worries, and their hopes, but would have reserved for themselves the right to have the final say on what information to heed in the final plans.

Functional participation: People participate via groups formed to fulfill certain objectives that are promoted by an external organization. This type of participation does not normally take place in the initial phases of processes but, rather, enters into play when certain fundamental decisions have already been taken. These groups tend to depend on the work of external instigators and facilitators but may become more independent with time and reach the following (see below) level of participation. In this situation, the authorities approach the interested parties and explain that, for example, there is a legal requirement to approve the plans for the reserve in question and that the idea is to analyze the situation conjointly and examine possible management options. The aim is to ensure that the approved plans represent a consensus of the ideas of the main groups that have participated actively throughout the planning process.

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Interactive participation: People participate in a joint analysis that includes deciding what the aim of the planning process is and, if a plan is to be launched, what type of plan it will be. In this situation, the participating groups have control over all the important decisions and so those involved feel that they are a key part of the process and are motivated to defend it and its results from possible attacks or adverse circumstances. In our example from Valencia, if this had been the case, the authorities would have set up a process without any previous premises regarding what type of plan had to be approved and would have relied on local people to construct the planning process and generate a product that may or may not have resulted in a plan that, likewise, may or may not have been formally accepted.

In light of these different types of participation, it is clear that any decision-making process that truly aims to foment real consensus and garner support from external agents for the plans that have been thrashed out must go beyond simple passive, information-volunteering, or consultative participation. It is important to realize that functional and interactive planning processes need not be framed within a single, well-defined structure consisting of formal meetings or a series of workshops but can be based, instead, on a series of informal occasions and contacts. Thus, planning and participation can – and should – be seen as a long-term organic process that contains successively formal and informal stages of interaction. The key is to generate a diversity of types of interaction (e-mails, telephone calls, short and long meetings) through which all the different parts can communicate and try and establish a collective route map; if communication is limited exclusively to formal encounters it is a sign that there is no real participation and that, conversely, it is somewhat of a sham set up purely to satisfy onlookers.

One of the main constraints on participative processes is that they require the participation of professionals who know how to get them to work, which is not always easy. I have met professionals who are excellent at managing such processes but who are inexperienced in working with – or who even lack any “feeling” towards – the concepts and values of conservation. Alternatively, the interested parties may end up contracting “professional conservationists” who are technically and scientifically up-to-speed but who have little experience or sensitivity when it comes to managing a participative process. In the former case, the decision-making may be formally robust but lacking in conservation-related content, which may lead some conservationist institutions to refrain from investing resources in something that they see as contradicting their values. In the latter case, although some of the technical staff may be satisfied with the final result (above all, those that have managed to get their visions included in the final plan), other groups will feel frustrated because the process will not have taken their ideas and interests into account, and they will see their participation as a charade whose aim was simply to legitimize a pre-established agenda.

CONTENT OF CONSERVATION PLANS Up to now we have focused our attention on just one of the two products of planning, namely, the generation of internal and external support that will stimulate the putting into practice of the decisions that are taken. The following section, however, will concentrate on the second product: The structure and content of strategic plans. Abundant literature already exists on how to write management plans for protected areas, devise species conservation plans, and formulate conservation programs and projects, and so, based on my personal experiences, here I will just outline with broad brushstrokes the main principles that I believe should be taken into account in these questions.

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In general terms, a conservation plan should consist of the following parts: • An introduction in which the context of the plan is explained at territorial, ecological, social, political, and organizational levels. This section must include a brief summary of much of the acquired knowledge regarding the question in hand. As explained when discussing the Natura 2000 network, this section must “get to the point” quickly in terms of what is being planned. If a Natura 2000 space has been created due to the existence of certain clearly defined values, the introduction must center on these values and not get sidetracked or bogged down in an overcomplete environmental review of the study area. Today, almost all of us are saturated with information and have precious little time in which to acquire more knowledge. Thus, there is little sense in continuing to generate diagnostics running to dozens of pages as if we were still in the mid-twentieth century when information was far less available and time was an abundant resource. Extensive, detailed diagnostic analyses – if required – are the task of technical staff and have no place in strategic documents. An excess of detailed information often means that “you can’t see the wood for the trees” and that the key information for decision-making is lost in a morass of irrelevant data. Short, focused diagnostics save time and money (i.e. the wages of the experts we pay to produce them).

That said, a good diagnostic must be broad-ranging in scope and embrace not only the biological aspects of the issue but also the human factors that will come into play during the planning process.

• The nucleus of the plan: Vision, general goals, aims, actions, and activities. This is the core of any plan in which the main decisions to be applied in the future, which should ensure that our Boat reaches – or at least approaches – port, are described in detail. Here we should explain the logic behind the conservation program and define the strategic structure of the rest of the plan’s contents. The following paragraphs describe in more detail the content and the logic behind this key section of any plan.

• Assigning tasks: Institutions, timescales, and budgets. Once we have described the situation, identified what we aim to achieve, and explained how we are going to do it, in this section it is essential to define with whom, with what, and how we are going to execute our proposals.

• Organizational structure. It is useful here to recommend in a certain amount of detail the type of structures and organizational arrangements that are required if the ideas contained in the above paragraphs are to be fulfilled. Any ambiguity or lack of thought in this sense can lead to inefficiencies and/or internal conflicts if, for example, there are key roles that nobody is fulfilling or have been “abandoned,” or if the work of one person or institution overlaps that of another, thereby provoking a waste of resources and intra-group competition. Nevertheless, if you don’t yet know exactly what type of structure is going to work best due to the diversity of implicated parts yet to settle and define their roles, it may be counterproductive to force a particular structure on the group, since subsequently some part or certain individuals may get frustrated because they feel that “what was agreed upon is not being fulfilled.” That is to say, it makes sense to explain in detail the workings of the organization when you are sure that this can be put into practice, which is the case when just one organization is involved or when there is a solid or relatively simple alliance of organizations. If this is not the case, it is best not to propose structures and levels of responsibility as there will be no guarantee that they will be observed and they may just become mere “objects of desire.”

• Monitoring and evaluation systems. This section must contain an explanation of how you intend to monitor both the execution of the proposed actions and the fulfillment of objectives, which will help steepen the learning curve and encourage adaptive management. It will also help identify errors in the original planning, new opportunities, and areas of the plan that need strengthening or improving.

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THE STRUCTURE AND LOGIC OF THE PLAN The logical structure of a plan is depicted in Figure 7.2 and the following paragraphs consist of a brief description of this key issue based on the work of Margoluis and Salafsky.2 Firstly, based on our institution’s mandate or vision and the prevailing legal framework (i.e. formulating a project is not the same in Argentina, where wild species are the property of the provinces, the United States, where they belong to the nation, or South Africa, where they are exploitable by landowners), we need to formulate a goal for our plan. We have already discussed what these goals should consist of. A goal must be sufficiently broad and ambitious to justify a strategic plan, and should be easy to understand and visualize, inspiring for the crew, and subject to scrutiny to see whether or not we are getting close. Our goal must coincide with the boat’s ultimate destination, which means that there may be other boats belonging to the same institution being steered towards other related goals, and reaching port may be but a stop-over on a longer voyage. Depending on our tastes and languages, and on the different schools of thought regarding planning, this goal can also be referred to as the “vision” or “mission.” What is important, however, is that this goal shows us where we are headed, that is, where the end of our journey lies.

Secondly, now with our goal well defined, we should make use of the intelligence that we have gathered regarding our area of interest and, above all, our knowledge of both the factors threatening the accomplishment of our goal (be it saving population, a species, or type of ecosystem) and the opportunities that will help identify the objectives that we want to achieve as we approach our final destination. Some of the important characteristics of our plan are outlined below: • Unlike activities (see below), objectives do not describe something we ought to do but, rather, something that we want to achieve, which, after the initial diagnostic, should mean solving an identified problem or taking advantage of an opportunity. In other words, objectives should be clearly orientated towards changing something that we have identified as undesirable or promoting something that we have identified previously as desirable.

Opportunities Institutional vision and mandate

Legal framework

Threats and problems

GOAL

Actions

Activities

Objectives

Activities

Indicators

Figure 7.2 Logical structure of the components of a strategic conservation plan.

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• Just like our ultimate goal, the objectives to be satisfied on the way must be clear and understood by all team members and other external backers.

• Like the other parts of the plan, our objectives should be measureable, evaluable, and time-constrained.

• Last (but not least), our objectives must be realistic and, as such, viable. It is of little use to set targets that look good on paper if we lack the capacity to fulfill them. Table 7.1 includes examples of ultimate goals and objectives and some of their strengths and weaknesses.

Thirdly, each of the objectives that we identify will be associated with a group of actions and activities whose function is to ensure that these objectives are fulfilled. These activities should all be: • Clearly focused on fulfilling the corresponding objectives • Sufficiently detailed and focused to leave no doubt as to exactly what is to be done in practice • Technically feasible • Appropriate in a local context and in that of our organization Although the exact terms may change, the logic doesn’t: There is an ultimate goal that we want to reach and on the way we will come across a series of objectives (aims) that we will have to satisfy to stave off the threats that endanger our progress, opportunities to be grasped with both hands, and activities and actions that will permit us to accomplish these objectives. This pyramidal logic (i.e. at the apex there is an ultimate goal and below various objectives that will help satisfy this goal, and various activities associated with these objectives) is present in all plans and can be amplified or reduced spatially or temporarily by adding or removing levels within the pyramid. For instance, the final goal of a particular project could be to generate at least five self-sustainable populations of the black-footed ferret in North America; however, if we move up a level, the ultimate goal could be a complete restoration of the vast North American prairies, within which the recovery of the ferret populations would be an objective like, for example, the ending of public funding for poisoning prairie dogs, to be fulfilled on the way to the ultimate consummation of the overall goal. Likewise, if we drop down a step we could posit as a goal the eradication of outbreaks of bubonic plague (which badly affects these mammals), within which one of the objectives to be fulfilled would be the development of an effective vaccine for ferrets and prairie dogs. Regardless of the content of each goal, objective, or action, the key is that this logical pyramid functions at all temporal and spatial scales and allows an organization to change levels when designing programs and projects (i.e. to convert what was a goal into an objective) without affecting the coherence of its institutional vision and raison d’être. Once this logic is taken on board, it is a simple matter to change level like a mental elevator and generate different types of planning that will all fit harmoniously together.

Finally, if we want our plan to be evaluable so that we can learn from mistakes and make adjustments over time, it is important that it incorporates right from its inception a monitoring and evaluation system. It is crucial that any such system be tied to goals and objectives rather than to activities because, in the case of the latter, we may even perform all proposed activities and actions without actually managing to change anything. The causes could be that the presumptions on which our planning is based were erroneous, our chosen methods were wrong or, if correct, were wrongly applied, or unpredicted events ensued that meant that our planning quickly went out of date. All this is explained concisely in Figure 7.2.

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Examples of possible goals

Strengths and weaknesses

Save the Ethiopian wolf.

Inspiring and general but it is not clear what we really want to achieve and it is not possible to measure the success of the goal (i.e. at what point do we consider a species to have been saved?).

Support the Wildlife Authority (WA) in its efforts to save the Ethiopian wolf.

Neither a goal nor an objective. It could be an activity but it is too ambiguous. “Support” could refer to a simple pat on the back or to working side-by-side with serious investment in human and financial resources. Neither is it clear if supporting the WA will change anything.

Organize workshops for government staff working in the conservation of the Philippine or monkey-eating eagle.

This is an activity.

Ensure the genetic viability of the jaguars of the Argentinian Atlantic forest.

Measurable, specific, and sufficiently general to be regarded as a goal. But, it sounds somewhat aloof and is unlikely to inspire the general public.

Promote the continuity of a population of jaguars in the Argentinian Atlantic forest to ensure that it is viable in the long term (>50 animals in the next 50 years) and can form an ecological and genetic continuum with populations in both Brazil and Paraguay.

Similar to the previous goal but more precise and easier to evaluate. However, the more specific and more evaluable it is, the less personal and more technical it becomes. It could be complemented with a parallel “vision” working towards “maintaining a healthy population of jaguars in the Argentinian Atlantic forest.”

Halt the habitat loss and hunting that threaten the great green macaw in northern Costa Rica.

Resembles a combination of two objectives. The term “halt” is vague and perhaps too ambitious: Does it means that not a single macaw will be captured and not a single tree cut down?

Examples of possible objectives

Strengths and weaknesses

Promote the conservation of the Pampas deer and the economic development of local communities.

A double goal, which makes it inspirational but difficult to fulfill and to evaluate (i.e. the total deer population and the development of local communities). The verb “promote” is too vague and embraces, for example, 30 people working flat out on many levels as well as a single person praying on a Sunday morning for the conservation of the deer and for improvements in the local way of life.

Ensure that all the forestry plantations in areas with Pampas deer have a reserve area with natural grasslands connected to other similar areas.

This is a clear objective aimed at solving a specific problem (i.e. loss of habitat due to forestry plantations) that can be evaluated on the ground.

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Examples of possible objectives

Strengths and weaknesses

Establish a business-like conservation and sustainable development project to satisfy the needs of local people and protect the population of Pampas deer in the Aguapey region.

How? This is a rather over-lavish and confusing version of the goal suggested two rows above.

On the positive side, it is more specific as it defines the target area and deer population.

Support the Parks Authority in Corrientes Province for three years in its efforts to regulate hunting in Aguapey.

A mixture of objective and activity. The verb “support” has the same deficiencies as the verb “promote” three rows above. It seems to suggest that the objective is to solve a hunting-related problem that has already been identified. The objective in the following rows would be a better alternative.

Reduce the number of run-ins with poachers to fewer than two a year.

Good objective, aimed at solving a recognized problem. Clear and measurable.

Ensure that within two years 90% of the gates in the area have a padlock to stop poachers entering ranches to hunt deer.

Another good objective, clearly enunciated and designed to solve a problem identified through analysis (i.e. free access to the large ranches frequented by the deer, which facilitates poaching). Clear and measurable.

Carry out environmental education in schools in areas within the range of the Amur leopard.

An activity that is both unclear and not specific enough.

Increase significantly the interest of the local population in the conservation of the Amur leopard.

An objective. To be able to measure its fulfillment it will need to be associated with indicators and qualitative and quantitative databases regarding the perceptions and attitudes of local people to this big cat.

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Table 7.1 Examples of possible goals and objectives, together with their strengths and weakness when used in planning.

To understand the logic behind plans and projects is like learning a distinct language. This is key if we are to transform the enormous variety of available information into logical decisions that descend from our ultimate goal towards the specific objectives that we believe to be indispensable for reaching that goal, and the specific activities required to fulfill these objectives. Knowing this, we can start contemplating how best to monitor and evaluate the implementation of our objectives, design structures, assign responsibilities, and fix time limits and budgets. This will help us set the exact heading for our Boat and anticipate what is to be done on our journey; to put it more concisely, we need to organize ourselves mentally to reach our journey’s end in the most efficient way possible. What’s more, a well-structured plan will help us communicate both internally and externally what we are doing and why; this type of transparency is of upmost importance when working with a public resource such as our biodiversity.

Yet, there is another reason why it is important for conservationists to be familiar with the logic of planning and know how to clearly express their ideas in writing: Logical discourse is extremely useful when applying for external funding as most possible donors require this type of structuring in any petition for sponsorship. If our team has nobody who feels comfortable handling this type of

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logic and language, and using it to create proposals, our ability to gain access to external funding will be severely limited. The art of drawing up planning documents has become a theoretical discipline in the conservation profession and so any organization must be capable of adapting to the pre-established logic of the demands of potential donors. At times, the art of drafting conservation plans seems to possess a religious-like quality grounded in a corpus of written treaties and codes to be obeyed in the strictest detail. Every NGO, international cooperation organism, government agency, and consultant is convinced that “its” way of drawing up plans is the best even if the differences between them amount generally to mere formalities and details.

However, aside from the people who can write well-structured planning documents, we also need those who are able to interpret the “planning dogmas” of the donor and adapt the structures, timescales, and verbal tenses of the planning document to fit in with its credo. Paradoxically, the ability to satisfy a donor’s way of doing things may be more determinant for obtaining funding than the true viability of the project; indeed, many of those who will evaluate our proposals will focus more on our ability to dovetail with the donor than on the true feasibility of the project under consideration (whether it be through a lack of experience in conservation projects or because they have never been to – or will ever go to – where the project is to be run).

REFERENCES 1 Pimbert, M.P., Pretty, J.N. (1997). Parks, people and professionals: putting ‘participation’ into protected area management. Social Change and Conservation: 297-330.

2 Margoluis, R., Salafsky, N. (1998). Measures of Success Designing, Managing, and Monitoring Conservation and Development Projects. Island Press.

Box 7.2

THE PLANNING PROCESS FOR THE EX SITU BREEDING PROGRAM OF THE IBERIAN LYNX: DELIVERING A DOUBLE PRODUCT In 1999 Astrid Vargas was a vet with a doctorate in conservation biology and many years of experience in the captive breeding of the critically endangered black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes). At that time the Spanish government was running a captive breeding program for the equally critically endangered Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) that at that point had not had any success despite years of generous funding. Moreover, the whole lynx conservation process had got bogged down in a war of words between the principal institutions involved, namely, the Spanish Government, the Government of the Andalusia Autonomous Community (where the last few remaining lynx were struggling to survive), and the researchers from the Doñana Biological Station belonging to the Spanish National Research Council. Add to the debate the European Union, other governments, zoos, and NGOs (who had been relegated to a back seat), and you have a recipe for a convoluted situation in which agreements on how to move forward were hard to reach and decisions hard to take. This breeding program was at that particular moment in its history in the eye of the storm.

In light of all this, in 1999 the Spanish Ministry of the Environment commissioned Astrid to design a fresh captive breeding program for the Iberian lynx. She replied that she felt honored to be asked but that she couldn’t help because at that moment she was undertaking a long journey in another country.

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Nevertheless, the ministry’s specialists were still convinced that she was the right person for the job – i.e. for the task of relaunching the program regarded as critical for the survival of this threatened feline – and insisted that all they wanted from her was a recovery plan that, they believed, she could draft whilst still on her travels. Evidently, the thought was that a technical document generated by a prominent consultant would be enough to guarantee progress in the public Iberian lynx conservation process.

However, Astrid didn’t quite see it that way. Thanks to her experience in the equally controversial black-footed ferret recovery program and mindful of the complexities of the lynx project, she was initially wary about this over-technical approach and so, instead, proposed that the plan be developed via a plural participation process involving all the main groups working with the species.

She offered to design and coordinate a planning workshop whose aim would be to bring all the interested parties together to trace out the main strategies and lines of work of a new ex situ breeding program. At that time, participative planning meetings of this description were not typical in the institutions in charge of conservation in Spain and this was not quite what the Ministry of the Environment had bargained for when they got in touch with her; nevertheless, they agreed to follow her recommendations. It is likely that the Ministry had its mind set upon one type of product (i.e. a written plan) but Astrid was aware that, if her proposed plan was not to end up at the bottom of a bureaucrat’s drawer or, worse still, just add more fuel to the fire, she would have to come up with a different type of product that would take advantage of the collective energy of all involved parties to ensure that all the agreements reached were fully implemented.

I had the honor to be asked to attend that first meeting. In large part, thanks to Astrid’s charisma and skill in managing the meeting using hitherto unheard-of techniques in Spain that were regarded then as “American,” along with the human and professional capabilities of many of the participants, an extremely positive work atmosphere was created and the main aspects of the captive breeding program were thrashed out; above all, the foundations for how the three main participating institutions would work together were laid. Within a few months the plan was approved by the Government, a budget for the plan was agreed upon, and in 2003 the Ministry officially contracted Astrid to coordinate its execution. The rest of the story is one of notable success in terms of the species’ recovery as in 2005 the first lynx kittens were born in what at that time was the only Iberian lynx breeding center in the world. By 2016, there were five such centers in Spain and Portugal, 248 kittens had been born, and 145 lynx released into the wild. Whereas in 2000 only two wild lynx populations existed, by 2018 there were eight populations in two countries, six of which are the result of captive-bred animals being released into the wild. Thanks to the efforts of many people, the species’ level of threat has been reduced from Critically Endangered to just Endangered.

Yet, this success story was not something that was ordained to happen. If Astrid had not been so perspicacious and had not seen that two products were required (a technical plan and a more human and political strategy that would satisfy the desires of all sides to unblock the situation and reach agreements), it is likely that, to a background cacophony of argument and no common work strategy, the captive breeding program would have continued to miscarry and the reintroductions would not have taken place.

SOURCE This story is based on numerous conversations with Astrid Vargas and other participants in the process, as well as my experience in the initial planning meeting. The facts have been checked by Astrid herself and Antonio Rivas, the current coordinator of the Acebuche Ex Situ Breeding Center). <www.lynxexsitu.es>

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Box 7.4

PLANNING PUBLIC USE IN THE SERRA GELADA NATURAL PARK: ASKING USERS THEIR OPINION Eduardo Mínguez (Ciudadanos por la Ciencia) and Javier Jiménez (Pangea Consultores) In Spain, natural parks, created and managed by the country’s autonomous communities (equivalent to regions in a federal state), are the commonest type of protected area. The Serra Gelada Natural Park is a maritime/terrestrial park of some 5,655 ha, 4,920 ha of which protect marine habitats.

It was declared in 2005 and lies right next to the Mediterranean beach-and-sun tourist hotspot of Benidorm, where over 15 million nights are spent in hotels every year.1 As a result, this park is visited by at least 140,000 residents and tourists annually. For example, in 2007 it was estimated that 143,000 people visited this protected area, of which almost 45,000 explored in some way or another the park’s maritime habitats. The park consists of two bays separated by a 10-km-long sea cliff: To the south lies Bahía de Benidorm and a small island, La Illa, which is of great interest for both its marine and terrestrial biodiversity including important seabird colonies; to the north lies Bahía de Altea, with extensive seagrass (Posidonia oceanica) beds but surrounded by extensive built-up areas that are homes, above all, to people from outside Spain.

Thus, right from its inception, managing public use was a key issue in this area of tourist resorts, both from the point of view of offering a service of quality and from the need to reduce the impact of such heavy visitor pressure. Under Spanish law, the management of joint maritime/terrestrial spaces is complex, as is the sharing of accountabilities, which can lead to exclusions or overlapping shared responsibilities. A complete system of planning for Spanish protected areas must follow European legislation (i.e. its directives) and then be made compatible with the legislation of every member state (at times via ministerial strategies), passing through on the way intermediate levels of regulations that include the Natural Resource Territorial Plans and Area Management Plans (of which the commonest is the Use and Management Master Plan). On occasions, the system is rounded off – or complicated even further – with a Special Plan, an executive document with guidelines that enables the uses of a protected area in both time and space to be monitored. It controls access by both those going to work (e.g. fishers, and workers in fish factories and tourism) and to casually relax (local people, tourists, etc.) and, theoretically, it could be drawn up, approved, and put into practice without almost any public consultation. However, the Park authorities in this case chose to set in motion a participative process.

Although this Natural Park did have a consultative and participative body (the Governing Board), due to its formal structure and the excessive influence of representatives from the public administration (15 of the 35 members of the Park’s Board were civil servants), it was decided to contract an external consultancy to design and operate a participative process that would go beyond the internal debates taking place within the Board. The aim was to stimulate dialogue between the various implicated parties and so generate a series of agreements that would ensure that the use of the park in both time and space for both work and play would be regulated to the satisfaction of everyone.

During the participative process an active listening methodology was employed consisting of three phases. An initial information-gathering phase compiled a contact list of all the people who had anything to do with the Park in any sense, which helped establish the nature of the most influential voices in the Park area. A second listening phase involved 21 interviews with 33 people covering a wide range of opinions, positions, interest, needs, and concerns regarding public use in the area.

These interviews, conducted with no pre-established script or prejudices, accumulated a complex

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wealth of information from all shades of opinion. Thus, the initial complexity of opinions (originally everything was as important as everything else!) was slimmed down and the areas of convergence where agreements could be reached were identified … or in some cases not, as the right to dissent from an informed position was always respectfully left open. Bringing these areas of agreement out into the open helped stimulate a fresh collective awareness (“we’re not as distant from other people’s ideas as we thought”) that led to agreement on a number of core ideas and improved relationships between participants based on mutual respect for respective differences.

With this in mind, a document was drafted to guide work in the third phase devoted to the organization of broad-based workshops in which it was hoped that as-specific-as-possible formal agreements would be hammered out to regulate public use. The fieldwork of the second phase demonstrated that the vast majority of the people who were interviewed truly appreciated the Natural Park (declared just four years before the interviews were conducted) and hoped that all those invited to the meetings in the third phase would reach a consensus that would settle conflicts between users, thereby nullifying extreme arguments such as “the Park should be abolished,” which, it had become clear, nobody was in favor of.

Thus, requiring a solution to the problems of co-existence in a small natural space in a region in which a single generation (which was still clinging to power) had witnessed exponential economic development, the Park chose to organize three meetings. The studies in phases one and two had revealed that there were three distinct interests in three different zones within the Park’s boundaries: The marine environment could be split between the two large bays, Bahía de Benidorm (of great interest for local tourist businesses) and Bahía de Altea (less tourist pressure but more productive offshore fisheries and fish farms), while the terrestrial part, although of less economic relevance, was used largely by local and visiting walkers. This was a wise decision as each of these three groups interacts very little with either of the other two.

Although little progress was made in Bahía de Benidorm, significant agreements were reached elsewhere: In Bahía de Altea the traditional fishers accepted that they could earn a living if they were allowed to manage their fisheries in a sustainable fashion and if their fishing grounds were closed to boats from outside the area and to sports fishers. This agreement was reached even though the two fish farms in the Bahía, who had all their permits in order and complied with all environmental regulations, were not well regarded by the fishers. On dry land, where there were few relevant economic interests, users agreed to proposals to manage the network of hiking trails. A good example of the benefits of the process was the top-down analysis by the Natural Park that suggested that a particular track be closed to cyclists. Nevertheless, the participants in the meetings in 2010 were not in favor of this prohibition and demanded that the Park allow cyclists to use this track albeit subject to just a “few but clear” regulations. If the Park authorities had not opened up debate in this question, they probably would have banned cyclists from this track and, as a result, would have generated an unnecessary conflict between cyclists and walkers.

The three months that the external input lasted was a time of illusion and hope. Unfortunately, the Valencian Government failed to appreciate the true worth of the process it had initiated – i.e. the three phases executed with the aid of the external assessors – and this initial impulse fizzled out due to a lack of flexible administrative structures in both local government and local society. What were needed were participative government organs that could adopt binding executive commitments, backed up by speedy decision-making and proper funding.

Even so, co-existence has been improved in this protected area. True unmanipulated “participation” can have unpredictable results. In this case, many interested parties recognized that they appreciated and supported the Park, which came to be seen as the outcome of a shared social demand.

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After this participative phase, the technical work of regulating public access, legitimized by the work of the participative process, got underway.

REFERENCES 1 National Institute of Statistics. Data from 2015.

Box 7.5

HOW INDIA ALMOST KILLED HER TIGER TOURISM Harbhajan Singh Pabla. Former Chief Wildlife Warden, Madhya Pradesh State (India) Nature conservation in India is synonymous with the conservation of tigers, as most of the sub-continent’s forests are the current or former habitats of this great cat. Throughout history, humans have been trying to exterminate tigers and their prey as they came in the way of the expansion of human habitation. However, India woke up to its dwindling wildlife about 50 years ago and initiated steps to conserve whatever was left. The advent of modern conservation in India was marked by two landmark events, namely, the promulgation of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 (the Act, for short) and the launch of Project Tiger in 1973. The Act aimed to consolidate and rationalize wildlife hunting, and possession and trading regulations passed by various states from time-to-time, and created a unified national conservation framework. Project Tiger aimed to conserve Indian wilderness by focusing resources and attention on tiger habitats and populations that were still relatively intact.

Although the Act still guides conservation of wildlife in India, it has since been transformed almost beyond recognition as a result of a series of ultra-conservative amendments. For instance, the law no longer allows recreational hunting, and the provision even for photographic tourism in protected areas (PAs) is now being debated.1 Project Tiger was originally envisaged as a directorate for providing central grants and technical help to tiger reserves managed by the states. However, since 2006, it has become the principal policy-making and regulatory body of the Central Government in the form of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). NTCA now has the powers “to issue directions to any person, officer or authority for the protection of tigers and tiger reserves,” and they are “bound to comply with the directions.” Among its various functions, NTCA has also been mandated to “lay down normative standards for tourism activities” for tiger reserves and “ensure their compliance.” Non-compliance with NTCA’s guidelines can send officials to jail for three years, as it is seen as a violation of the Act itself. Project Tiger (i.e. NTCA) now covers 50 tiger reserves, spread over more than 71,000 km², across 17 states, and the number is growing. The writ of the NTCA runs everywhere (not limited to PAs) as it has the mandate to ensure that “areas linking protected areas or tiger reserves with one another … are not diverted for ecologically unsustainable uses.”

A tiger reserve itself consists of a strictly protected core area (all forest), surrounded by a buffer zone consisting of forests and human habitations. No human activity except tourism was allowed in the core area of a tiger reserve, while all land uses can be allowed in a buffer zone. After the insertion of the provision to keep the core areas “inviolate” in the statute, in 2006, even the legal-

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ity of tourism in core areas of tiger reserves is being questioned. Until recently, most tiger reserves had no buffer zones at all and the tiger reserves were virtually synonymous with core zones, which were open to tourism.

The 2012 ban on tiger tourism Due to the ban on recreational hunting and other extractive uses, the only way wild animals can make a contribution to the economy of the country legally, and consequently improve tolerance to the losses caused by them, is through wildlife tourism.1 Wildlife tourism can create jobs which, at least partly, go to the victims of depredations by wild animals. Wildlife tourism in India is virtually synonymous with tiger tourism. India has never marketed her tiger tourism seriously but people started thronging to wildlife parks towards the turn of the century, when it appeared that wild tigers were unlikely to be around for long. Somehow, the federal Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) did not like it.

Until 2006, in India, wildlife tourism was considered a natural objective of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, many of which were the core areas of tiger reserves. Common man could think of no other reason for spending so much money and causing so much suffering for the conservation of dangerous and harmful animals. The level of human wildlife conflict can be assessed by the fact that in 2015 951 persons were killed in India by animals other than snakes (which according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) caused a mere 8,554 deaths!), and tens of thousands are injured and maimed each year. Madhya Pradesh, the state with only 10% of the national forest area, lost over 5200 head of livestock to tigers and other predators annually between 2014 and 2016. Although no data on loss of crops caused by wild animals is available at national level, crude estimates run into billions of dollars each year. But, rather than promoting wildlife tourism to compensate these losses, the NTCA, immediately after its birth in 2006, started sending guidelines to the states to “phase out” tourism from not only the core areas of tiger reserves, but also from ordinary protected areas.

When the states continued to ignore these guidelines, an activist sought the intervention of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh to enforce the NTCA’s guidelines and demanded an immediate stay on all tourism activities in tiger reserves. The NTCA supported the petitioner’s case in the court, saying that the law requires all PAs to be kept “inviolate.” When the High Court refused to grant the stay, saying that “inviolate” did not imply a ban on tourism, the petitioner went to the Supreme Court of India in quest of the stay. The Supreme Court granted an interim stay on tourism activities in tiger reserves in July 2012 and ordered the Government of India (GoI) and NTCA to submit the guidelines under which tourism could be permitted in tiger reserves. GoI/NTCA first proposed a set of guidelines which provided for phasing out tourism from PAs in five years. The public, park managers, and tourism operators all around the country were appalled due to the economic, social, and conservation implications of banning tourism in tiger reserves, because they saw this activity to be the main reason for their continued existence.

The uproar forced GoI/NTCA to change its stance as they informed the court that they wanted to hold further consultations because “many people depend on tourism for their livelihood and … [the] stoppage of tourism may be a threat to wildlife and forests … [the] common citizen would be deprived of an opportunity to appreciate our natural heritage,” and reluctantly recommended continuation of tourism in accordance with revised guidelines, entitled Guidelines for Tourism in and around Tiger Reserves,” in October 2012. These guidelines rule tiger tourism in the country today.

Although these guidelines do not expressly forbid it, they impose several debilitating restrictions on the existence, conduct, and growth of tourism in tiger reserves. Many elements from the earlier

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versions of the guidelines, which intended to allow wildlife tourism for only five years, have found their way into the current version as well. These features, if implemented, can still kill wildlife tourism in the country, but are being benignly ignored by everyone in order to allow wildlife tourism to exist, if not to let it grow.

Tigers and tourists Most evidence supports the idea that tigers are benefitted by the existence of tourism. Tiger numbers in India grew, from just 1411 in 2005 to 1706 in 2010 and then to 2226 in 2014, mostly in heavily visited tiger reserves. Although there is no all-India study on the subject, several examples illustrate the positive link between tigers and tourists.

Indian foresters know very well that most tigers live in the tourism zones of tiger reserves and these tigers often live longer than other tigers. The legendary tigers of Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve like Charger, Banka, B-1, B-2, Sita, Luxmi, Bokha, Bamera male (the list is long), lived and reproduced for decades in the tourism zone of the tiger reserve. While Charger is said to have lived for 17 years in the tourism zone of Bandhavgarh, the famous Ranthambhore tigress Machhli died at the ripe age of 19. Collarwali, the matriarch of Pench Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh (MP) is just 12-years old and has already produced seven litters in the tourism zone of the park.

Most tigers in the tourism zones are given specific names, as mentioned above, by their fans and are accounted for almost on a daily basis. We, in MP, have rescued several tigers from snares or gin traps reported by visitors. Tourism zones are often better patrolled and supervised because they are more open to public scrutiny. Even if we accept that tigers lived in the tourism zones since before the areas were designated as such, they continue to thrive as before, if not better, after the coming of tourism. Tigers in the tourism zones are better monitored and are easily missed if not seen for a few days. In fact, tourism is the only industry that has a common cause with conservation agencies as tourism would not exist without the success of conservation.

In the Pench Tiger Reserve of MP, which had one of the fastest growing tourism industries during this period and was also adjudged as the best-managed tiger reserve in the country more than once, the tiger population increased from 17 to 24 in the core zone between 2006 and 2012 and the number of visitors increased from just 45,500 to 71,850 during the same period. Scientists found that tiger densities in the tourism zone were higher than the rest of the park, i.e. 4.8 and 3.8 animals per 100 km², respectively. One famous tigress named Collarwali, raised, astonishingly, 26 cubs, in seven litters, successfully, in the tourism zone of Pench, between 2008 and 2017, showing that growing tourism had no adverse impact on tiger survival rates. Incidentally, Pench Tiger Reserve has more than 60 tigers now.

The Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand received all-time high arrivals of 245,000 in the 201415 season when the tiger population in the park reached 215, the highest among all tiger reserves of India. Importantly, Corbett holds most of the state’s tigers where the total population grew from just 178 in 2006 to 340 in 2014, in parallel with the growth in wildlife tourism. These examples clearly show that healthy tourism makes for healthy tiger populations.

The NTCA guidelines on tiger tourism At the beginning of its current guidelines, the NTCA lists a set of factors that threaten the tiger’s long-term survival. Tourism is not included in that list. Also, the guidelines acknowledge that “Tourism … has the potential to enhance public awareness, education, and wildlife conservation, while providing nature-compatible local livelihoods and greater incomes for a large number of people living around natural ecosystem which can help to contribute directly to the protection of wildlife

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or forest areas, while making the local community stakeholders and owners in the process.” But, despite this admission that there was good for wildlife as well as people, the contents of the guidelines seem to reflect the preconception that tourism is a problem that needs to be controlled and contained, instead of making it one of the pillars of tiger conservation and the development of surrounding communities. Here are some of the key recommendations which can potentially threaten wildlife tourism in India: • Management of habitat to inflate animal abundance for tourism purposes shall not be practiced within the core or critical habitat.

• Tourism cannot be allowed in more than 20% of the core area, or the existing tourism zone, whichever is lower.

• Any core area in a tiger reserve from which relocation (of villages) has been carried out, shall not be used for tourism infrastructure.

• Carrying capacity limits based on a model developed in Mexico for regulating visitation on walking trails, are used to regulate (i.e. drastically reduce) the number of safari vehicles entering the parks for tourism.

• Contravention of the guidelines shall be an offence under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

As mentioned before, the guidelines seem to be a hurriedly edited version of the earlier guidelines (submitted to the Supreme Court) that intended to phase out tourism from all PAs in five years, and were retracted by NTCA. All the measures mentioned above were meant to be temporary, as they would have lost meaning after five years. However, the authors failed to adapt the document properly and many elements, which are inconsistent with the new approach (i.e. not stopping tourism), have survived, creating a totally unintended effect. For example, recovery of wildlife populations is the primary objective of the creation of tiger reserves, but these guidelines, strangely, prohibit the achievement of this objective in the tourism zones. Similarly, wildlife tourism just cannot be allowed in most tiger reserves, if these guidelines were to be truly followed, as villages have been relocated from almost all core areas. Now that tourism is going to continue, these incongruous provisions need to be removed or rationalized. Thankfully, the guidelines have neither been understood nor implemented correctly. Otherwise, wildlife tourism would have gone, as NTCA always intended.

The only two features of the guidelines which are being followed are related to the size of the tourism zones and carrying capacity.

Tourism zones As tourism zones have traditionally been, almost invariably, the richest parts of the tiger reserves, the logical approach should have been to spread the pressure, if deemed unsustainable, over larger areas. But the new guidelines, strangely, have compressed all existing tourism pressure into 20% of the core areas. Moreover, tourism zones cannot be expanded to make them 20% if the area in current use is less. There is no explanation as to how this God-given number was selected, and how to measure this percentage.

A disturbing implication of this limit is that no tourism can be developed in new tiger reserves, which account for the bulk of the tiger reserves at present, where tourism zones have not yet been delineated. This will act as a strong economic and political disincentive against the creation of new tiger reserves or further investment in those that still do not have tourism. Coupled with many other restrictions on the development of the areas surrounding protected areas, this provision can potentially stop the expansion of tiger reserves in India. Also, popular reserves with present visitation cannot expand their tourism zones to 20% to accommodate increased traffic in the future or to reduce impact on existing tourism zones.

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NTCA has also ordered (separately) that no new entry points for tourists can be opened, which means all future infrastructure and commercial ventures, if any, have to come near the existing entry points. This will concentrate its potential ill effects (garbage, overcrowding, pressure on forests for fuelwood, wear and tear of roads, and other infrastructure, etc.) in existing areas while preventing the spread of benefits of tourism (new jobs and incomes, appreciation of properties, etc.) to more communities while they continue to bear the losses caused by wild animals.

Carrying capacity The carrying capacity (CC) calculation is another strange feature of these guidelines. The way the CC is to be calculated, as per the Mexican model attached to the guidelines, indicates that the attempt is not to determine the CC objectively, but to find a ruse to keep the tourist numbers down to the lowest level. Several correction factors used in the calculations have been applied illogically. Whatever its merit, the model was developed, primarily, to regulate pedestrian traffic on nature trails and picnic sites. Applying the yardsticks used to regulate the flow of people walking on a trail, watching stationary objects (scenery), to safari vehicles searching for shy, cryptic, and mobile wild animals, is nothing short of comparing apples and oranges.

If applied literally, the model would have reduced the number of safari vehicles in popular parks, like Kanha, to about 30% of the prevailing intake (which does not show any negative effect of tourism on tigers), although some reserves were not immediately affected, as their tourist volumes had not yet reached even these levels. Although no all-India data is available, there are indications that wildlife tourism in the country plummeted sharply under the impact of NTCA’s guidelines. The chart on this page depicts the impact of these guidelines on visitor numbers in MP which owns six of the 50 tiger reserves in India.

Visits (millions) 1,4 1,2 1 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0 2007/8

2008/9

2009/10

2010/11

2011/12

2012/13

2013/14

2014/15

2015/16

Impact of NTCA Guidelines on visitor numbers in tiger reserves and other parks in Madhya Pradesh state.

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As shown above, there was a sharp fall in visitor footfall as soon as the guidelines were implemented in 2012–13, with a corresponding fall in park revenues. Only five tiger reserves receive most of the visitors, although there are 35 protected areas in MP. The number of visits to the state’s parks has been stagnating around one million level since 2012–13, while the previous trend showed a 10–15% annual growth. It is important to note that all park revenues are spent on park management in MP and this reduction in accruals must have made a serious impact on park management, especially in view of the falling contributions from the Indian Government in the last few years.

Incidentally, park revenues are reported to be increasing again, as a result of increased tariff rates.

However, the revenues of the travel businesses (and employment generated by them), around the parks and along the travel routes, may not have recovered since then, because the drop in arrivals created an oversupply of facilities and the prices might have fallen further, resulting in losses to the lodges and other stakeholders.

Death of the “Tiger Show” Madhya Pradesh Forest Department (MPFD) had developed a unique program to facilitate tiger viewing in the wild, popularly called the Tiger Show. Experienced mahouts on elephant backs tracked random tigers from pug marks, vocalisations, alarm calls etc. in the early morning and would ferry visitors for a peep or a few pictures if they found one. The elephants could often cajole the tiger, a little, to be in a convenient location for visitors, although determined tigers always did what they wanted. The tiger generally did not mind visitors coming on elephant back and would be completely relaxed, eating or sleeping. Cubs, if any, would continue to play and frolic around. Thousands of people have seen their only wild tigers in this way.

The Tiger Show is dead now, because the new guidelines say that animals cannot be “cordoned” for the convenience of visitors. It not only means the loss of a significant amount of revenue (and a heritage USP) to the parks in MP, but also the loss of an opportunity to see wild tigers for thousands of people. Most important, the security enjoyed by the tigers habituated to the presence of elephants and visitors has been lost. It is common knowledge that tigers which were regularly tracked for tourism lived longer and bred more successfully than other tigers, as the Pench tigress, mentioned before, proves. All the Bandhavgarh tigers mentioned before, namely Charger, Banka, B-1, B-2, Sita, Luxmi, Bokha, and Bamera, lived and reproduced for decades around tiger shows. The patriarch of the nineties, Charger, was the star of tiger shows for 17 years in Bandhavgarh, a longevity rarely enjoyed by a wild tiger. Munna, the rock star of Kanha, born in 2003, was still a media hero in 2017.

With the Tiger Show gone, the chances of visitors seeing wild tigers in MP are now only as good as in other states. While visitors have lost a special privilege, our tigers have lost a dedicated service that kept track of their well-being on a daily basis. Moreover, MP has lost its unique position as a state that could guarantee (almost) a meeting with a wild tiger.

Patrolling the Tiger Land nipped in the bud When the NTCA started sending signals to the states to phase out tourism from the core zones of tiger reserves, many states were in the process of delineating buffer zones for tiger reserves, which had become mandatory under the amended law. By then, tiger reserves in Kerala state, Periyar, and Parambikulam had developed some innovative low impact, award-winning, ecotourism products, involving trekking and camping, in their core areas (one was called Tiger Patrol). In order to cope with the impact of the NTCA’s guidelines, Kerala converted the locations of these programmes into buffer zones, although some of the locations were situated inside the core zones. Thus, the pressure

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to reduce tourism in core areas from NTCA ended up converting core zones into buffer zones, rather than improving tourism in any way.

Madhya Pradesh tried to emulate the Kerala model and designed a program with the name Patrolling the Tiger Land under which the tourists could join a designated patrolling party of forest guards, for a hefty fee. The idea was to add some novelty to the lonely life of a forest guard, while letting the visitors experience the wilderness closely. However, that was not to be. As soon as the scheme was reported by the media, NTCA sent advisories to all the states saying that visitors should not be allowed to join the patrolling parties as poachers may pose as visitors and may access sensitive locations and information. The Indian Government’s Minister for Environment and Forests wrote a personal letter to the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh to stop this scheme immediately.

Although the state did not cancel the scheme and wrote back that it disagreed, we decided to put the scheme in cold storage, in order to avoid another confrontation with the Central Government.

Forest walks are still allowed in the parks, but the scheme that would have transformed wildlife tourism in the state continues to be in suspended animation.

One positive impact of these guidelines, however, has been that tourism has now spread to the buffer zones of many tiger reserves, due to the restrictions on the number of safari vehicles entering the core zones. Earlier avatars of these guidelines mandated that a proportion of the buffer zones should be restored within the five-year period for which tourism was to be allowed in the core zones. But, curiously, a recent circular from NTCA is reported to say that buffer zones should not be restored as it may lead to enhanced man-animal conflict by bringing the animals nearer to human habitations. NTCA seems to be tying itself in knots!

Conclusion When India realized that the tiger was close to extinction in the country, in around 2005 it took several steps to improve tiger conservation, including the constitution of the NTCA and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB). The country successfully turned the corner and set the tiger populations on a rising trajectory. However, among the many good things the country did, it also attacked wildlife tourism, without any evidence of its negatively impacting tiger conservation. Although wildlife tourism has survived a full decade of deprecation and determined attacks from the very authorities which should have been fostering it, there is no scope for wildlife tourism to become a more effective conservation and development tool in the future as the current guidelines strictly forbid any growth. Thus, there seems to be no scope for wildlife to prosper in India as, if it happens, it will cause only pain, without any gains, which no society will tolerate, least of all a poor country like India.

The tiger is perhaps the most gorgeous wild animal in the world and can be the backbone of the development of rural India in many states, if marketed and managed properly. But if tigers just continue to accentuate India’s poverty, and the country does not learn to exploit their appeal for removing poverty soon, the animals shall be gone one day! Although tourism is one of the five Ts (technology, tourism, tradition, trade, and talent) that constitute the Brand India of the new government, MOEF/NTCA have still not shown any signs of support for this national mission. Therefore, recent press reports that the government is discussing a proposal to wind up NTCA should not come as a surprise to those who feared a backlash for the way this agency conducted the business of saving India’s wild heritage.

REFERENCES 1 Pabla, H.S. (2015). Road to Nowhere: Wildlife Conservation in India.

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CHAPTER 8.

MANAGEMENT OF NATURAL AREAS SOME BASIC CONCEPTS REGARDING THE CONSERVATION OF ECOSYSTEMS, SPECIES, AND POPULATIONS The following are some of the essential concepts that sustain the theoretical basis of many in situ conservation actions, which will be of great interest above all for readers with no formal background in this profession.

Maintenance of evolutionary and ecological processes The concept of nature conservation as a social endeavor and professional discipline was first developed in the second half of the twentieth century in response to the increasingly clear evidence that human activities were having a negative impact on the natural ecosystems on which millions of species – including ourselves – depend. Although a number of writers had already expressed their alarm at how centuries of human endeavors were taking their toll on the planet, the beginnings of the conservation movement are usually traced back to Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring, published in 1962, which denounced the effects that pesticides such as DDT were having on the world’s fauna and ecosystems.2 This ground-breaking conservationist vision focused on the ecological imprint of human development (e.g. contamination, overexploitation, and habitat destruction) and how to stop it.

From the 1980s onwards fresh evidence regarding extinctions began to accumulate as data on recent extinctions was juxtapositioned with historical records cataloguing the appearance and disappearance of species over geological time.3 This novel field of study combines modern ecological information from the twentieth century and evolutionary evidence from a much broader time-scale going back dozens of millions of years. The diagnostic is clear and supported by a robust scientific consensus: human activities are triggering a new phase of global extinction now referred to as the Sixth Extinction. The fifth extinction was caused by a meteorite that collided with our planet 65 million years ago in what is today the Gulf of Mexico and provoked the extinction of the dinosaurs and other groups of living creatures. The current rate of loss of species, however, is between 100 and 1000 times greater than those of other periods considered as “normal.”4 Moreover, a comparative analysis of extinctions known to have occurred in historical time points to human actions as the motor force behind these extinctions, which is to say that the human species is acting like a gigantic meteorite and provoking the disappearance of tens of thousands of species over a relatively (in terms of geological time) short period of time.

In recognition of this extinction crisis, in the 1980s a new scientific discipline known as Conservation Biology grew up whose primary aim was to try to stop – or at least attenuate – the ecological and evolutionary impact of human activity. The result of the superimposition of these two layers of evidence – i.e. the environmental debate of the 1960s and the evolutionary crisis of the 1980s – was the irruption of what we today refer to as Biodiversity Conservation. This innovative, inherently interdisciplinary field of study aims to maintain and in some cases restore a) ecological processes regarded as “natural” (as opposed to artificial or human processes, the line between these two processes being subject to hot debate in conservationist circles) and b) normal evolutionary processes (taking as “normal” the periods in history in which there has been a balance between the evolution and loss of species, whose exact definition is yet another subject of contention) that contrast with the realities of our planet’s current extinction crisis.

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Within this conservationist vision it goes without saying that the extinction of animal and plant species is harmful (i.e. it is caused by human activity and is therefore abnormal in ecological and evolutionary terms) and so society is obliged to do whatever it can to prevent it. This implies maintaining large areas of natural ecosystems that include all their native species in sufficient number to ensure that they can survive in the long term and preserve their natural evolutionary processes. Today, this perspective is generally accepted in society as a whole and by the world’s governments, and is enshrined in laws and international conventions such as the 1992 Biodiversity Convention, several CITES agreements and the 2016 Paris Climate Change Treaty, the establishment of protected areas (regarded largely as ecological and evolutionary refugia), the training and employment of professionals to carry out these tasks, and the production of hundreds of films, courses, books (including this one), and other communication tools aimed at underlining the importance of halting this Sixth Extinction. As a consequence of these social processes, the profession of Biodiversity Conservation (and a myriad of variants and acceptations) now devotes its time to the maintenance and in some cases the restoration of ecosystems, habitats, populations, and wild species throughout the world.

Island biogeography and derived concepts If any one scientific theory underpins the majority of conservation policies and projects (aside from the theory of natural selection proposed by Darwin and Wallace), then it is the Theory of Island Biogeography proposed by MacArthur and Wilson en 1967.5 In brief, this theory states that during evolution if similar habitats are present, smaller and more isolated islands will tend to have fewer species than larger islands that are closer to the mainland. In other words, the smaller the ecosystem is in size and the further it is from other similar ecosystems, the fewer species it will harbor.

This theory had a huge impact as it brought home to scientists concerned about the destruction of natural habitats and species extinction the fact that recent human activities were begetting island-like natural ecosystems surrounded by a sea of humanized landscapes. A simple example suffices: in many places human activities are generating isolated remnants or “artificial islands” of natural ecosystems populated still by, for instance, tigers, harpy eagles, bison, and rhinoceros, which are surrounded by cultivated areas and urban centers where these species cannot live. Furthermore, the smaller these “islands” created by habitat destruction and the further apart they are from each other, the greater the probability that they will end up losing a significant fraction of their native species. Moreover, it was quickly realized that once these systems begin to shrink and fragment, the first species to disappear are those that live in low-density populations and require large ranges in which to complete their life cycles. Typically, this implies the loss of the large species mentioned above. This process is depicted in the upper left-hand corner of Figure 8.1, where the two largest fragments harbor more species (although the larger of the two fragments has a greater diversity of habitats and more species), whilst the smaller fragments have fewer species whose total number is directly proportional to their size.

Thus, this study of patterns of diversity in oceanic islands came to have a great influence on how natural landscapes – most of which act like islands in a “sea” of solid ground – are managed worldwide in order to ensure the survival of all their separate parts (i.e. species) and so guarantee their ecological integrity and evolutionary functioning. The corollary derived from this theory is clear and simple: if we want to prevent a Sixth Extinction, we will have to roll up our sleeves and ensure that there are vast natural landscapes that remain interconnected (or, at least, not too disconnected from other wildlands) and preserve their ability to harbor in the long term all their original species.

The impact of this principle on the design, management, and regulation of a planet whose territorial uses are the object of constant conflict is huge; indeed, this belief has become one of the key concepts behind many of the practical decisions taken in the fields of species and habitat management.

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Figure 8.1 Species diversity and abundance of a key species in four natural reserves subject to different management scenarios. The numbers on the left of each reserve (shown as circles) indicate the number of species present, whilst the numbers on the right (in square boxes) represent the abundance of the key species. The arrows next to the numbers show trends in relation to the initial scenario (continues on next page.)

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1) Basic scenario with four separate reserves embracing two habitats (A and B). The key species uses habitat A more than B. The two large reserves are the same size but the lower left-hand one has two habitats, which increases the overall diversity at the same time as it reduces the abundance of the key species. The key species eventually becomes extinct in the smaller reserve. In this scenario, there are no internal processes in the four reserves that threaten their wild populations. 2) Similar scenario to 1 but in this case the large reserve on the right is badly managed and is under considerable threat, which negatively affects its species diversity and the abundance of the key species. 3) Similar to the basic scenario in 1 but with all the reserves connected by well-managed corridors, which helps increase their overall biodiversity and the abundance of the key species. 4) Similar scenario to 2 but with corridors. In this case, the reserve acts as an “attractive sink,” which has a negative effect on both regional diversity and the total abundance of the key species. 5) Similar to basic scenario 1 but with the four reserves receiving all the translocated species they require from neighboring reserves and other reserves situated outside the region. The result is a possible increase in the regional diversity (over and above that of scenario 1 since it incorporates species that have become locally extinct) and in the abundance of the key species, which is at carrying capacity in all the four reserves.

Metapopulations, sinks, and sources With the advent of the theory of island biogeography, the concepts of habitat loss and fragmentation took on a new relevance in the understanding of biodiversity loss and recovery. Thus, today it is not merely a question of how much of a certain habitat type remains but, rather, how many patches or fragments remain and how far they are from other similar habitats. To expropriate a metaphor used

by David Quammen in his excellent book The Song of the Dodo,6 a whole Persian rug is not the same if you cut it up into 20 pieces, even if its surface area does not change. And in the case of living creatures that need to move from patch to patch in any attempt to recolonize after a local extinction, the distance between these pieces matters enormously.

This idea of habitat fragmentation and movement between fragments is intrinsically linked to the concept of metapopulations, which can be understood as a group of subpopulations of a single species that typically live in disjoint areas of suitable habitat but which are able to move to and fro between individual patches across unsuitable stretches of background habitat (known as the matrix).

With no exchange of individuals, there are no subpopulations, just separate populations as in the four areas in scenario 1 in Figure 8.1. The intensity of the processes of birth and death in each of the subpopulations and their ability to exchange individuals across the matrix will determine the future of the metapopulation and, at a larger scale, of the species as a whole. Metapopulations are clearly a modern concept that contrasts with the traditional idea of an “original” population of a species that exists more or less continuously over all of its so-called “range.” In a world full of discontinuous fragmented natural spaces it is perhaps inevitable that we now have to manage disjoint populations that are interconnected to varying degrees. To summarize, we have moved on from the idea of large, well-connected populations to one of metapopulations in which small populations exchange individuals across an unsuitable matrix in which they would probably be unable to thrive.7 In addition to the distance between subpopulations, which habitually implies greater mortality for the individuals that desert their refugia of habitat and venture out across the hostile landscape, there is also a level of increased complexity relating to the quality of the patches occupied by each of the subpopulations. Within a metapopulation consisting of interconnected subpopulations there

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will be source patches or subpopulations that tend to generate more individuals than they lose and so be in a position to export to other subpopulations, thereby becoming the “motor” that keeps the system running in the long term. Alternatively, sink patches with negative growth rates will also exist and will require the regular input of individuals from outside if they are to survive in the longer term. An especially important type of sink (in terms of the danger they suppose to the longterm conservation of a species) is the attractive sink, which attracts individuals to a patch where mortality rates are greater than those of other less attractive sites.8 This is the case of an area that is particularly rich in food for certain species but where there is also much greater hunting pressure.

Natural and induced connectivity In light of all the above advances in ecological thinking, in the 1990s the concept of wildlife corridors began to take root. These corridors are simply spaces connecting disjoint habitat patches in a particular ecosystem or landscape (i.e. the “islands” described above) that facilitate the exchange of individuals between the subpopulations in these fragments. Theoretically, in a landscape of fragmented patches, the probability of survival of the species that originally inhabited a patch will increase if these fragments are reconnected, thereby accelerating the recolonization of the smaller patches that are more prone to losing their most sensitive species. This faculty has bestowed great significance on the concept of corridors in conservation circles, to the extent that it has become almost sacrosanct; today corridors are regarded as vital components of the struggle to halt biodiversity loss. Nevertheless, certain circumstances cast doubt on this “iron” rule. For example, on the island of Guam many native vertebrate species were lost after brown tree snakes (Boiga irregularis) arrived on the island as stowaways.9 If this island had been connected directly to other islands in the vicinity, this snake would have wiped out many more species. The same can happen with any other invasive species, disease, or even fire. In other words, in the same way that corridors favor the exchange between fragments of the species we aim to conserve, they can also enable negative processes to expand between areas that were originally separate, thereby causing more serious extinctions than would otherwise have occurred.

In demographic terms, another problem with corridors is that they help individuals reach attractive sinks. This will harm the metapopulation as a whole if the negative processes associated with the sink are sufficiently powerful to counterbalance the individuals produced in the formerly unconnected fragments (i.e. before the corridor was established). In other words, connecting a well-conserved area with an attractive area that has a high mortality rate will threaten the survival of the species in the former area, which will end up being “swallowed up” by the latter – the attractive sink – and eventually dying out. This is depicted in scenario 4 in Figure 8.1, where the establishment of corridors between subpopulations allows a large attractive sink (e.g. a reserve that is poorly managed where many animals are hunted) to act as a trap that will diminish the overall biodiversity of the four fragments and negatively affect the abundance of the species to be protected. In conclusion, connecting fragments may, on the one hand, favor recolonization processes and therefore the recovery of key subpopulations but may also, on the other, open the door to unwanted consequences and allow negative processes to reach areas they had previously not reached.

Apart from corridors, another way of promoting the exchange between fragments and increase the overall abundance of a metapopulation is to translocate individuals between subpopulations using a technique that could be termed “assisted colonization.” Under a scenario in which a number of totally unconnected areas could play home to a particular species, a de facto metapopulation could be generated by means of a capture/release program. Unlike corridors that generate continuity in the landscape and allow populations to exchange individuals “in their own time,” connectivity

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via planned translocations has the drawback of only being feasible for certain high-interest species (the translocation of a whole ecosystem is highly complicated or even impossible). Translocation also requires heavy investment in human resources as it involves captures, transfers, releases, and monitoring. The upside is that these induced connections may be the only way of restoring certain species for which corridors are not a viable alternative. This is the case of lions and African wild dogs in South Africa, whose populations have increased by almost 50% in recent years thanks to the regular translocation of animals between unconnected reserves, which has led to the creation of highly managed metapopulations of both species.10 Connecting these African reserves by corridors to allow these large carnivores to disperse freely and autonomously is, put simply, utopian. Which brings us to one of the advantages of induced connectivity: it can be used to stimulate exchanges between isolated populations and even recolonizations of areas from where a species has been eradicated but where it would be impossible to construct an “eco-corridor” permitting a constant exchange of individuals between discrete areas.

The many factors to be taken into account – that is, landownership, local attitudes to the species and habitat, the species’ behavior, the government’s capacity to implement changes in land use, and the conservation body’s available resources – will determine whether it is preferable practically to connect areas by corridors to promote spontaneous colonization or to use induced colonization and deliberately transfer a number of chosen individuals (or even a combination of the two strategies).

Small populations: genetics and demography Concern for possible extinctions meant that right from its inception Conservation Biology placed special emphasis on small populations in terminal phases before extinction. In light of growing public concern for this question, geneticists, experts in population modeling, and other scientists working with captive populations joined forces to create a theoretical base for the management of declining populations. Caughley described these theoretical foundations and the recommendations they generated as the “small-population paradigm.”11 One of the most important findings of his work was the realization that very small populations may die out by pure chance, however well the factors causing them to decline are managed and controlled. This phenomenon is known as the extinction vortex, which is the consequence of a combination of the stochastic or random phenomena that affect very small populations, and other deterministic factors related to the loss of fitness provoked by the frequent interbreeding of related individuals in small populations.

One of the concerns most often aired by conservationists when discussing the management of small populations is closed linked with genetics. Anxiety about this subject at times becomes obsessive and can detract from two other crucial questions in species conservation: demography and habitat quality. Every time the subject of managing for a small population is raised, there is always someone who poses the question of genetics; yet, it is rare for anyone to worry about the species’ demography (i.e. the relationship between birth and death rates), which in the final instance will determine whether the species in question will die out or recover. In my many years of work I have heard many people referring to “genetic problems” but have met few who actually know what they are talking about. They bring up the subject to show just how much they know about conservation or as an excuse for a failed project: “it’s not going to work because of the grave genetic problems” (even though the speaker generally has no idea of what these problems actually are).

I’m going to try and explain these so-called “genetic problems” in a way that will help readers appreciate them and judge their merits for themselves. As a rule of thumb, these problems can be separated into two types of processes that we want to avoid when managing our wild animal populations. The first is what is known as outbreeding depression and occurs when separate populations

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arise within a single species with characters adapted to a particular environment that differ markedly from those of other populations subject to other environments. In this case, it is best that the two populations do not mix. A good example would be the inadvisability of mixing wolves from a cold clime – where they are larger and have thicker fur – with those from warmer latitudes (but still of the same species Canis lupus); this would be the case if wolves from India were liberated in Siberia (where they would probably feel the cold) or vice versa. Furthermore, conservation biology advises against mixing Evolutionary Significant Units within a single taxa since each represents part of an evolutionary speciation process (i.e. of differentiation) that should be kept separate.12 This is the first genetic “problem”: the mixing of individuals from clearly differentiated populations or the translocating of individuals adapted to a particular environment to another clearly distinct one. In practical terms, we often have to decide whether or not to move organisms from one place to another in order to restore extinct populations or to strengthen demographically and genetically critically threatened ones. In this situation, it is not unlikely that there will be pressure groups and people who will raise their voices against potential translocations and cite the possibility of outbreeding depression, although, as I have commented above, probably without articulating the question coherently or going beyond labeling it ambiguously as a “genetic problem.” Frankham et al. recommend that animals from populations that have been separated for over 500 years should not be mixed13 but also state that “current concerns about outbreeding depression in recently fragmented populations are almost certainly excessive.” Put another way, theoretically there shouldn’t be any problem with mixing individuals from populations that are currently separate if they live in more or less similar habitats and if their populations were connected in historical times. In these cases it is important to have sound knowledge of the history, ecology, and biogeography of the species in question (even if this means consulting available palaeontological records), and to evaluate the ecological, evolutionary, and even social costs of not carrying out the translocation of individuals from other areas, that is, the cost of inaction. Like everything in conservation, a decision cannot be taken only on the basis of a single variable (be it genetic, ecological, economic, or epidemiological) and a maximum number of aspects must be examined when deciding which road to follow; in the case of translocations, genetics is but one of the many variables to be taken into account, even though it is often one of the first to be laid on the table.

The second genetic problem is connected to the loss of genetic diversity in small populations, many of which decline due to the above-mentioned processes of habitat loss and fragmentation.

In general terms, the smaller a population is, the greater the possibility that it loses genetic diversity, a process known as heterozygosity. Diversity is akin to “life insurance” in the event that the species in question has to adapt to new life conditions in the future. Said in another way, the fewer individuals in a particular population or of a particular species, the more likely it is that its genetic variability will be reduced, which means that it will have less capacity to respond to future changes or catastrophic events. A loss of heterozygosity can lead to the especially worrying phenomenon of inbreeding depression, which occurs in populations that remain small for a long period of time.

This obliges closely related individuals to interbreed in successive generations, thereby leading to the fixation of deleterious alleles (i.e. recessive and often maladapted expressions of certain genes) within the population. It is clear that this lack of mixing can have a negative impact on the populations in question.

Good examples of this process include the high prevalence of haemophilia amongst European monarchies in recent centuries and the malformations detected in the small wild population of Florida panthers.14 Nevertheless, despite the fact that practically all books and conservation manuals cite endogamy as one of the main problems to be taken into account in conservation, in reality only

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a very few documented cases point to a link between endogamy and the extinction of a wild species.

Indeed, many wild populations have recovered successfully from very low numbers; this is the case of the Gredos subspecies of the Iberian ibex (Capra pyrenaica victoriae), the Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx), the Seychelles warbler (Acrocephalus sechellensis), the Mauritius kestrel (Falco punctatus), the Chatham Island black robin (Petroica traverse), and the Guam rail (Rallus owstoni). In general terms, it is thought that a very small population showing signs of endogamy is able to recover and, moreover, avoid the long-term fixation of deleterious alleles if its numbers can increase appreciably so that these alleles have no significant effects on the population as a whole.15 For example, Van Houtan et al. analyzed the temporal series of ungulate populations in protected areas in South Africa.

They found that around 94% of all translocations were successful (66% unambiguously so), even though most populations initially were very small (fewer than 15 individuals) and most of the species involved were threatened and so, theoretically, more difficult to manage and/or restore. These authors noted that the growth rate of the threatened populations – as well as the likelihood of survival in the long term – can be boosted by introducing just a few new individuals.16 The results of this research coincide both with what has occurred in the threatened species cited above and with the age-old wisdom of ranchers who, when wanting to improve their local breeds, always look to introduce “new blood” into their herds.

Both the extinction vortex and inbreeding depression will lead to the extinction of a species or a population if numbers remain truly very low (in the case of vertebrates, just a few dozen) over successive generations. This was the case of the Pyrenean ibex (Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica), which wasn’t as lucky as its close relative from the Gredos mountains. In 2000, after at least a century with a population of fewer than 40 individuals, the final Pyrenean ibex died despite hunting having been banned in 1913, a National Park having being declared for it in 1918, the installation of feeding stations in 1969, a recovery plan set up in 1993, a project funded by the European Union in 1994–1998, and the release of fertile males belonging to another subspecies in 1996 when only a few female Pyrenean ibex were left alive. All turned out to be futile as the last female died on 6 January 2000 when a large dead fir tree fell on her. The lesson is clear: when a species’ numbers are critically low it is time for urgent action and to attempt to make its numbers grow rapidly. If we manage this, we will also forestall any possibility that inbreeding depression becomes a probability.

Essentially, it is a question of common sense: if we take both genetic and demographic questions into consideration, the best way to restore a locally extinct population or reinforce a threatened one is to release as many individuals as possible that are not genetically interrelated; likewise, these reintroduced individuals should not originate from areas that are very different from the release site or from populations that clearly became separate in historical times. But, at the same time, it is also essential to manage a population’s demographics and foster its rapid growth via efficient control of the main causes of mortality and measures designed to boost reproduction rates. At the end of the day, it is the demography (i.e. our ability to increase birth rates and decrease death rates) that will determine whether or not we recover or lose a species or a population. Yet, few people ever refer to this question when discussing conservation and the focus tends always to be placed on genetics.

Trophic cascades and rewilding The modern ecological concept of trophic cascades also has an enormous significance on decision-making in conservation.17 Traditionally, ecology explains the structure of ecosystems through bottom-up processes determined by components such as soils, climate, altitude, and the gradient and orientation of the physical environment. Thus, logically, an ecosystem will contain certain habitats and certain species due to a series of mainly physical factors. However, recently evidence has begun

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to accumulate that shows that some animal species also greatly influence the final structure and composition of the ecosystems they inhabit. These species tend to be top predators, large herbivores, or animals like beavers, prairie dogs, rabbits, or elephants that create specific habitats. For example, the presence of the sea otter (Enhydra lutris) in ecosystems in the northeast Pacific determines whether a stretch of coast is covered by copious submerged kelp forests or is a bare lifeless rocky waste; this is because this marine mammal feeds on the sea urchins that, if left unchecked, will, in turn, feast on seaweed until little remains. Similarly, the wolves reintroduced into Yellowstone help keep populations of large herbivores (e.g. elks) and smaller carnivores like the coyote under control, which prompts changes in the vegetation structure and the abundance of certain smaller animals. In the same way, the presence of elephants or vast herds of wildebeest will determine whether a particular tract of land is covered by open grassland or forest.

Hence, the presence or absence of certain highly interactive species has an enormous impact on the functioning of ecosystems that goes way beyond the simple disappearance of a particular species. The fact that many of these large predators and herbivores are amongst the first species to disappear in altered or fragmented landscapes confers on them the status of priority species when it comes to recovery programs or translocations aimed at restocking an area where they had become locally extinct. Leaving their ecological role aside, many of these species are also “charismatic” and fascinating to human eyes. If we combine this historical interest for large animals as attractions (think of the Roman circuses or the game parks of the Chinese and British nobility) with their role as ecosystem builders and the need to maintain large continuous ecosystems based on the concepts we discussed in the context of island biogeography, then it is a simple step to appreciating the seminal article published by Michael Soulé and Reed Noss in which they proposed that conservationist strategies should be based on the three Cs: “cores, corridors, and carnivores.”18 Using just these three key concepts, these authors managed to summarize in a single phrase the theoretical and ethical principles of conservation that I have tried to describe in the above paragraphs.

Within this same article appears the term “rewilding,” which had been coined previously by the conservationist Dave Foreman. Today, this term is a buzzword in conservation circles with multiple connotations but, generally, refers to the restoration of degraded natural areas by placing an emphasis on bringing back the species of fauna such as top predators and large herbivores that once interacted.

The zoologist and journalist George Monbiot defines this idea in the following way: “Rewilding means the mass restoration of damaged ecosystems. It involves letting trees return to places that have been denuded, allowing parts of the seabed to recover from trawling and dredging, permitting rivers to flow freely again. Above all it means bringing back missing species.”19

MANAGEMENT ACTIONS DESIGNED TO REVERSE OR PREVENT THREATS A lot of conservation work consists of managing the processes that directly jeopardize the biodiversity we want to care for or restore. This is one of the toughest and most challenging parts of the job as it largely revolves around stopping bad things from happening. Nevertheless, when the results of the intervention are clearly positive for the environment or populations we are working with, the satisfaction is enormous. This is what those who fought against the use of organochlorine pesticides such as DDT in the 1960s and 1970s must have felt after enduring so much vilification and so many personal attacks. Today, many of those who were involved in those pioneering struggles against these pesticides have the right to feel satisfied knowing that they saved hundreds of species from extinction. Currently, there are still thousands of people working flat out and even risking their lives to

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halt habitat destruction, overhunting and overfishing, and pollution, to name but a few causes. The variety of activities that are required in these fields are practically infinite, as is the amount of literature that they have generated. The following paragraphs aim to provide a glimpse at some of these activities, with some recommended reading at the end of the chapter for those who wish to delve more deeply into the subject.

Controlling habitat loss The main threat to our biodiversity probably derives from the destruction and/or transformation of natural habitats by human action. This is not the place to discuss the importance of climate change in the context of habitat loss as this is an overarching threat that goes beyond the scope of this chapter in particular and of this book – whose focus is clearly on the development of conservation actions in specific sites – in general. In a world with a growing human population and a similarly increasing desire to consume (food, energy, minerals, wood, etc.), there is thus great demand from different sectors for space to carry out activities that will negatively affect both the quantity and quality of our natural ecosystems. For millennia, we humans have been transforming the planet’s natural environments into croplands, ranches, and built-up areas. In more recent times, we can add to these modifications of the landscape the effects of industrialization and the spread of power plants, opencast mines, HEP dams, oil-wells, forestry plantations, fish-farms, roads, airports, holiday resorts, recreational areas, and a long etcetera of other impacts. The fight for space is incessant and many different groups still advocate – and will continue to do so – uses for the planet’s surface that will clearly harm our natural ecosystems.

Thus, one of our chief tasks is prevent this kind of intrusive activities from ever developing in the natural ecosystems that we have identified as being particularly valuable. This may mean a small plot of land with an endemic plant associated with particular edaphic conditions, a few hectares of wetland surrounded by tourist infrastructure, a relict patch of woodland near a large city, or thousands of hectares that still harbor continuous natural landscapes. At times we have to oppose the powerful groups who have easy access to both wealth and power (see Chapter 4 on Promotion) and so our activism will involve trying to convince these groups to modify their positions or mobilizing other groups (e.g. local people, the authorities, public opinion, and scientists) to help us confront these vested interests. As we saw in Chapter 7 on Planning, our efforts should be aimed at transforming our ideas into concrete plans and, above all, into regulations that will halt the destructive uses of our natural areas.

Controlling overexploitation The abusive extraction of individuals from a population can lead to its disappearance or, at least, to such a loss in numbers that it can no longer fulfill its “role” in the ecosystem. For example, the fact that there remain only a few jaguars in the millions of hectares of the Argentinian Chaco means that this species is locally ecologically extinct and so can be classified as an “ecological ghost” with no ability to modulate ungulate or medium-sized predator populations. Thus, overexploitation can generate a gradient of impacts that range from the loss of the ecological role of a species in a particular ecosystem to its local or even complete extinction as a species. This latter effect is the case of creatures such as the passenger pigeon, the Tasmanian devil, the great auk, the quagga, and Steller’s sea cow, all of which in the past were overexploited and driven to extinction. Aside from the simple ecological impact of overhunting, hunting in general may make animals so shy that, despite being present, they no longer serve as natural attractions that can attract the visitors who generate economic benefits for local communities. In some cases, these processes of overexploitation are unin-

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tentional and many animals die in traps or are shot or poisoned accidentally as collateral damage in attempts to kill other species.

One of the main advantages of the concept of Full Nature is that it represents an economic and often more profitable alternative to the plundering of the local flora and fauna. It also helps landowners (private, public, or communal) visualize the fact that, if they truly aim to maintain or generate a quality natural product, in many cases this type of product is not compatible with any activity that lessens the quality of the visitor experience. For example, once the private or public landowning entity realizes that they want to fully protect an ecosystem replete with species that are easy to observe, the logical step is to begin controlling hunting. Consequently, we need public, private, or communally protected areas whose mere existence confers on the managers of these territories a strategic vision and social legitimacy. This will in many cases provide a stimulus for investing in efforts to prevent overexploitation, which will often imply the need to identify and sanction those who violate the rules. This type of control is difficult – which does not mean that it is impossible or not necessary – in areas where there are no conservation traditions, that is, in areas where people believe they should be able to freely exploit the local flora and fauna. The best strategy for avoiding overexploitation (especially in the cases of species of great commercial value) is to set up reserves or other types of areas that from legal and strategic standpoints are clearly devoted to the maintenance of natural ecosystems with all their original species. In marine ecosystems where the fauna is more difficult to observe and is much more mobile, these reserves can be justified by their capacity to act as nurseries for commercial species, which will in turn increase the productivity of fisheries outside the protected area.20 Hunting and fishing are not totally incompatible with conservation or with the concept of Full Nature. Indeed, certain types of sports fishing that have no significant impact on fish stocks or low-impact hunting guaranteeing substantial economic benefits for local people (e.g. fly fishing or trophy hunting) can be extremely important tools for justifying the maintenance of wild areas in face of threats from alternative uses such as crop monocultures and intensive grazing. As Dennis Rentsch explains in Box 8.3, sports hunting if economically viable and ecologically acceptable is often the best option for keeping areas wild and healthy wildlife populations in territories that, for one reason or another (i.e. poor access or the presence of disease), are not on the ecotourist routes.

This also applies to well-managed sports fisheries. We look at this question in greater depth below when we discuss the potential uses of different aspects of Full Nature.

Beyond the creation of nature reserves, there are a myriad of other actions that can be attempted to preclude any possibility of deliberate or unintentional overexploitation in areas that lack a clear conservation agenda. Good examples are changes in hunting and fishing techniques, the imposition of a close season, limits on the size, sex, and age of captured individuals, obligations regarding the possession of licenses and authorizations, and the establishing of quotas.21 However, if these systems are to function, both in protected areas and outside, it is important that a) they are socially and politically acceptable; b) sufficient resources exist to enforce and monitor them on the ground; and c) the power to sanction those who infringe the regulations is real, which generally implies having the backing of the police and judiciary. In the case of poaching animals of great commercial value (e.g. rhinoceros for their horns, elephants for their tusks, and tiger bones), preventative and control actions require levels of sophistication and the running of risks that are reminiscent of drug wars and organized crime. When the money to be made from the illegal traffic of animal parts is high, it is relatively simple to corrupt members of the security forces and court officials as their salaries will typically be fairly modest. In these cases, the key may be to increase the national and public awareness of the situation of the poached animal so that the authorities can send out messages of “zero

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tolerance” towards poaching and permissiveness by police and judges. Two good examples are the President of Botswana, who made a public pronouncement regarding the poaching of rhinoceros in his country, and the President of Russia who spoke out against the hunting of Siberian tigers in 1995 (see Box 8.4).

Prevention and control of invasive exotic species Along with habitat loss and overexploitation, invasive exotic species are one of the greatest threats to our biodiversity and as such need to be strictly controlled. Most of the non-native species that reach an area (either accidentally or deliberately) do not establish viable long-term populations.

Nevertheless, some do and their populations may explode and transform habitats significantly, or they may act as predators and, lacking natural enemies, will compete with native species or transmit contagious diseases. Often, the problem with invasive exotic species is most serious on islands (where historically they are the principal cause of extinctions) and in aquatic habitats.

The starting point if you want to prevent the impact of invasive species is to simply ensure that they don’t arrive. This is the justification behind the strict controls and quarantine systems on protected archipelagos such as the Galapagos and Seychelles. It is also important to convince the authorities, businesses, and animal-rights groups of the importance of not liberating captive animals on humanitarian grounds. The American mink (Neovison vison) liberated from fur farms have had a severe negative impact on their close relative the European mink (Mustela lutreola), now in some places in danger of extinction, and on populations of endemic water birds in Patagonia. As soon as a potentially harmful invasive species is detected, concerted action must be taken immediately to prevent it from becoming a plague whose future eradication will be either impossible or enormously expensive. This is what should have happened to the beavers that were introduced into Tierra del Fuego or what should be done to the hippopotamuses that have escaped from the private zoo of the drug lord Pablo Escobar, dozens of which are now happily breeding in Magdalena in Colombia.22 For as long as society and the authorities continue to shrug their collective shoulders and nobody “takes the bull by the horns” and promotes a campaign to eradicate these hippos (the suggestion is to “take them to zoos or wildlife reserves,” a task that is clearly beyond the Colombian authorities), these mega-herbivores will continue to grow in number. The social, economic, and ecological impact on aquatic ecosystems in South America if populations of these animals became established in continental South America is simply incalculable. As happens elsewhere in the world, inaction whilst different bodies argue over how to do something that obviously must be done can be exasperating, to say the least, and ensure that any action is economically out of the question in the mid-term.

In some cases, the way to control the entry of exotic species involves excluding them from certain sites. On a small scale, fences can prevent domestic and wild ungulates getting into a protected area. Elsewhere, it may be sufficient to protect just a few individual plants until they are large enough to escape pressure from these herbivores. In other cases, when the control of predators is highly complex, the strategy used is to translocate susceptible native species to other areas that are free from the predator, as has been done in New Zealand with certain threatened species of birds and reptiles.22 The objective of these translocations is not so much to return species to areas where they were once present but to move them to secure places where exotic predators are not present or can be controlled. In other situations, the eradication of exotic species can be achieved by hunting, trapping, or poisoning. This has been carried out successfully on a number of oceanic islands invaded by goats, pigs, donkeys, rats, and cats. On continents, on the other hand, the total elimination of highly invasive species is all but impossible other than when the eradication program is implemented ruthlessly before the invader gains too much of a foothold. On an island such as Great

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Britain, a continuous coordinated effort that included economic incentives for trappers and collaboration between a number of different organizations were required to wipe out the invasive coypu (Myocastor coypus).20 Similar efforts could be made in the cases of the beaver and American mink in Patagonia and the hippopotamus in Colombia if the authorities and society in general decide that the elimination of these species is of sufficient importance. Often, the possibility of eradicating a species will depend more on the capacity of society to agree on how to go about it than on actual technical questions. Where it is materially impossible to eliminate a species the alternative is to establish permanent programs aimed at keeping the invader’s numbers down and thus minimize its economic and environmental impact. Such control programs have the advantage that they do not require as much effort or planning as total eradication, which has to ensure that not a single animal or plant remains. In other words, eradication must be 100% or else it will have to start all over again, whilst the principal drawback to control programs is that they have to be kept going for decades with no end in sight. On an island continent such as Australia, where exotic mammals like cats and foxes are a major threat for native species, one of the most-used strategies involves a combination of large fenced off “havens” for these native species and eradication programs aimed at eliminating the unwanted exotic species. These fenced areas will, however, suffer from some of the “island effects” discussed above but should lead to the establishment of viable and safe populations of native mammals and reptiles that would be absent if such control programs were not undertaken.

Managing incidental mortality Another threat that has to be managed for on the ground is the accidental death of certain species when coming into contact with particular human infrastructures and activities whose aim is not to harm animals (but end up doing so). Classic examples include being hit by cars or boats, electrocution or collision with power lines (above all, large birds), collisions with wind turbines (see Box 6.2 on vulture causalities), and drowning in irrigation ponds. In all these examples, it is always easier to control this type of accident in places that are clearly designed to protect our flora and fauna. However, so many species live outside our nature reserves or have home ranges that take them beyond protected areas that in many cases it is also essential to establish mechanisms designed to minimize the number of accidental deaths that occur outside protected areas. Often, the measures required to redesign or eliminate the infrastructures and activities that cause these accidental deaths require investment or important policy decisions taken by governments (e.g. roads), businesses (electricity suppliers that work with power lines and wind turbines), and people in general (who will be prevented from driving or boating at certain speeds or from entering particular areas). In these cases it is vital to combine a search for creative solutions (e.g. wildlife passes under roads or the insulation of conductors on pylons) with a capacity to negotiate with the affected parties. Here, the growing social awareness of the problem and the negative image of those who refuse to countenance solutions work in our favor. In fact, in many cases the implicated companies and authorities may decide themselves to finance the mitigation measures to deflect adverse publicity. For this to happen, we have to be versed in the arts of publicizing the problem and negotiating creatively with the institutions that are most involved (see Chapter 9 on Conflict Management).

Managing the invasions of reserves Finally, one of the worst calamities that can befall any protected area is the invasion of its lands or changes in its use by people who want to take advantage of the reserve for other reasons. As we have seen above, these “people” include the large companies who want to devote these lands to economic activities such as mining, oil-drilling, dams, the construction of homes, the clear-cutting of native for-

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ests, or the plowing up of land to plant crops that will alter the protected natural ecosystems. These powerful groups may try to invade part of the protected lands with permission from the authorities or may attempt to convince the government to “de-catalogue” a protected area so that it can be put to “more productive use.” This happened in 2004 in the Argentinian province of Salta, when the Governor authorized the declassification of publicly protected land so that it could be used to cultivate soya beans (see Box 5.2). Similar processes have occurred in dozens of other reserves that are not well policed by the authorities, law-courts, or civil society. The history of the world’s conservationist movement is replete with campaigns that have been fought to stop the invasion of protected areas, some successful, others no.

In other circumstances, the pressure to change how the land is used or the threat of invasion of a natural area comes not from a large company but from local people who want to put a stop to the “unproductivity” of these protected areas or to return them to their legitimate indigenous owners.

The reasons and ethical justifications behind these events vary enormously from case to case: they may involve legitimate reclamations made by traditional or native communities who in the past had been expelled from their lands without consultation so that a reserve could be declared; or new arrivals or “settlers” who see these areas as an opportunity to acquire new landholdings and leave their poverty behind; or rich local landowners (latifundistas) who seize the chance to increase the grazing areas for their cattle regardless of the fact that it is public land. Whatever the motivation behind these invasions and their justifications, the one clear feature is that it is often impossible to maintain functioning natural ecosystems (i.e. with healthy populations of predators, large herbivores, and other species sensitive to overexploitation or that might compete with cattle) in areas where human groups with evident negative attitudes towards conservation settle to extract value from the land. Many natural ecosystems that are theoretically legally protected end up totally impoverished biologically because their managers did not know how or were unable to confront these invasive processes, which sometimes advance slowly and all but imperceptibly, and are often officially condoned as a means of “offering local people fresh opportunities.”

It is important to take into account the possibly legitimate claims of the groups proposing changes in the land use of a territory hitherto devoted to maintaining functional natural ecosystems.

The impact of their proposals must be taken seriously and so it is crucial to be able to separate the legitimacy of a claim from the true effect it will have on biodiversity. A legitimate claim may not necessarily have any less impact on the environment, although it might do so in the case of hunter-gatherers and other traditional groups who live in low densities and whose use of the landscape has few environmental consequences. The refusal to contemplate claims with no legitimate basis (e.g. recently arrived settlers that claim to be natives or landowners who simply want the public purse to foot the bill for an increase in their herds) is at least easier to justify. In any case, the best way to avoid any such invasions is for the natural areas to generate enough tangible benefits so that local communities feel that wildlife protection is the best possible way of exploiting these lands. In this way, they will not be tempted to invade and will oppose any attempt by other groups to change the current land use. In all cases, attempts at gradual – or rapid – invasion must be handled with a wise mixture of empathy towards local people’s needs and rights (whatever they may be) and firmness in relation to the legal status of the protected areas. Their importance as public commodities that benefit the whole of society (including future generations) and not just one local group or business must be made clear.

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MANAGEMENT ACTIONS DESIGNED TO PROMOTE POSITIVE PROCESSES FAVORING BIODIVERSITY Hand-in-hand with actions on the ground designed to thwart immediate threats to our biodiversity, if we truly want society to see us as promoters of Full Nature, we need to encourage projects that will visibly restore and improve our natural areas. As I have mentioned elsewhere in this book, the general public usually responds positively to projects that have a clear positive impact on natural ecosystems. As in the previous sections, here I will describe briefly a number of such actions.

Restoring and improving habitats It is important that we conservationists are fully aware of what the ecosystems and environments we are working in were like in the past. This will help us set in motion projects whose aim is to restore these habitats to their former ecological glories or to improve them by increasing their size and strengthening the composition of the natural communities regarded as desirable. A restoration program, for example, could involve the revitalization of an area of upland grazing that has been swallowed up by scrub. Alternatively, environmental improvement may simply involve the restoration of a small wetland where a number of birds come to feed and breed, even if there are no historical references to this particular wetland and, above all, if it lies in an area in which agricultural expansion and urban growth have led to the disappearance of many similar habitats. In both cases, we will be increasing the natural production of the region The decision to undertake habitat restoration or improvement requires both scientific information on the habitats and natural communities that were once present in the region and a publicly approved decision (possibly based on scientific information but more likely to be ethical or political in nature) regarding what types of environments are to be improved. The content of this decision – and so the types of ecosystems to be protected – will vary greatly from one society to another and will be based more on local opinions and traditions than on scientific evidence. For example, in North America and Europe there is a long tradition of restoring small wetlands near urban centers for birdwatching and other leisure activities and, consequently, a large body of literature on the subject exists. This practice is much less common in Latin America and Africa, even though on both these continents the restoration of this type of habitat would be perfectly feasible. By contrast, in southern Africa there is a penchant for protecting environments with large mammals, including top predators and large herbivores, which often involves fencing off areas and carrying out periodical controlled burning. Thus, this region possesses much better technical knowledge on the management of large mammals. I know of no natural reserves in either Europe or North America that have actually fenced off a whole ecosystem to house restored populations of wolves, bears, and bison.

Here, the European rewilding culture differs from the African conservation culture as it often relies on the release of semi-domesticated horses and other cattle to fulfill the role that their extinct wild ancestors once played. These rewilding processes do not usually involve the building of fences or the release of large carnivores.

In New Zealand and the Mascarene Islands there is a long-standing tradition of recreating on isolated islets environments and plant and animal populations – that may never in fact have ever lived there – that have been lost on the main islands due to pressure from exotic species. These inter-continental differences in strategies do not derive from their ecological ability to harbor restored wetlands, megafauna, or feral mammals but, rather, from traditions regarding wildlife management and aesthetical tastes that are mostly cultural in origin. And so, when we talk about restoring and improving habitats it is essential to appreciate that they are processes that are guided

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by both scientific knowledge of the habitats that once existed in these regions and by the tastes, values, and traditions of the society in question. This means that this type of action will be characterized by different features depending on the dominant local and institutional cultures; thus it may be thought of as “normal” to fence in lions, elephants, and rhinoceros in a park in Africa, whilst the idea of doing the same with wolves, elks, and bears in Scotland would cause the majority of local people, authorities, and even many conservationists to throw up their hands in horror at the very thought.

Once we have identified the state that we want to return our chosen patch to by restoration and/or improvements we can start to put into practice some of the myriad of different proposals that may have been aired. A key tool is fire, which is used in many regions to favor a certain type of open habitat or to promote primary production and stimulate the presence of large herbivores and thus their associated predators. Fire can also be used to improve viewing possibilities for visitors. Elsewhere, large wild herbivores (e.g. elephants and rhinoceros) or (semi)-domestic herds including local races of cattle and horses that are adapted to these environments can be used to extend the size of open areas. In an opposite sense, reforestation projects can be based on plantations, the exclusion of large herbivores, and the control of fire. In some areas such as the Guanacaste Conservation Area in Costa Rica, a generation of quick-growing exotic tree species was initially planted to provide the shade that native species need to grow and thus to restore an area of dry tropical forest that had been converted into grazing for cattle.24 In other cases, semi-natural pools are dug to encourage the return of certain aquatic species or to increase the abundance of large mammals that require water on a daily basis. The restoration, improvement, or creation of these small environments may in fact save certain aquatic snails, small fish, and amphibians from total extinction. Marine reefs can be recreated by sinking boats, train carriages, large blocks of concrete, or even piles of old tires. Juvenile coral species can be raised in laboratories and then implanted on marine substrates.

At times, the objective of our management actions is not to promote one habitat to the detriment of another but, rather, to increase the diversity of environments within a protected area using, for example, controlled burning, mowing, intensive grazing by ungulates, or the planting of trees in discrete blocks. This type of habitat management strategy is common in small reserves where managers aim to foment a variety of environments that would normally only exist within a much greater surface area. On occasions this is the only way to save small relict populations of plants and invertebrates, even though it may appear to be somewhat paradoxical: to safeguard a species from extinction we may have to hinder plant succession and stop it from following its natural course (i.e. towards a mature forest), and encourage instead traditional human uses that favor the habitats that certain species require. This is especially important in Europe where many species need humanized environments in which to carry out their natural cycles: for instance, the great bustard (Otis tarda) in western Europe depends on arable fields, while the purple swamphen (Porphyrio porphyrio) prospers in European rice paddies.25 Restoration and recovery of species and populations The restoration and recovery of species and habitats are mutually dependent tasks: habitats are composed of wild species that, in turn, require the correct habitats in which to thrive. This logic inherent in the European Union’s listing of priority species and continental habitats that need to be conserved, from which it has derived its Natura 2000 network of key protected areas that contains Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) and Special Protection Areas (SPAs). No other continent or country has legislation that links so precisely conservation to the recovery of habitats and species.

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As Caughley suggests, the key to any management aspiring to restore a species or a population is to, first, have a clear idea if it is really threatened and, second, to gather as much information as possible on its ecology to identify the direct causes of its population decline10 (see Chapter 6 on Intelligence). When working on the recovery of a population we should look to act in three complementary ways. In the first place, it is vital to redress the principal causes of mortality, which could be due to the overexploitation of a habitat, habitat loss, the presence of exotic species, or disease, as we saw at the beginning of this chapter. Secondly, we have to aim to increase the birth and survival rates of the target species by, for instance, providing supplementary food, constructing artificial nest sites, or removing and then hand-rearing a first brood of young to encourage parents to lay again and raise more young. Finally, we can try to increase quickly the population of a species by releasing individuals taken from another area. The relative importance of each of these three actions depends on the degree of threat and the size of the population we are aiming to restore. If the threat is only moderately severe and the target population is still large enough to not be at risk of extinction in, say, the coming 5–10 years, in many cases a reduction in the mortality rate will be enough to ensure that its numbers gradually begin to increase. On the other hand, in the case of a seriously threatened population doomed to die out in the near future (e.g. the eastern barred bandicoot described at the beginning of Chapter 10 on Evaluation and Renewal) it is not sufficient to simply reduce death rates, for, in addition, birth and juvenile survival rates must be boosted, and the population must be strengthened with introductions from other sites. Less knowledge is required to reduce mortality than to increase birth rates or to implement population reinforcements with translocated individuals; in the former case, we are managing the direct threats to the population, whilst in the latter we are intensively managing the individuals that form part of the population.

In some cases, the target species no longer survives in the area or region where, based on available historical and ecological evidence, we believe that it used to live (a question that often provokes heated debate between experts, as Saavedra relates in Box 8.1). In these cases, a reintroduction of the species aimed at restoring a viable population in the site in question is the best solution. My experience with reintroducing extinct species into Iberá has taught me that this type of project tends to polarize opinions, with some people passionately in favor and others equally fervently against. This kind of project makes public opinion sit up and take notice as people, for some reason or another, often identify with its aims more than those of other recovery projects not based on the direct handling and releasing of individuals. The return of a “lost species” fascinates and may stir local and national patriotic pride and even attract international attention. When successful and appropriately publicized, such projects are inspirational in a global context since many of us are taught from an early age that “humans are the most destructive of all species.” The other side of the coin is that reintroduction projects also have the – unwanted – ability to agglutinate opposition, on the one hand, from conservation groups and experts in the species who instinctively reject intensive management of this type (at times because they do not believe in its possibilities or because they feel that they have not been sufficiently consulted) and, on the other, rural landowners and settlers who see them as representing an infringement on their rights. Come what may, reintroduction projects often provoke vehement responses – for better or for worse – and will always be placed under the microscope of public opinion; consequently, they must be performed with great tact but without paranoia or fear of the criticism that they will inevitably arouse.

Experience tells us to bear the following ideas – often simultaneously and following the logic of the Wheel – in mind when contemplating a reintroduction project. First, ensure that the information you have regarding the presence of your target species in your area is robust. Here, you can use both historical written accounts and paleontological records, as well as – and above all – deep

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ecological and biogeographic knowledge that confirms that this species should be present in the area. Second, evaluate whether or not your area has enough habitat to maintain a viable population of the species in the long term. Although ideally not necessary, this may mean regular or periodical management actions and/or population reinforcements. Third, be sure that you are backed by a sufficiently well-structured organization able to handle a project of this magnitude in the long term; always look for ways to create and then improve a team to help it cope with such technically and politically sensitive projects.

Fourth, before setting out, explain clearly and honestly the benefits of your project to the relevant environmental authorities who will have to give their permission to go ahead, to significant conservation organizations, and to any academics especially interested in the target area or species.

Any one of these three interest groups could cast doubts on your project if they do not understand its aims or fail to appreciate the rigor with which you have prepared it if they feel you have not consulted them sufficiently, or if you haven’t gone through all the “proper channels.” As we have seen throughout this book, it is practically impossible to change an ideology but much easier and more recommendable – even though it may take large doses of patience, time, and empathy – to try and circumvent other possible causes of rejection. At the same time, you should try and anticipate the possible reaction of local people and other affected groups through both formal and informal channels, and promote respectfully the idea of the reintroduction in terms of their interests and concerns rather than its overriding importance to you as conservationists.

Fifth, identify those who know most about the reintroduction of the target or similar species and find ways of incorporating their knowledge and, if possible, their proposals into your project. Sixth, plan all the different steps of the project, obtain all the necessary authorizations, and make sure that your team and all other interested parties understand that your project is in part experimental, that you will make mistakes, that some animals will be lost, and that you all are going to have to keep on your collective toes to ensure that the project advances constantly and effectively. Seventh, prepare an intensive monitoring program for as many of the liberated animals as possible given that all the information you can glean will help improve your ideas and methods, and because animals rarely behave as they are “meant to.” Finally, communicate actively and honestly all positive and negative results to all of your team, associates, other interested groups, and public opinion in general, using language that all can comprehend.

Ex situ conservation projects Besides hands-on habitat and wild species management, another possibility is what is known as ex situ conservation. This involves keeping individual plants or animals – or parts thereof (e.g. seeds, semen, or ova) – in controlled environments such as zoos, rescue centers, or gene banks for future use in reintroduction or reinforcement programs. In most cases, ex situ projects only play a secondary role in conservation, the exception being when a species is clearly in danger of extinction or where breeding programs are designed specifically to operate hand-in-hand with teams working in the areas in which ex situ-bred specimens are to be reintroduced. This is the case of the species such as the California condor, the Mauritius kestrel, the pink pigeon, the black-footed ferret, and the Arabian oryx that were saved from extinction and reestablished in the wild thanks to captive-breeding programs linked directly to reintroductions. Likewise, for the American bison, the Iberian lynx, and the golden lion tamarin, captive breeding played a key role in restoring wild populations. The example of the tamarin is especially interesting as the release of captive-bred animals had more impact in terms of publicity, learning, and organizational reinforcement than as a vital element in the demographic strengthening of the species; the wild population of this lion tamarin was sufficiently large and could

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have recovered unaided if it had received the support that arrived as a result of the breeding and reintroduction program. This underlines the fact that the success of such programs often depends more on their power to galvanize human interaction with the species in question than on the supply of fresh individuals they provide for wild populations.

These success stories show how ex situ conservation and in situ restoration projects can work in harmony, and highlight the difference between breeding centers where threatened species are bred in case they are needed for a reintroduction program and those that breed animals for reintroduction as part of a particular concerted conservation effort. The former group includes the zoos and similar institutions that house and breed endangered species in small numbers that one day – it is hoped – will be liberated in the wild. The transport and release of captive-bred creatures is often fraught with problems (or even impossible) if the animals haven’t been kept with a view to their reintroduction into the wild (i.e. they are on show to the public). As well, the permits for transporting live endangered animals between countries or regions can require years of paperwork and an enormous investment in both time and money – with no guarantee of any success at the end of the day. These type of obstacles were enough to prevent the Sumatra rhinos in European and North American zoos from being used in reintroduction programs in their native habitat, even though certain specialists had recommended the capture of wild rhinos to be kept safely in captivity.26 The sheer difficulty in obtaining authorization for transporting animals can mean that animals living in captivity are never taken to their countries of origin to be used in reintroduction programs. In general, the most successful captive-breeding programs are set up and run in the country in which the animals are to be released, where significant numbers of animals can be bred following management protocols that are specifically designed to generate animals to be released into the wild. A case in point is the pink pigeon: despite the numbers bred by Jersey Zoo that from a technical standpoint were perfectly valid for release, the complexities of the permits required for their transport persuaded this Zoo to opt instead for pigeons captive-bred on Mauritius itself.

POSSIBLE USES ASSOCIATED WITH WILD AREAS As we frustrate threats to endangered species and restore habitats and their wild populations, we must also promote, facilitate, regulate, and organize as many uses as possible of the wild areas we manage so that they generate benefits for society in general and local people in particular. These benefits are the base that will guarantee the long-term functioning and public support needed to maintain and improve our natural ecosystems. If broad sectors of society derive no benefits (material, spiritual, affective, or symbolic) from these wild areas, then society will invest neither resources nor energy in maintaining acceptable levels of conservation. The following are a few examples of some of the main social uses that our natural systems can be put to.

Ecotourism I define “ecotourism” as the organization of activities that enable people to relish natural ecosystems via experiences that imply no extractive uses (that is, no hunting, fishing, or gleaning) or have any net negative impact on wild populations and their habitats. By now readers will be aware that ecotourism is one of the pillars of Full Nature since it is one of the activities (in my experience) that generates most direct tangible benefits for the people who live in and around natural areas without causing negative impacts on those very same systems (assuming they are properly managed). In economic and social terms, we are talking about non-extractive uses that, as they become globally ever

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more popular, are beginning to generate benefits for both the people who live near our protected areas and those who visit them. These much-heralded benefits include more jobs, more generous investment in infrastructures, and greater local pride, all arguments that work well with local populations since they are far more tangible than the ideas of ecosystem services, for example, that we conservationists are wont to put forward as evidence of the value of our work. The conservation of natural areas often implies real restrictions on local people’s activities and so the benefits of these impositions must be palpable, as occurs when ecotourism begins to take off in an area and its positive “payback” becomes locally visible.

Harbhajan Pabla, the former director of wildlife in the state of Madhya Pradesh in India puts it this way27: “Thus, tourism is a natural concomitant of wildlife conservation. The world over, wildlife and tourism are considered two sides of the same coin. Governments preserve wild animals so that people can watch them. If they have wild animals and wild places, they want people to come and watch them. (…) The original idea of a national park, in fact, was to preserve nature and wild animals primarily for people to watch and enjoy. That is why these areas are called parks.”

Ecotourism enables natural ecosystems to be both socially and politically resilient in the long term fundamentally by a) generating direct benefits for local people in terms of employment, economic opportunities, investment in infrastructure, and local pride; b) helping finance the management of natural areas thanks to the money visitors spend; and c) favoring the enjoyment of experiences based on the natural world, thereby encouraging people to incorporate their natural heritage into their personal identities and to defend it if attacked or flagrantly badly managed. These three components should all be taken into account when debating the use of ecotourism in a natural area and at times decision-making may depend on which of these components should be favored.

For example, if you want to maximize income and boost local employment you can choose between boosting visitor numbers or increasing the amount of money each visitor spends. More visitors creates a twofold challenge: how to avoid disturbance to the ecosystem and, above all, how to ensure that people still enjoy their stay given that most visit protected areas to get away from the crowds they encounter in their daily lives. For example, the Iguazú National Park, which receives close on a million and a half visitors annually, has chosen to concentrate visitors in a few areas (essentially the boardwalks that surround the famous waterfalls) and puts no limit on the total number of permitted visitors. This has the double effect of concentrating the environmental disturbance in a very small area but also of hampering people’s contact with the Atlantic forest that surround the falls. In the end, this means more disruption and more money for the park, which, it must be said, today resembles a theme park more than a natural experience. In fact, this model does little to help the park divulge the significance of these forests or encourage visitors to truly appreciate and learn to love them. In most cases, people take away with them just the image of the famous falls and, indeed, when Argentinians talk of Iguazú they refer to it just as “Cataratas” [waterfalls] rather than as Iguazú National Park. Something similar happens around the famous geysers of Yellowstone National Park, where you can come away with the feeling of having visited a crowded fun park. Nevertheless, in this case visitors do have the option of getting away from the crowds and enjoying some of the hundreds of miles of tracks and trails that crisscross the protected area and observing its wildlife. Perhaps for this reason people still refer to the park as Yellowstone and not just as, say, “Geysers.”

If the aim is to maximize income and minimize the necessary costs associated with the management of natural areas, the best alternative is to attract fewer but richer tourists. The logic here is that wealthy travelers (often from far-away countries) generate much more income than the “average” domestic tourist but at much less cost since the well-off will tend to travel in vehicles and planes

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fleeted by their exclusive tour operator; this means that the host country has to spend far less on the roads and other infrastructures that mass tourism requires. This is to a large extent the model being followed in Botswana, where small groups of visitors pay high prices to visit exclusive natural areas such as Okavango. It also is important to bear in mind that, unlike many other countries, Botswana barely has a middle class who would pay to visit its national parks. Furthermore, this type of luxury tourism does not involve the construction of vast hotel complexes with great environmental impact – indeed, this model tends to move the other way and avoid massification – or imply less earnings for local people since this strata of rich tourists generates as much local employment as visitors with less disposable income. Despite not being within the reach of the general public, this model, characterized by its pronounced economic ramifications but low environmental impact, is being used successfully to finance the conservation of millions of square miles of land in sub-Saharan Africa such as in the buffer zones around the Serengeti National Park (Box 8.3).

If the aim is to attract as many people as possible and so make the enjoyment of our wildlife a more democratic experience, the alternative is to invest vast sums in public facilities (e.g. roads, information centers, restaurants, rest-rooms, trails, shops, and so on). This is the model that since the beginning of the twentieth century has been followed in the national parks in the United States: people are encouraged to visit in their own vehicles in their own time.28 The consequence of this policy has been a) enormous visitor numbers; b) the acceptance of the country’s national parks as part of the nation’s patriotic identity (see Chapter 2 on Full Nature); c) an important source of revenue for the parks; d) more income for local communities; e) serious problems of congestion and the attendant loss of the sense of wilderness; and f) a need for massive investment in visitor infrastructures. A more balanced model has been developed in Kruger National Park in South Africa29, an area of 19,485 km² to which 1.8 million visitors flock annually. This park has a) high-use areas with roads and other public infrastructures created with the “average” visitor in mind, which has allowed this park to form an essential part of the country’s national identity; b) dirt tracks that allow more intrepid travelers to avoid the masses and observe wildlife from their own vehicles, a reasonably cheap option; c) companies awarded concessions to run luxury lodges for wealthy tourists who pay large sums to enjoy an exclusive experience with little environmental impact; and d) pristine wilderness area that visitors can only enter on foot with specialist local guides. This type of differentiated public use has enabled Kruger to fulfill the objectives of ecotourism: make the park accessible to all, generate income for the park, and ensure that local communities benefit in terms of job opportunities. Aside from these uses, in all the parks we have highlighted here there are also huge tracts of land that are off-bounds where wild animal populations never come into direct contact with visitors.

Somewhat counterintuitively, many of the places where wild animals are most easily seen are also the places that most people visit. This is because animals get used to the presence of people (if – and only if – they are not actively disturbed by the proximity of humans) and because visitors themselves and, above all, the guides help each other find the most sought-after animals. Often, I have had the rarest of animals pointed out to me by other tourists — although I admit I would have preferred not to have been surrounded by other people at that moment and I recognize that I probably wouldn’t have spotted the creature in question without their inestimable help!

Education Another possible use for natural areas is as open-air classrooms where various types of groups (e.g. schoolchildren, seniors, and college students) can learn how natural systems work, appreciate the natural and cultural significance of such areas, and see for themselves how important it is to

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look after and conserve them. As with tourism, for this function to be successful investment must be made in infrastructures and professional guides who know how to transmit information in an informative and entertaining manner. Although in many cases education and tourism can all be rolled into one, it is still important to bear in mind that one of the justifications for creating protected areas is public education, which is not the objective of the exclusive tourism model described above (although in some cases these exclusive operations may fund improved educational facilities).

For instance, the African company Wilderness Safaris, a company specializing in exclusive bespoke ecotourism, also finances the program Children in the Wilderness, which involves entertainment and environmental education for children and young people in areas around its luxury lodges, frequented above all by foreign visitors. The upshot is that this type of tourism, which is all but inaccessible to local people, in the end helps finance their education via the income the company derives from its overseas visitors.

Research Another goal of wild areas is the generation of scientific data concerning the natural and cultural heritage they harbor. Research in protected areas may also assist management tasks, as we have seen in Chapter 6 on Intelligence, and thus acts both as an end that justifies the existence of protected areas and as a means to help reserves function to the best of their abilities. And you can add to this the growing number of more sophisticated ecotourists who not only want to see wildlife but also want to learn about the area they are visiting and meet the researchers who are working there. In one private reserve I visited in Namibia, the administrator explained to me that they had decided to reduce the number of rooms for guests in one of their camps to provide more room for researchers.

The idea was for the scientists to mingle with the tourists, thereby offering a tourist experience of even greater quality — which means greater overall income despite the loss of visitor capacity. In this way, research and tourism progress hand-in-hand and stimulate a mutually beneficial relationship: the researchers enhance the visiting experience by sharing their knowledge and work with the tourists who, in turn, help fund their work. This said, direct contact between these two worlds is not necessarily always comfortable as researchers (at times backed by the staff of public reserves) may prefer not to share their natural areas, possibly due to data that reveal the impact of tourism on certain protected areas, their negative perception of tourism, or just a lack of interest in sharing their research with the “uneducated masses.”

Creation of content and inspiring tales for people in remote areas In a world whose population is increasingly urban and only in touch with reality indirectly via magazines, TV, cinema, and the Internet, another use for natural areas is to act as content for creating programs that will entertain, inform, educate, and inspire those who are unable to get out and visit them. Many of our experiences and knowledge of certain landscapes and wild species are exclusively virtual. I, for example, am concerned about the situation of the rhinoceros in Sumatra and the monkey-eating eagle in the Philippines because I have read about them or seen photographs taken in the natural areas they frequent. These animals have entered my consciousness as a citizen of the world thanks to a series of communicative products that were created in places that I will probably never visit.

In the 1970s the largest coalition of conservationist groups ever seen in the United States was formed to promote the creation of a vast network of national parks in Alaska. The intriguing part of this story is that only a very small percentage of all the members of this movement had ever visited this state, which means that their passion for its landscapes and wildlife could only have come about

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indirectly through books and films. Thus, we should never underestimate the role that natural areas can play in creating narratives and storylines that can move the masses that will probably never ever set foot in these very spaces. The case of Alaska can also be applied to landscapes in general or even a particular species. In previous chapters we have looked at the cases of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe and publications on the Manu National Park in Peru, two examples of how descriptive accounts can reach a far-away audience and have a direct impact on, in these cases, lions or the perception of a large wilderness area in the eyes of national public opinion.

Hunting, fishing, grazing, and other extractive uses Certain extractive activities such as hunting, fishing, grazing, collecting firewood and medicinal plants, and beekeeping are permissible in protected areas. In some cases, they allow local people to continue practicing the traditional activities that form part of their daily routines, while in others rich tourists pay large sums for the chance to visit these protected areas to fish or hunt. There is of course a gradient between these two extremes that allows local communities to maximize the economic or cultural benefits of these activities and minimize their impact on the local ecosystem: how exactly will depend on the social, cultural, and ecological context of the place in question. A general principle for understanding and managing these extractive uses is as follows: if the local flora and fauna is used as essential goods – i.e. as meat, pasture, or firewood – they generally generate fewer economic benefits than if they are used as services linked to a leisure activity for which visitors are prepared to pay considerable sums. For example, the Marco Polo sheep (Ovis ammon polii) is a large wild sheep from the mountains of Central Asia; a large male can be used as food to the value of a few dollars; the same male is worth thousands of dollars if offered as a trophy to a sports hunter. In other words, the same activity – i.e. the killing of a mature animal – can generate either a small or much larger economic benefit that will favor both local people and the managers of the natural area in question.

Thus, the extractive use of valuable primary natural resources may benefit local populations and help maintain certain traditional uses and customs but is unlikely to generate great economic benefits for these communities (if, as normally occurs, they are interested in having greater financial resources).

Alternatively, if these natural resources are commercialized as high-income-generating leisure activities they become viable means of producing significant financial benefits for local people and of improving management in natural protected areas. Obviously, everything will depend on how much money trickles down to local people or conservation managers and how much ends up in the pockets of the tourist companies or in the hands of the distant government bureaucracies that control these activities from afar. In some areas of communal lands in South Africa the decision has been taken expressly to preserve the local wildlife and natural ecosystems in order to promote trophy hunting, which represents a better source of income for local people than ranching. In some places such as certain communal conservancies in Namibia, a few selected animals are trophy-hunted but local people continue to graze their animals; thus, the native fauna co-exists with the traditional uses of local people. The Savé Valley Conservancy in Zimbabwe combines trophy hunting and ecotourism in the same estate, thereby promoting the recovery of wild animal populations as an alternative to its previous incarnation as a cattle ranch.30 The size of the natural area in question and the customs of the people who live there will determine how many of these extractive uses can be practiced harmoniously at the same time. Nevertheless, in my experience places where pressure from hunters is palpable do not tend to be good places for wildlife observation as many animals become rarer and, above all, much warier. Moreover, wildlife enthusiasts and hunters do not tend to feel that comfortable in the presence of one another. Perhaps for this reason it is wise not to try and please both types of visitor simultaneously

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in the same protected area. On the other hand, fishing and ecotourism seem to be better bedfellows.

I remember watching a herd of bison in Yellowstone whilst a group fished for trout from a nearby riverbank without feeling that there was any contradiction between the two activities. I can only imagine what I – and all other visitors – would have felt if at that moment a group of hunters firing their rifles had appeared on the scene. When all is said and done, it is important to appreciate that the economics of the question are not the only factor to be taken into account and in some places local uses fulfill traditional cultural functions that are more important than the active generation of cash benefits. In all cases it is vital to bear in mind the sustainability (environmental, economic, and social) of any activity, however much it is claimed that it is something that “we have been doing all our lives.”

Environmental services Aside from the above-commented uses, natural areas also offer a series of goods and services that can be immensely important for local communities and benefit even those in distant cities who, for example, drink the water that flows from springs in protected areas. The most obvious of these services are those related to the production and natural purification of our drinking water, carbon sequestration, protection against floods and other natural catastrophes, prevention of erosion by stabilizing soils, and even biological plague control. Unlike other uses such as ecotourism that generate more apparent benefits, some of these services including the air we breathe and the water we drink are so “natural and normal” that people take them for granted and don’t fully appreciate that they are just some of the many benefits we derive from natural areas. Many people ignore the intricacies of these biological processes – “they’ve always been there and always will be” – and don’t connect them to the idea of protected areas or fully appreciate their worth. In other instances, these ecosystem services are seen as distant or unlikely to affect our everyday lives; this is illustrated by the protection natural areas afford us against hurricanes, landslides, and floods, or the possibility that a plant may contain a compound that will help in the race to find “the next cure for cancer.” The fact that converting these services directly into jobs, money, or local pride is an arduous task also means that it is difficult to use them as the main justification for the existence of protected areas.

Yet, if we know how to communicate and transmit these ideas, there is an enormous potential for using these ecosystems services to generate social support for natural areas. Once they are “visible,” reaching agreements with public and private entities to finance the creation and maintenance of reserves – and so ensure their survival – becomes much more feasible. In Costa Rica, the Guanacaste Conservation Area negotiated a tariff on production with a water company in the Rincón de la Vieja National Park. In Argentina, the agricultural services company Ledesma donated a large area of upland sub-tropical cloud forest (known locally as yungas) to create the Calilegua National Park, thereby guaranteeing the water supplies for its plantations down below in the plains. Nowadays, there is massive potential for natural areas to act as carbon sinks and to receive large funding from governments and corporations to do so. I believe that the potential for the climate change agenda to support ecosystem conservation and restoration will increase exponentially in the coming years.

Employment A final example of how rural communities benefit from natural areas is job creation. Protected areas need people to work directly in security and as rangers, to control exotic species, to oversee habitat management, to study and monitor wild populations, to create and maintain infrastructures, to welcome and attend visitors, and so on. A case in point is Iberá, where cattle ranches, once acquired by

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CLT and begun to be run and managed as a natural reserve, suddenly needed double the amount of workers, which led to the direct creation of a number of local jobs. The employment of local people in natural areas also revitalizes – before it is too late – traditional skills and knowledge of the natural world (e.g. identification of wild species, animal tracking, fire management, the use and care of horses) that have no place in other extractive uses such as plantations of exotic tree species, industrial agriculture, intensive ranching, or mining. In terms of indirect employment, aside from services such as tourism, hunting, and fishing that we have already talked about, the establishment of a service sector in the vicinity of the protected area stimulates local and new businesses – many of which would not survive in the absence of the reserve – in sectors such as traditional livestock production (to produce meat to feed hungry tourists and demonstrate traditional techniques), handicrafts, and gastronomy based on local desserts, cheeses, honey, wine, oils, and traditional recipes. Consequently, properly run natural areas can generate income, as well as local pride and self-esteem, by creating jobs both directly and indirectly for the previously marginalized inhabitants of rural areas, thereby giving them the chance to form part of the twenty-first-century economy thanks to their unique combination of local knowledge and skills.

TYPES OF NATURAL AREAS One of the commonest errors in conservation is to try and set up a pre-determined type of protected area in the belief that it is the “one and only” solution to biodiversity loss in the long term. Depending on the type of landownership in force and the traditional uses the territory is put to, there will always be a plethora of ways of devoting an area to the production of Full Nature.

The literature on conservation is replete with recurrent debates between, for example, the proponents of national parks with no human settlements and those that defend the maintenance of communities inside protected areas that enable local people to continue with their traditional extractive activities. Even though I am a firm believer in national parks and similar protected areas as essential components of large, complete natural ecosystems guaranteeing high-quality experiences for visitors, I admit that in many situations the most feasible option is the second type of area where, despite human presence, there is still room for large species to disperse and for others to settle. National parks and similar structures are especially apt at conserving complete ecosystems since they minimize extractive activities and maximize visitor numbers. Alternatively, other types of reserves that embrace multiple uses may be the best option for areas where there are clearly established human communities, whose rights and cultures must be respected, in which a balance must be found between controlled extractive activities and the maintenance of moderately transformed natural landscapes.

As in many other fields of conservation, there is no one single method or tool that will work in all cases, and so all projects must be tailor-made to suit the ecological, social, and political context of each area. In terms of landownership, the capacity to produce nature depends more on the structure, culture, resources, and leadership of management teams than on whether the area to be protected is publicly, privately, or communally owned (see Chapter on Organizations for more details).31 The following is a review of some of the main types of protected areas.

Strictly protected public parks and reserves Public land devoted explicitly to the maintenance of natural ecosystems, in which harmful activities are banned and non-extractive activities are encouraged, are today the cornerstone of any national or global biodiversity conservation strategy. The mere fact that this has been the case in developed

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and developing countries, under capitalist and socialist governments, in democracies and dictatorships, for over a century is evidence of the resilience and adaptability of models that embrace public land ownership.

The very designation “park” is no coincidence as it reflects the historical origins of these spaces and how society in general views them. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a park can be, variously, “An enclosed area for public recreation, usually large and ornamentally landscaped, especially in or adjoining a city or town,” or “A large area of land set apart as national property to be kept in its natural state for public benefit and enjoyment and for the conservation of wildlife.”

Thus, public parks or reserves may include zones designated for some or other of the following uses.

• Areas of intense visitor use and of easy access: As explained above, these areas are designed to welcome large groups who generally arrive under their own steam (often by car) along public roads (generally metaled) or by mass public transport (e.g. the train that takes visitors to the Garganta del Diablo in Iguazú National Park). These areas are usually equipped with restaurants, shops, information centers, accommodation, and so forth.

• Areas of restricted access: In these places, visitors can only enter along pre-established trails or enjoy the natural attractions on official tours authorized by park authorities. These activities and routes are generally provided by local companies that have been awarded concessions by the park.

Examples include the turtle-watching tours organized by qualified guides in some coastal parks in Costa Rica, routes in 4x4 vehicles through the Doñana National Park (Spain) run by local guiding cooperatives, and the boat-trips to see hippopotamus and crocodiles set up by authorized companies in Isimangaliso Wetland Park (South Africa).

• Exclusive tourism concessions: These are areas in which companies who have been awarded a concession run expensive accommodation for just a few wealthy tourists. In the best examples, the installations blend in visually with the landscape, the luxurious interior design fits the rural setting, and visitors get to view the landscape and wildlife from vehicles with guides supplied by the company. As commented on previously, this type of concession generates revenue for the park’s authorities without the need to invest too heavily in public infrastructures.

• Wilderness areas: These areas lack roads and tracks and so visitors can only enter on foot or horseback, have no permanent infrastructures, and may just be equipped with small huts or basic campsites. They attract people especially adapted to wild areas, allowing them to enter into contact with the landscape and its plants and animals in the purest possible way and with the minimum of interaction with other people. They do not require large investment in public use infrastructures.

• Integral reserve areas: Only researchers with special authorization are permitted to enter these areas.

Strict biological reserves Typically, this type of reserve is publicly owned and entry is strictly restricted to just authorized researchers, highly select groups of visitors, and management personnel. They are similar to the integral reserves found in public protected areas but differ insofar as generally they are not just a part but the whole of a reserve — a good example would be an island or an area that is all but inaccessible.

Extractive or multiple-use reserves This is the case of an area declared a reserve by a government where biodiversity conservation coexists with a series of other, theoretically compatible extractive uses. These areas are more permissive regarding what activities can and cannot be performed, and often include a mixture of private, communal, and public land containing built-up areas and even towns, together with tracts of land that

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lack any type of permanent human settlement. Here, ecotourism, education, and science rub shoulders with extractive activities such as agriculture, livestock production, hunting, fishing, mass tourism, and even mining and industry. These “multiple-use” areas host zones that differ little from the rest of the surrounding unprotected territory but also others that are more akin to a natural park or even a strict biological reserve (which are typically publicly owned). This type of reserve – whenever they exist more than just on paper – can positively promote the generation of landscape mosaics in which natural habitats, flora, and fauna mix in an ecologically and economically sustainable fashion with environments that have been heavily transformed by human activity. Indeed, as we have already noted, these humanized environments may even become the principal habitats for species that can adapt to life there, as occurs in many extensively farmed agrarian landscapes that harbor, for example, the most important European populations of lesser kestrel and great bustard. These multiple-use reserves are the dominant type of protected area in most European countries owing to the lack of large areas of public land and the long-standing tradition of extractive uses such as hunting, grazing, fishing, and logging by local communities and industries.

Private reserves In some cases a landowner may decide to devote his or her land to Full Nature, which may mean strict conservation, ecotourism, hunting, research, or any other of the uses we have already cited.

A good example is the Sierra Morena in southern Spain, home to one of western Europe’s richest natural landscapes and blessed with an almost complete assemblage of native species, including the threatened endemic Spanish imperial eagle and Iberian lynx. Most of this huge area consists of large private properties devoted principally to big-game hunting that, unlike public protected areas created by law, have fewer constraints when it comes to changing drastically any of the activities that they habitually practice. This means that they may suddenly stop acting like natural reserves if they are sold off or if their founders die and their heirs decide to put them to “better” use. Conversely, some of these large hunting ranches are becoming more conservation focused as fresh generations and new investors start to get involved in their management. Aside from this inherent long-term fragility, few private reserves can compete with large public protected areas in terms of size and so their capacity to harbor complete assemblages of native flora and fauna is limited. That said, these private reserves can have a huge impact on conservation if they are adjacent to strict public reserves (i.e. national parks), if they are included within multiple-use reserves (such as is the case in Sierra Morena), or if they team up to create conservancies (see below) that increase the total amount of protected land in an area regardless of who the actual landowners are. An effective method for ensuring that private land continues to play a significant long-term role in conservation – whoever the owners may be – is to set up binding conservation easements tied to the property in question that limits indefinitely – including any future owners – the uses that the landholding can be put to. These conservation easements are effectively used to promote long-term conservation on hundreds of areas of private land in the United States. The amount of private land now devoted to maintaining relatively complete natural ecosystems has increased spectacularly in recent years and it seems likely that this trend will continue in the foreseeable future.

Conservancies The term conservancy is used above all in southern Africa, although its use is gradually expanding to other parts of the world. Despite varying from country to country in terms of its specific details, a conservancy implies a continuous tract of land whose owners (possibly a group of private estates as occurs in South Africa or a communal area as is habitual in Namibia) agree to a legally binding

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contract to manage their lands in a coordinated fashion to favor the production of Full Nature. The actual land uses may involve any of the examples cited above – although the commonest is ecotourism – but always have a clear vocation to maintain the continuity of the space and promote coordinated management that will benefit the natural environment and the species that live therein. The cooperative sense of these conservancies means that their potential as reserves is far greater than that of simple private reserves: 10 private reserves managed independently (especially if all are fenced in and wild animals cannot move around freely) are worth far less than 10 fully connected properties with no obstacles to wildlife movement that are managed in a coordinated fashion. In private reserves, the fundamental unit of management is the landholding, in stark contrast to a conservancy where the concept of ecosystem gathers much more force. When a conservancy borders a large public reserve and the fences between them are removed, both sides win: the public area increases its ecological area of influence, whilst the conservancy “feeds” off the animals from the public park and even its reputation. This is the case of the Saby Sands conservancy – thousands of square miles of former grazing land abutting onto the Kruger National Park – that was set up to support the animals that dwell in the national park. The concept of a conservancy in which various interconnected properties group together to manage an endangered species is the basis of the Black Rhino Range Expansion Project described in Box 8.2.

Figure 8.2 summarizes how a large landscape devoted to Full Nature can be built upon different types of natural areas. Brian Child describes the potential existing to create vast conservation areas in landscapes where there is an admixture of mutually supporting public, private, and communal holdings: “We are learning how to build bigger and more valuable conservation landscapes using a matrix of state, private, and community conservation areas depending on which model is best suited to the particular circumstances. New commercial models for “useless” land (where many parks are situated) demonstrate that many parks should be able to pay for themselves if sound management systems are adopted. While any park that can pay for itself should do so, it is fully understood that many key sites of biodiversity may never be financially viable. These views are not in opposition.

Resources to support conservation are scarce; they should not be squandered on parks that can pay for themselves but should be targeted to conserve important biodiversity areas that are not financially self-supporting.”32 “Fortunately, the idea that wildlife could pay its way and create employment had been tested on private and communal land. It began to spread to parks, suggesting that many parks could fund themselves, and could also play an important role as an engine of local economic growth with their new-found financial and economic power tending to enhance rather than detract from biodiversity objectives. In this way, parks became a beachhead for a much larger economic and environmental landscape, providing the foundation for a wildlife-based tourism economy and enhancing the value of nearby land and the probability of it switching to a nature-tourism based economy.”33

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Extractive or multiple-use reserve

National park boundary

Conservancy Exclusive lodges Rustic cabins Areas of intense visitor use Tar roads Gravel roads Trails Boundary between properties with common handling Wilderness areas Exclusive low-impact tourism concessions Areas of restricted access Figure 8.2 Example of a conservation landscape with different protected areas and zones within them.

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31 Basurto, X., Jiménez-Pérez, I. (2013). Institutional arrangements for adaptive governance of biodiversity conservation: the experience of the Área de Conservación de Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

Journal of Latin American Geography, 12(1), 111-134.

32 Child, B. (2012). Innovation in state, private and communal conservation. 427-440 in Suich, H., Child, B., Spenceley, A. (eds.) Evolution and Innovation in Wildlife Conservation: Parks and Game Ranches to Transfrontier Conservation Areas. Earthscan.

33 Child, B. (2012). Conservation in transition. 3-15, in Suich, H., Child, B., Spenceley, A. (eds.)

Evolution and Innovation in Wildlife Conservation: Parks and Game Ranches to Transfrontier Conservation Areas. Earthscan.

Box 8.1

RECURRENT ARGUMENTS AGAINST REINTRODUCTIONS Deli Saavedra, Regional Manager for Rewilding Europe During my professional career, I have had the opportunity to write feasibility studies for reintroduction projects, carry out a number of successful translocations, and collaborate with others. In general, the more recent the extinction, the more positive the reaction from the scientific community, the staff of conservation agencies, and other stakeholders. For example, when we reintroduced the Eurasian

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otter into Catalonia (NE Spain) in 1995, the species had only been absent for 15 years. There were plenty of historical data on the hunting and trapping of otters and the species was still well known by the local population. In this case, the acceptance of the reintroduction program by the conservation agency was straightforward, once the feasibility study had been carried out.

But when we need to go further back in time to when the species disappeared from the area, the reaction is more negative, as the local population tends to “forget” what it was like to live with the species. It is therefore seen as exotic, as there is no memory of its existence in the area. A shifting baseline applies here: there is a loss of perception of change that occurs when each generation redefines what is “natural.” In many regions the “natural” state is the absence of wolves, bears, beavers, and bison because all died out long ago and the following generations have become used to living without them. What strikes me after more than two decades working on this kind of projects around Europe is that, regardless of the country, the same objections tend to be used again and again. Here is a short list of these arguments.

“The species never lived here” Perhaps the most common argument is to deny the historical presence of the species in the area where the reintroduction is planned. As mentioned before, there is no way to deny the presence of recently extinct species, but if the extinction occurred long ago it may be difficult to prove its previous presence in the region. Historical reviews can work for well-known species due to their interaction with man, whether they were harmful or beneficial. For large carnivores, ungulates, and some bird species it is feasible to look for historical written references, but for many other species it is much more difficult, especially in regions that were always sparsely populated and far from the main lines of communication.

When we started the project to reintroduce the black (or cinereous) vulture (Aegypius monachus) into the Pyrenees, a leading Spanish conservation organization objected on the grounds of a lack of bibliographic data regarding its presence in the Pyrenees. Indeed, our research during the drafting of the feasibility study only revealed a few references from the French side of the Pyrenees written during the late nineteenth century. It is generally known that vulture populations collapsed throughout Europe in the mid-nineteenth century with the appearance of poison bait. Therefore, by the early twentieth century there were no signs of this vulture’s presence in this remote region where zoological expeditions were practically nonexistent.

However, the geographic distribution of the black vulture runs from the southern Palearctic and the Iberian Peninsula to China and Mongolia. So, from a biogeographic perspective the question that should be asked – instead of just looking for recent historical records – is what ecological and historical factors could have caused the black vulture, a bird that can disperse over hundreds of kilometers, to inhabit mountainous regions in the Iberian Peninsula, the Balkans, Turkey, and China but not the Pyrenees? In this case, does the absence of bibliographic references bear a greater weight than a common-sense interpretation of the species’ ecology and biogeography?

Fortunately, this opposition did not prevent the relevant authority from approving the reintroduction project. In 2007–2016, 70 black vultures were “soft-released” (and, to a lesser extent, using hacking), many of which were fitted with satellite transmitters. Fifty artificial platforms were built atop trees to facilitate nesting, and supplementary feeding points were set up. In 2010, only three years after the release of the first individuals, the first pair formed and mated, and by 2016 the new colony consisted of 10 pairs. Thanks to satellite transmitters and wing tags, we now know that the reintroduced birds are in contact with other Iberian populations and the populations in Cévennes and Alpes-Maritimes in France, these two French populations also the result of reintroduction

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projects. Thus, the new Pyrenean population has become a bridgehead for the dispersion of Iberian individuals (90% of the European population) eastwards.

A similar story can be told of another reintroduction project in which I was briefly involved at its inception. The northern bald ibis (Geronticus eremita) is a globally threatened species. In 1990, when the idea of establishing new populations began to be mooted, the species was classified as Critically Endangered by the IUCN since only fifty pairs remained in the wild, all concentrated along a stretch of the Atlantic coast of Morocco. While observing the ibis feeding on invertebrates in the deserts and dunes of Sous Massa, we couldn’t help but think about similar habitats along the southern coast of Spain.

However, data on its presence in Europe were scarce. Surprisingly, it had been reported from the Alps and references in old books on falconry refer to this ibis as present in the south of the Iberian Peninsula until the early sixteenth century. Come what may, this apparently circum-Mediterranean species probably disappeared from the region centuries ago.

But, as the saying goes, it is important not to put all your eggs in one basket and at that moment the future of the species depended on just few localities on the Moroccan coast. At the same time, there were hundreds of ibis in captive populations in zoos, far more than there were in the wild. Jerez Zoo in Spain had built a facility to host a group of ibis and to begin captive breeding with the idea of reintroducing them into areas of the province of Cádiz with similar habitats to those frequented by the species in Morocco.

As in the previous case, the same conservation organization objected strongly to the project, again using argument that it was not known if the Bald Ibis had ever lived in Spain. Nevertheless, Jerez Zoo and the Government of Andalusia began a pilot project involving the soft release of individuals.

The ibis were “trained” to return daily to the pre-release aviary so that the birds could be recaptured if the outcome of the experiment was not positive.

But the facts spoke louder and clearer than the absence of written references. The acclimatization of the ibis was satisfactory and in 2012 a few pairs began to nest on a nearby cliff. In 2013 the official reintroduction project was approved and, given that the supplementary feeding was ended, the birds soon dispersed throughout the region creating a second breeding colony. By 2016, the free population in southern Spain consisted of more than 90 individuals and 24 breeding pairs, and no negative impact on other species or ecosystems has been reported. Recently, another reintroduction project that uses ultra-light aircraft to guide migration to the birds’ wintering grounds in Tuscany (Italy) has got underway in Austria. The overall situation of this ibis today, 27 years after my first contact with the species, is as follows: 115 pairs in Morocco, 24 in Spain, and a new population under construction in Austria (plus a pair that bred in Syria in 2011). All its eggs are no longer in the same basket, an important objective for the conservation of any endangered species.

“The species will harm other species” This is another recurrent argument often used to oppose reintroductions. As we are referring to the return of a species that lived in the area in the past, the question here is: if species A, the one to be reintroduced, affects species B and C, what happened in the past when all three species lived in the same habitats before species A became extinct?

In 1987 we began the reintroduction of the white stork (Ciconia ciconia) into the Aiguamolls de l’Empordà Natural Park in Catalonia. Through the soft-release of individuals donated by recovery centers in southwest Spain, a large colony soon formed (16 pairs in 1997, 91 pairs in 2015). This stork is a large and conspicuous bird and an increasing number soon began to be seen from the numerous hides in the park feeding on fish, frogs, and crayfish. Then, some researchers began to

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spread the idea that these white storks were harming the local amphibian populations as some had started to show clear signs of regression; at the same time, concern was growing regarding the collapse of amphibian populations worldwide. These researchers failed to take into account, however, the enormous increase in the numbers of the exotic red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii), the eutrophication of many lakes, or the declining water levels due to the competition with intensive agriculture, perhaps because a group of storks feeding on frogs is far more obvious than many other hidden threats. At the end of the day, it is obvious that storks and native frogs have shared the same habitats for thousands of years.

A recent case in which I was involved occurred when the NGO Rewilding Europe requested authorization from the relevant authorities to reintroduce the Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) into the Danube delta (Romania). The beaver, a species present in the Danube basin for millions of years, had been completely extirpated from this river basin in the nineteenth century and had disappeared from Romania in 1824. Meanwhile, in 1998–2001, 164 beavers were released along the river Olt (Romania), while in 2002 57 individuals were released in western Romania to establish a new population on the river Mures. Finally, in 2003 another population was founded on the river Ialomita in eastern Romania by introducing 34 individuals.

But the response of the Danube Delta Scientific Committee to our request was negative because, incomprehensibly, the beaver was considered as a potentially invasive species. The resolution signed by the committee rejected the reintroduction to allow specialists time to “test effective means to control the population below a critical threshold beyond which invasiveness might occur.” In short, a native species that inhabited the region until less than 200 years ago could not return until it was clear how the population could be controlled. And all this in a delta where beavers cannot build dams because there are no differences in water levels and so cannot damage human structures. However, while the authorities were busy blocking the return of a native species, nature continued its work oblivious to their opinion: the beaver reappeared in the Lower Danube near Tulcea at the gates to the Danube delta in 2014, where at least two families have been detected.

“There is not enough habitat available for the species” This is an important argument that should be considered during the preparation of any feasibility study prior to reintroduction. However, it is also sometimes used as an excuse to justify a previous decision to block the return of certain species.

Again in the Danube delta, in another attempt to help a key animal species return, Rewilding Europe projected reintroducing red deer (Cervus elaphus) given that large herbivores had been completely eradicated from this delta and herbivory is an essential ecological process for the correct functioning of ecosystems. As a first argument (once again!), we were told that red deer had never lived in the Danube delta despite the references we had found to its presence at least until the thirteenth century. The obvious question again was: What is so different about the Danube delta when compared to the Guadalquivir delta (Doñana) in Spain or Po delta in Italy, where important red deer populations exist? Although traditionally considered a forest species, red deer populations have increased thanks to protection and have expanded into a variety of open habitats. The commissioned feasibility study acknowledged that until the eleventh century the distribution of red deer was much greater and probably included large areas of herbaceous vegetation, and that later, as a result of anthropogenic pressure, it became adapted to living in areas dominated by forests, where it found refuge and tranquility.

Once the historical presence argument lost its value, next came the “lack of suitable habitat” argument. The commissioned feasibility study specified that, taking into account the capacity of the

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environment, the carrying capacity of the reintroduction pilot area (6,500 ha) in the Danube delta was just nine individuals since the reed beds and wooded dunes do not provide enough food for deer. It was no use highlighting densities in the Doñana National Park of one deer/100 ha in similar habitats (and where, incidentally, deer open up reed beds and create new habitats) because – we were told – Spanish red deer are smaller. In this case, the concept of shifting baselines again helped us explain what happened: for the Romanian experts, red deer live in forests and so the habitats in Danube delta are the antithesis of what they understood as a favorable habitat for the species. This is similar to the common misconception that European bison are forest animals or that wolves, river otters, and brown bears live mostly in mountainous areas. In all these cases, when looking back at historical and paleontological records, it is obvious that these animals found refuge in these marginal habitats where human pressure was minimal.

“There are too few individuals in the donor population, which must be as close as possible genetically to the original population” We all agree that we must use the genetically closest population to the original that went extinct. But sometimes the closest populations are also endangered and consist of very few individuals, or even are not available because they are all extinct. For example, the subspecies of Iberian ibex (Capra pyrenaica) living in the Pyrenees (pyrenaica) became extinct in 2000 and so the only way to reintroduce the species into French Pyrenees was to use the subspecies living in Central Spain (victoriae). But a limit has to be put to search for the closest population since each meta-population of an endangered species usually consists of just a few individuals, which implies low genetic diversity.

Therefore, to avoid inbreeding depression, in some cases it is wise to use a mix of individuals from different meta-populations. A good example is that of the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardina) ex situ Conservation Program, where the individuals chosen for the captive breeding program came from both of the last two meta-populations of the species, and were mixed following a genetic management plan. We could say that the individuals born in captivity are in fact “better” than the wild ones, as their genetic make-ups are more diverse.

“Why reintroduce? The species will return by itself” I have also come across this argument on several occasions. In some cases, populations of the species we want to restore exist a few hundred kilometers away and, furthermore, we know that if their population dynamics become positive, someday they could recolonize our area given the existence of appropriate habitat (as recognized by the feasibility study). Let’s imagine, then, that our target species may naturally recolonize the area in about, say, 20 years. Shouldn’t we just sit and wait?

Indeed, during the preparation of the otter reintroduction program explained above, the opponents to the project – who could not use the argument of the lack of references to its past presence (it had become extinct a mere 15 years before) – argued that it was a misuse of funds to reintroduce a species that was recovering in parts of the Iberian Peninsula and that would end up at some point recolonizing our river basins in the northeastern corner of the Peninsula. However, what the €300,000 project did was open a new flank in the recovery of the species, accelerate exchanges with populations from western Catalonia, bring it back to the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (obviously in part due to an improvement in water quality), and create new populations in southern France, where it had also become also extinct. The reintroduction was executed in parallel to a large-scale government plan to build a bigger network of sewage treatment plants aimed at improving water quality to hasten the return of the otter and other inhabitants of Mediterranean rivers.

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“Species X has priority over the one you want to reintroduce” This final economic argument is also widely used in opposition to reintroductions. The translocation of individuals can be an expensive business and there will always be someone who argues that another endangered species is more deserving of the funds planned to be spent on the reintroduction. In the reintroduction projects I have participated in, I have often been reminded of the species of dragonfly or spider forgotten by the authorities that did not receive the attention they merited; or that at times budgets are squandered to bring back a species simply because it is large, colorful, or appealing.

In some cases, I am quite sure these claims are true but I have always tried to get across the idea that money (especially from private donors) is spent in exchange for the visibility of the action paid for. And, frankly, large and beautiful species outsell others. The challenge is to ensure that the return of a flagship species will help the conservation of the habitats where the rest of the forgotten species dwell. Habitat and water quality improvement, the control of poaching and deliberate poisoning, the protection of riparian forests, the construction of green bridges, and the correction of power lines executed prior to reintroductions and following the guidelines outlined in feasibility studies, all contribute to the conservation of a large array of species. It is also my experience that donors are quite specific about what they want to fund and do not always welcome experts telling them which species they should spend their money on. They typically invest in the type of species that they are interested in, which – for better or worse – tend to be charismatic threatened animals. And let’s make no mistake: the funds invested in conservation are still a pittance compared to those devoted to the destruction of nature (i.e. major infrastructures). So, rather than fight amongst ourselves, we ought to find a way to obtain better budgets for the recovery of habitats and wildlife and use every possible opportunity to restore nature — even if it is not exactly how we would use the money.

Box 8.3

CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING: HOW ECOLOGICAL, HISTORICAL, AND POLITICAL DIFFERENCES AFFECT THE MANAGEMENT OF BUFFER ZONES AROUND SERENGETI NATIONAL PARK Dennis Rentsch, Frankfurt Zoological Society The Greater Serengeti ecosystem The Greater Serengeti ecosystem encompasses roughly 30,000 km² comprised of a complex mosaic of land-use types and protected areas stretching between Tanzania and Kenya. The defining characteristic of this ecosystem is the annual migration of over two million wildebeest and other wildlife species. In Tanzania, the core protected area falls under Serengeti National Park (SNP), managed by Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA), together with Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), a multiple land-use area managed by a parastatal authority for the dual objectives of promoting conservation of natural resources and safeguarding the interests of the indigenous Maasai residents. Both Serengeti NP and NCA are World Heritage Sites and Wonders of the World, and together comprise a Man and Biosphere Reserve area.

The Serengeti ecosystem provides a wide variety of benefits to the governments of Tanzania and Kenya, the international community, and local people, whose livelihoods are directly and inextricably

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linked to the continued functioning of a healthy ecosystem. However, conservation of the ecosystem faces many challenges, partly due to the diverse institutions and stakeholders, all with different objectives, ownership rights, mandates, and natural resource interests.

Ikorongo GR Grumeti GR

Ikona WMA

Serengeti National Park Maswa Game Reserve

Loliondo Game Controlled Area

Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Makao WMA

The surroundings of the Serengueti National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and their buffer zones.

Buffer zones around SNP SNP is buffered by a number of protected areas. To the north lie the Masai Mara National Reserve and a number of wildlife conservancies in Kenya. In Tanzania, there are three kinds of multiple-use reserves buffering SNP from external pressures, in addition to NCA: Game Reserves (GRs), Game Controlled Areas (GCA), and Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs).

Game Reserves are managed by the newly established Tanzanian Wildlife Authority (TAWA) in collaboration with private safari companies that lease hunting concessions in these areas. Three of them buffer the western boundaries of the National Park: Maswa, Ikorongo, and Grumeti (see map).

To the east lies the Loliondo Game Controlled Area, where communities - until a recent change in legislation in 2009 - had few official restrictions on their use of land and pastoralist practices, although the area serves as a hunting block overseen by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism.

In the 1990s Tanzania began an initiative to divest greater ownership and authority to local communities in natural resource conservation and management on village lands, and established the con-

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cept of Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) through the Wildlife Act of 1998. WMAs are designed to provide communities with the responsibility of managing their land for the long-term conservation of natural resources, while empowering them with the authority to generate revenue from tourism to contribute to the livelihoods of their inhabitants. A well-functioning WMA has the potential to build community empowerment while ensuring the long-term conservation and sustainable management of natural resources. Presently, two WMAs border Serengeti National Park: Ikona and Makao.

GRs, GCAs, and WMAs all serve as buffer zones that encapsulate areas of human-wildlife interaction, where government, private sector, and local communities all have a role to play in the conservation of wildlife and natural resources. Yet striking differences in the management, community engagement, and revenue generation schemes set these areas along different paths.

Buffer zones in northwest Serengeti Northwest Serengeti, bounded by Lake Victoria, has historically been an area with high levels of bushmeat hunting and declining wildlife populations. Many of the agropastoralist communities here typically rely on income from snaring wildlife and selling meat, and the GRs experience high hunting pressure. Prior to 2002, wildlife populations in the Grumeti and Ikorongo GRs were undergoing drastic declines. Since 2002, however, the management of Ikorongo and Grumeti has been supported by a concessionaire, Singita Grumeti Reserves (SGR), owned and managed as a joint venture by a wealthy US-based philanthropist and Singita, a high-end, conservation-minded safari tourism company. Though the area is zoned as a hunting concession, the primary activity of this investor is exclusive photo-tourism. However, SGR still pays all of the government-regulated hunting quota fees, ensuring that the wildlife agencies and local district government authorities receive maximum benefit from a hunting zone without engaging in commercial trophy hunting. Additionally, SGR invests heavily in wildlife management and anti-poaching and law enforcement, as well as research, monitoring, and community development.

Located between the two Game Reserves and the National Park is the Ikona WMA. This WMA is comprised of village land set aside by a consortium of five villages, each of which elects representatives to serve on the WMA governing board. The community-managed board collects revenue via investors from concession fees and tourists and is responsible for coordinating anti-poaching and managing the wildlife area. Ikona WMA, established in 2006, consists of 242.3 km² of land. Aside from the abundant wildlife found in the area throughout the year, Ikona WMA also serves as a crucial wildlife corridor for hundreds of thousands of wildebeest, allowing them access to important dry-season water in the Mara River in the North.

Ikona WMA is therefore uniquely situated to benefit from wildlife in multiple ways. The largest portion (approximately 60%) of the WMA is zoned as a hunting area with a single investor, SGR, which also invests in the two adjacent GRs, while the remaining portion of the WMA is zoned specifically for photo-tourism; its proximity to the entrance gate of the National Park has attracted numerous investors. This has resulted in a high-density photographic tourist zone and a low-density hunting zone, which is utilized for high-end photo-tourism. While the wildlife numbers may be quite similar across the two zones due to movement of wildlife through the habitat, the density of tourist facilities has a negative impact on the quality of the tourist experience, and also on revenue generated per tourist. In total, the WMA generates over 2.2 billion Tanzanian shillings per year (nearly $1 million USD in 2016) in revenue from the various tourism activities, of which approximately 50% is generated by the single, high-end, low-impact tourism model practiced by SGR. However, this financial success comes with a price: the challenge in ensuring adequate management of the area and equitable sharing of benefits among stakeholders. Sudden windfalls of income

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to young institutions are often not without growing pains. Specifically, in the early years after its gazettement, the Ikona WMA struggled with financial transparency and accountability as the WMA board members received the majority of the monetary benefits, with little trickling down to the villages themselves. Additionally, the WMA board encouraged rapid tourism development and as a result there was a mushrooming of tourism camps in the photographic zone, which threaten the natural resource base on which the area relies. At the same time, the abundant migratory wildlife is heavily hunted and sold for meat within the villages. In fact, bushmeat accounts for approximately 40% of the protein consumed by people living in this area, though this is largely seasonally dependent on the presence of the wildebeest migration. Despite these challenges, the WMA has seen wildlife number increase dramatically since the area was gazetted in 2006. There is no doubt that this is largely due to the proximity of the WMA to larger, well-funded GRs with support from a philanthropic investor. The WMA’s success in rebuilding wildlife numbers is as much due to its fortuitous location as its status. Because of the importance of the area as a migratory corridor, increased protection of wildlife elsewhere has allowed these villages to benefit financially through direct income for each of the WMA member villages, but also indirectly through local employment and sales of produce and cultural tourism opportunities.

Buffer zones in southwest Serengueti To the southwest of Serengeti NP lie Maswa GR and Makao WMA. These areas are characterized by high human population density, surrounded by village land where communities engage in intensive farming and livestock grazing, which has effectively created a hard edge along the boundary of the protected areas. The Maswa GR and Makao WMA encompass woodland habitat with intermittent kopjes (rocky outcrops) and house a robust population of tsetse flies, which make it less appealing for photo-tourism activities. However, the abundant wildlife such as buffalo, lion, and rarer species such as roan and kudu antelopes makes this area both ecologically important for the Serengeti ecosystem and attractive for trophy hunters. Hunting operators invest in commercial tourist hunting within the government-owned GR, and work with TAWA and the local government authorities with support for anti-poaching and community outreach.

Spanning much of the area between Maswa GR and NCA lies Makao WMA. Gazetted in 2009, it covers 788 km² of land contributed by seven villages that benefit from revenue generated from tourism investment. The entire area within Makao WMA is designated entirely as a single hunting zone for tourists, which means the WMA relies heavily on one investor. While the sums have, so far, been less than in Ikona WMA, Makao is a younger WMA and revenues have the potential to increase in coming years — if heavy agricultural and livestock encroachment is curtailed. Poaching is prevalent in the area, as it is around Ikona, but the biggest threat to the conservation of biodiversity is human encroachment.

A significant challenge facing both Makao WMA and Maswa GR is the insufficient area for viable livestock grazing land outside the protected areas caused by high (and growing) numbers of livestock and high-density agriculture (largely small-scale cash-crops such as cotton). Due in part to the lengthy procedures for the WMA to become legally recognized and authorized to generate revenue, many of the villages see long delays in receiving benefits from the WMA. At the same time, the increasing pressure for grazing land has led to more conflict and requests to open up the protected areas for grazing. Much of the WMA is fairly inaccessible by vehicle most of the year, which hinders its potential for traditional photo-tourism and leaves much of the area susceptible to livestock encroachment. A recent census found wildlife relegated to the northernmost part of the WMA adjacent to the MGR due to human activity dominating the southern portion. The result is that only a

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portion of the area remains suitable for high-end hunting tourism. This in turn threatens to reduce the overall income-generating potential of the WMA. If the returns from wildlife diminish, so will the incentive for the villages to maintain this land for wildlife, thereby promoting a vicious cycle of low income from wildlife and increasing ecological degradation.

Buffer zones in east Serengueti The current Loliondo Game Controlled Area (GCA), a multiple land-use area of more than 4,000 km², forms an important part of the Serengeti ecosystem, a valuable grazing area for Maasai communities, and a productive area for tourism. The area has extremely high potential for photo-tourism due to its open savanna habitat, rolling hills, and abundant wildlife. As a result, it has attracted several investors in photographic tourism. Unlike the buffer zones on the western side of the ecosystem, the pastoralist communities to the east rarely engage in wildlife hunting as consuming bushmeat is widely held as a cultural taboo. However, the area’s status as a GCA – where lands are classified as both village land by the Ministry of Land and as a hunting area managed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism – also means that the user rights for the entire area are leased from the government of Tanzania to a single commercial hunting company that uses the block exclusively for personal hunting safaris. During the leasing of the area for commercial hunting over the past twenty years, the area has experienced conflict over land tenure between the government, photo-tourism, hunting investors, and local communities. For much of this time, the GCA status had few restrictions on land use, as hunting, photo-tourism, livestock grazing, and other activities all took place, in some cases in the same areas simultaneously. However, the new Wildlife Conservation Act passed in 2009 redefined the GCA status under management by the Ministry of Natural Resources and tourism, where wildlife hunting is permitted, while other human activities including farming and livestock grazing are prohibited. The Act, however, included the clause that the Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism shall “review the list of current game controlled areas for the purpose of ascertaining potentiality justifying continuation of control of any such areas.” The scheme to maintain the entire Loliondo area as a GCA is still pending, leaving the decision to turn it into a WMA managed by the villages unresolved to date.

That the integrity of the landscape in Loliondo GCA is largely intact today is probably the result of the historical land-use practices of the area performed by Maasai pastoralists. However, uncertainty over the status of land ownership has encouraged an influx of livestock and an incentive to claim vacant land for human activities, including opening up land for agricultural development, which has altered the landscape substantially. As a result of this recent shift in land-use, wildlife numbers have decreased dramatically and animals spend more time inside SNP where grass remains abundant. Meanwhile, growing numbers of livestock and agricultural expansion leave the future status of Loliondo GCA as a wildlife area in the air.

The fact that tension and uncertainty over the land-use status continues is at least partly due to the mistrust between the communities and the government. This animosity dates back to colonial times, as there is a feeling that communities were never adequately involved in the decision to gazette SNP. At the same time, the government is wary of divesting authority to the communities to manage the area as a WMA, largely due to the anti-conservation rhetoric often employed by community leaders, and in part because the proposal to create a WMA was not initially accepted by local communities when first introduced in 2002. The aim to turn the GCA into a community-managed WMA was to ensure that communities benefit from conservation while securing long-term land rights. A WMA would also provide tourism investors more security for their investments by being able to enter into direct, legal negotiations and agreements with communities.

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This lack of clarity on the status of the Loliondo GCA has led to an increase in human activity along the boundary of SNP, and further compounded animosity with the hunting company operating adjacent to the National Park on village lands and renewed conflict over the boundary with the Park itself. Influxes of livestock have exacerbated the pressure, creating even more conflict over grazing land within the villages. Such conflict is, unfortunately, unlikely to be resolved until the authority to manage and benefit from wildlife in Loliondo is either divested to the communities, taken over by the government, or managed jointly in partnership. Only then will the incentives to conserve wildlife supplant the incentives to maximize the extractive use of the land.

What can we learn from the different management zones around Serengeti ecosystem?

Wildlife in the Serengeti ecosystem is exceptionally mobile, with millions of wildebeest and other species traversing the network of protected areas annually. This creates a unique economic paradox for the community-managed wildlife areas. On the one hand, wildlife areas such as the Ikona and Makao WMAs and Loliondo GCA, which have land located along the migratory route, benefit from the protection afforded by the neighboring protected areas and management by private hunting concessionaires. Because these areas are located in key wildlife corridors, they attract tourism investors, which in turn provide revenue for community development. On the other hand, given that the benefits from wildlife greatly depend on investments made to support resource protection elsewhere within the ecosystem, the incentive for communities in each area to actively invest in conserving wildlife and wildlife habitat is diminished. In fact, because the wildlife in each area stays for a relatively short period each year, there is a strong incentive to maximize the utility of these animals through both tourism revenue and employment, but also from bushmeat hunting and accessing grazing land for livestock.

The two WMAs in the Serengeti, for the most part, devolve to communities both the rights of wildlife use on their land (for hunting or for tourism) and the authority to collect revenue. However, another tenet of community-based natural resource management is the responsibility to look after these resources. It is this latter component of community-based natural resource management that is at times conspicuously missing. These community-managed areas often see little incentive to reinvest a significant proportion of their revenue in the conservation of the area. Because these community-based areas are relatively small tracts of land located in ecologically crucial areas within an enormous ecosystem managed by multiple institutions, they have the potential to benefit greatly from conservation investment in adjacent areas. This allows these WMA areas to successfully generate community benefits from wildlife, even if they do not invest heavily back into the conservation of these resources.

Ultimately, it may not necessarily be the proportion of revenue that the WMAs plow back into managing the area that will demonstrate the value and long-term viability of these conservation areas, but whether or not the community land remains available for wildlife in the face of competing land-use options. This may be the case given two conditions: first, the wildlife in the ecosystem must remain mobile and not hindered from moving across these areas from SNP and other strict conservation areas; second, leaving this land available for wildlife must generate more revenue for the community than other competing potential land-use options. In the vast Serengeti ecosystem, the enormous investment that is being made in conservation by parastatal institutions and the private sector helps increase the value of these neighboring community-managed wildlife areas. It is the value of protecting core areas, source populations, and wildlife corridors in a migratory wildlife system that makes community-based natural resource areas viable in an ecologically interconnected migratory landscape like Serengeti.

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Box 8.4

CONTROLLING POACHING OF THE SIBERIAN TIGER IN RUSSIA The Siberian tiger, the largest of all tiger races, inhabits boreal forests and preys chiefly on wild boar and various species of deer. After being subject to intense persecution in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century, this large feline underwent a notable recovery in the second half of the century thanks to conservationist policies instigated by the Soviet government. However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia was plunged into a period of political and economic turmoil that led to a resumption of the uncontrolled hunting of this tiger. By 1993, in light of a population crash to just 200–300 animals, of which it was estimated that around 50 were being shot every year, this tiger’s population was classified as Critically Endangered.

Around this time, however, a group of North American conservationists were initiating contacts with the Russian authorities with a view to setting up a joint protection program for the Siberian tiger.

This program, whose initial aim was simply to improve knowledge of this large feline’s situation, very soon metamorphosed into a fully-fledged rescue project designed to save it from extinction. Thus, concurrently with scientific collaboration between North American and Russian researchers empowered with investigating the tiger’s ecology and conservation status, a specific anti-poaching program was initiated known as Inspection Tiger (although some chose to use a more attractive designation, Operation Amba, in celebration of the tiger’s local name). The project set up an anti-poaching unit whose rangers (known locally as “Tigers”) were authorized to carry and use arms to arrest poachers; they traveled around in special vehicles equipped for spending days on end in remote areas and were paid a good salary funded by international institutions.

Given the high market price for tiger products, the mission to stamp out tiger poaching and halt the illegal trade in body parts used in traditional Chinese medicine and in skins for sale on a wider scale was more akin to a war on drugs. The task was complicated even further by the context: a society on the verge of collapse, hyperinflation obliging people to spend their life-savings in just a few days and forcing them to live off whatever they could glean from the wild, and rampant corruption amongst government officials. The Operation Amba rangers thus combated poachers as if they were drug-smugglers or insurgents and employed rapid-response patrols able to move quickly across vast underpopulated regions where hunting (legal and illegal) was a way of life.

Initially, these patrols had to explain to local authorities and people exactly what they were doing and why; soon they had set up a network of informers to help infiltrate the various links in the chain of the illegal traffic in tiger products involving local hunters, Russian, Chinese, and Korean middlemen, and the organized groups or mafias that were selling, above all, to people in China and Korea. Although on occasions police and local bureaucrats were found to be involved in this illegal trade, in time, thanks to the work of the “Tigers,” the first important arrests were made and publicized, which helped boost the image of Operation Amba both nationally and internationally.

Meanwhile, as the anti-poaching group was creating and then strengthening links with the Russian state security apparatus including the police and the FSB (the heirs to the KGB), the Global Survival Network (an international organization devoted to halting the illegal trade in wild species) managed to gain access to Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president. He signed a resolution in 1995 On Saving the Amur (Siberian) tiger and other endangered flora and fauna of the Russian Far East.

This high-level political support undoubtedly persuaded many judges to treat the subject much more seriously, with the result that the following year seven people were found guilty of trafficking tiger body parts, a sharp contrast to the mere two condemnatory sentences passed in the whole of the three previous years.

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The anti-poaching teams, financial support from international organizations, high-level political backing, and the country’s economic recovery all helped save this tiger from extinction and by 2005 it was estimated that its population had recovered to 400–500 individuals. Despite a fall in numbers in subsequent years, its Russian population today is thought to be stable and the situation has possibly even improved in its small population nuclei in China and Korea. This would not have been possible without the creation of a well-equipped (compared to other similar groups) elite group with clear political support at the highest level committed to putting an end to tiger poaching.

REFERENCES Sutherland, W. J. (2008). Anti-poaching strategy to protect the Amur Tiger. 220-221, in The conservation handbook: research, management and policy. John Wiley & Sons.

Miquelle, D.G., Goodrich, J.M., Kerley, L.L., Pikunov, D.G., Dunishenko, Y. M., Aramiliev, V. et al. (2010). Science-based conservation of Amur tigers in the Russian Far East and Northeast China.

403-423, in Tigers of the World (Second Edition).

Miquelle, D.G. (2015). The Amur tiger in Northeast Asia: Conservation and ecology of an endangered subspecies. Integrative Zoology, 10: 311-314.

Robinson, H.S., Goodrich, J.M., Miquelle, D.G., Miller, C.S., Seryodkin, I.V. (2015). Mortality of Amur tigers: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Integrative zoology, 10: 344353.

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CHAPTER 9.

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION Let’s suppose that you have a problem with someone from another conservationist organization who you believe is blocking a proposal that you regard as important for the future of a particular ecosystem.

The relationship with this person is complicated but you need them to accept your plan or, at least, to stop actively blocking it. Moreover, it is not easy to lay your cards on the table and state clearly that this person is hindering something that they should be supporting. How can you do this without resorting to personal attacks, excuses, or unfortunate turns of phrase? You can use CNV and do the following: Step 1. Approach the other person and tell him or her that you have something important you need to talk about, and that you would like to find a time and place to sit and chat, preferably without anyone else present to avoid uncomfortable distractions.

Step 2. Once you have the other person’s attention (which may be difficult as it is likely that they will have a premonition that the conversation will be uncomfortable; nevertheless, it is important to insist assertively and calm that you need to talk), try to describe as objectively as possible the situations that you recall in which the other person tried to block the plan at the center of the conflict. It is crucial that you talk about concrete situations that are objectively verifiable and that you don’t fall into the trap of using loaded adjectives and value judgments. For example, you can talk about an e-mail that the person sent and what it contained, something they said in a meeting, or a document that they didn’t reply to, but avoid using subjective interpretations such as “you spoke aggressively,” “you were irresponsible,” “you boycotted us,” or “you were rude.” The objective is to construct a space for communication with the other person where you coincide, which is constructed on foundations of objective facts. During this phase the other person may bring new facts into the analysis without entering into details or feeling obliged to proffer excuses for his or her behavior.

Step 3. Then, describe how you felt when this situation arose. Here, it is important to stress what you felt and not be tempted to apportion blame or enter into details regarding the other person’s intentions. The idea is to get the other person to put themselves in your shoes – as far as they can – and at least try to empathize with what you felt at that moment.

Step 4. Next, try to explain the effects that the actions you describe in step 2 (accepted objectively as true by both sides) had on your interests, which in this case is the conservation of a particular ecosystem. Recognizing openly that what the other person did affects your feelings is an easy way of accepting their power and the fact that their position is important to you.

Step 5. Make a concrete proposal as to what the other person should do to satisfy these interests, which you have previously accepted as legitimate.

Step 6. Be prepared to help the other person go over the previous steps in relation to the issue in question, thereby allowing them to describe objective situations that they regard as important, what they felt, the impact that they had on their interests, and to make concrete proposals. In other words, you must be willing to give the other person the same space as you ask them to give to you.

I have used this method of communication with colleagues on a number of occasions in recent years and I have come to establish it as the modus operandi for communication within our team. I admit that it is not easy to apply and I appreciate that it requires a degree of courage and a lot of practice to be able to use it profitably and regularly. The good thing about it is that the more you

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employ it and the more your co-workers understand it, the better the results. Rather than a set formula that must be strictly adhered to – heaven forbid that we should end up as students rote-learning a lesson! – this technique is something that we should internalize as part of our way of communicating and use naturally as a roadbook. In general terms, it is much easier to deploy it with people you already get on well with, although even with friends certain difficult subjects tend not to be broached (unless they burst forth or rot away) and are often handled poorly precisely because we don’t want to risk damaging the ties of trust we have with those who are closest to us. In negotiations between two sides that do not trust each other, this method may require the presence of an external mediator who understands the two parties involved and who can encourage both to communicate according to the dictates of NVC.

CLARITY IN THE ROLES FOR PARTICIPATORY CONFLICT MANAGEMENT PROCESSES Typically, in this type of process there are three necessary, well-differentiated roles: A promoter group. This group can be a town council, an NGO, or a local association. Nevertheless, in most cases it tends to be a government entity that chooses to stimulate this type of process when realizing that the top-down focus will not be enough, perhaps because previously it has ended up provoking a conflict. This group’s task is to initiate the process, contract the professionals who will take it forward, and supply the necessary resources for it to succeed. In the case of formal authorities, they will usually insert the results of the process into the standard system of governance, thereby affording – if necessary – the agreements with legal force via decrees, management plans for protected areas, or laws (see section on regulations in Chapter 7 on Planning and Norming). A special type of promoter is one that supplies the process with credibility and invites the relevant parties to participate but who doesn’t provide any financial resources or accept any responsibility for implementing decisions. An example of this would be the representatives from a local church who, alongside governmental authorities, take responsibility for promoting a process of this type.

For a government to successfully fulfill its role as a promoter, it is essential that it truly believes in the fundamental values that underpin the process. All too often, a government agency ends up generating a bottom-up process, not because it is what they believe in, but because it is under pressure from a source of funding (e.g. the World Bank or a large international NGO wanting to finance a protected area) or from a superior governmental body (e.g. the European Union), or wants to create a “good image” that can legitimize decisions that it has already taken independently of what the main participatory groups decide. Governments and large NGOs are complex institutions with multiple decision-making levels; as such, it is possible that one level believes in the participatory management of conflicts and actively promotes it, while another blocks it or deliberately ignores it.

In some cases, the political leaders believe in the participatory process but civil servants boycott it because “these politicians don’t know anything about the issue and are not going to exert any influence on a subject that we understand better than anybody.” Or, alternatively, government staff on the ground with good local knowledge may promote a participatory process that is subsequently ignored or blocked by the bureaucratic machinery of the very organization they work for, or the process is distorted by the bosses under pressure from the demands of influential groups that maintain themselves distant from the collaborative process.

Something of this happened during the participatory planning process in the Serra Gelada Natural Park, where the director of this protected area and his immediate superior were firm believers

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in the participatory process. However, after certain people had changed jobs the process was left to gather dust and the corresponding governmental agency returned to its traditional ways, which meant fewer internal complications as this was “the way things had always been done” (Box 7.4).

The role of the promoter is to organize, finance, give logistic support to, and validate institutionally the collective decision-making, and, if necessary, implement the agreements that are reached.

However, in terms of actual decision-making, the promoter has no greater or lesser role to play and should simply treat all participants in a similar way. During discussions and decision-making, the promoter should be seen as just another participant in the dialogue, which in some cases may be difficult as it is understandable that he or she should feel that they have more “say” given their role in promoting the negotiation.

Designers and facilitators. Besides the institutional, financial, and logistic support required to initiate and guide the progress of the process, it is essential to welcome on board people with both theoretical knowledge and practical experience of how to manage multi-sectorial negotiations of this type. Their role fundamentally is to help the promoter design the different steps that ought to take place during the negotiations and then work to ensure that they are carried out. The facilitator is someone with the knowledge and skills who can navigate around all the problems associated with this kind of process, and who can use them to guarantee that all the different steps and requirements are fulfilled correctly — but without ever attempting to influence the content of the discussions. The facilitator is thus the guarantor of the smooth running of the process but, all the while, he or she must remain on the sidelines regarding the content of the ideas and decisions aired by the parties involved. The guarantor must ensure that the ideas flow and are properly debated, and should volunteer personal opinions only on how the group is tackling the conflict and never on the essence of the conflict itself. This person will influence greatly how decisions are taken (the process) but should not have an effect on what decisions are taken (the substance).

Above all else, designers and facilitators are in charge of the following: helping the promoting group design an effective conflict management process; forming a human group composed of key actors in the conflict (all of whom must be involved in the negotiations); generating an initial list of relevant concepts to be debated; ensuring that participants interact and work effectively; proposing and establishing with all parties how the multi-institutional teams should work; recording the results of the various elements of the process; and providing assessment to all regarding how the results of the process should be communicated to the world in general.

As the reader will have noticed, the frontier between the conflict management process and the participatory planning process is practically non-existent. This is a throwback to one of the ideas highlighted in the section on planning: the need for the promoter/contracting group and the designer/ facilitator group to work together as closely as possible. If they both belong to the same group, the difference between these two roles must be made clear. If the latter group is merely “contracted” and does not form part either intellectually or emotionally of the promoter group or of whoever in the final instance will have to implement the decisions, it is likely that the formal design and facilitation process, once finished and the “contracted” product “delivered,” will not be fully implemented by the promoters and the collaborative bottom-up spirit will be lost. Likewise, if the promoting institution does not truly believe in participatory conflict management, it is more than likely that, despite having “contracted” the best available team of designers and facilitators, when the formal conflict management sessions are over the promoter will use the results to further its own interests or re-establish the more habitual top-down methodology.

On the other hand, even if both of these groups are well integrated, it is essential that they stick to their own particular functions: the promoters must support and provide assessment to the designers/

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facilitators (and vice versa) so that they work well — but without ever attempting to sway the substance of the debate one way or another. In an ideal situation, the promoting group should include people who are experienced in the design and facilitation processes, which will preclude the need to contract external professionals and therefore ensure the commitment of the promoters to maintaining the process and to decision-making in the long term. This will also encourage promoters to maximize their efforts to implement the agreements reached, help save money by not having to contract out­side personnel, and guarantee that there is enough time for the results of the process to be implemented and then maintained. The obvious disadvantage of the promoter and facilitator belonging to the same institution is that the other parts of the conflict may not trust it to maintain a “separation of powers,” i.e. between judge and judged, during the course of the process.

One of the keys to the success of the conflict management process in the Moray Firth in Scotland was the presence of a researcher who belonged to the promoting institutions but who, at the same time, was able to act as both a designer and facilitator of the process (Box 9.1). This figure is known as a “champion” of the process and in the case of the Moray Firth seems to have played a role as leader since he was able to win the respect of all the different groups and convince them that it was worth searching for an alternative way of tackling what had become a chronically entrenched conflict situation. Young et al. discuss the existence of an internal local “champion” – i.e. someone who belongs to the local institution but is respected by all the other parts – as one of the key elements in the Moray Firth process, which raise the question as to what would have happened if that person had not come on board.1 Once again, one of the recurrent themes in this book heaves into view – the need for multi-talented or transdisciplinary leaders (or officials at the helm of our Boat) who can win the trust of the other groups. We will return to this question in Chapter 11 on Organizations.

Participants. Participants will normally include the local promoters, along with representatives of the main stakeholder groups (see below). All must act in good faith during the sessions, follow the norms decided upon by all the parties with help from the facilitators, share their knowledge and skills with the other groups, and negotiate how to progress with the conflict.

REFERENCES 1 Young, J. C., Butler, J.R., Jordan, A., Watt, A.D. (2012). Less government intervention in biodiversity management: risks and opportunities. Biodiversity and Conservation, 21: 1095-1100.

Box 9.3

TIT FOR TAT AND THE PRISONER’S DILEMMA Game Theory refers often to the Prisoner’s Dilemma in situations in which two players have to choose between cooperating or competing in order to achieve personal gain. The structure of the problem is laid out in the table below: most points are won when a player competes against a player who wants to cooperate, and the fewest points when a player tries to cooperate with a player who has chosen to compete. Nevertheless, when both players chose to compete, they obtain fewer points than if they had chosen to collaborate.

What makes the decisions so complicated is that the players can’t tell the other which of the two options they are going to choose. The Prisoner’s Dilemma has been used in Game Theory (in which

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multiple repetitions or iterations of the same situation are played out) to analyze the extent to which it is worth cooperating if the only things that concern you are your own interests.

The other player cooperates

The other player competes

I cooperate

We both win 2 points

I win 0 points and the other wins 3

I compete

I win 3 points and the other 0

We both win 1 point

Within this framework, in the 1980s an American political scientist, Robert Axelrod, began to study cooperation between groups. He organized a competition designed to identify the best strategy for this version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, above all in the event that the decision would be repeated a number of times. Fourteen participants designed computer-based algorithms that chose whether a player should “collaborate with” or “betray” the other player. The tournament consisted of 200 rounds and the winner was the program with the highest score after having interacted with all the other programs.

One of the participants, Anatol Rapoport, wrote a program in BASIC with a mere four lines of code that he called Tit for Tat. This was the simplest of all the strategies that were presented and, surprisingly, turned out to be the winner. It had only two rules: a) begin by collaborating and b) do what the other player did in the previous round.

After the publication of the results, a second tournament was organized in which 62 participants took part, including a new version of Tit for Tat. Once again, Anatol Rapoport’s program won. Even though it occasionally lost some games to more complex programs, when the overall results of all the interactions with all the other programs were made known, Tit for Tat came out on top again.

A number of different authors, including Robert Axelrod himself, have drawn a series of conclusions explaining why such as simple strategy could be so successful.

• The strategy begins by opting for collaboration, which is the best way of guaranteeing that both sides win points constantly. It is thus a “friendly” strategy.

• Nevertheless, if one player chooses to compete, Tit for Tat immediately responds in the same way in face of such a hostile gesture. This means that the strategy is prepared to “retaliate.”

• If the other side sends a peace signal, the best strategy is to immediately collaborate again. This is a sign of “forgiveness.”

• One of its main advantages of this strategy, which is derived from its simplicity, is that it is “clear and predictable,” which engenders trust and encourages the other player to act likewise, which in turn stimulates long-term cooperation.

• Finally, the strategy is not worried about the points that the other player may or not win and is only concerned about the points that it may win (which, after all, is the objective of the game).

Tit for Tat is thus not “envious.”

It is surprising that such a simple algorithm can reflect so well what numerous religions and ethical systems have been proposing for thousands of years: be kind, don’t be naïve, be prepared to forgive, be clear, and don’t envy others. These principles should help us resolve or prevent conflicts with the many groups we will interact with during our Boat’s long voyage.

Some have noted that in Axelrod’s experiment all participants were either scientists or other academics. This criticism highlights the fact that these types of people are generally more analytical

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and cerebral than the rest of the population, and so are not good examples of how we as people act.

In this there is more than a grain of truth: even in the most trivial of games (and even more so in complex negotiations) a degree of emotionality and an important dose of irrationality are always present. I have had the opportunity to try out this game on more than 20 occasions with participants in conflict management courses and one thing that never fails to amaze me is the extent to which people are prepared to act against what would seem to be their own best interests.

The table showing how points are won would seem to make it obvious that the most stable and beneficial strategy in the long term is cooperation, which rules out the possibility of falling into the pit of destructive competition that ends up by generating fewer points for both players. What is interesting is why we as people still fall into this trap. Surprisingly, I have seen how some participants, after proclaiming out loud that the best strategy is to compete and then collaborate, are annihilated by other players who they warn beforehand that they would “attack.” I have also seen participants play their hands at random because they feel uncomfortable with the idea of competing for points or having to deliberately plan their actions. Some even fail to understand the rules of the game despite having had them explained three times, and so could not develop any coherent strategy. And then there are players who, despite knowing perfectly well that the best strategy is always to cooperate, still compete “because it is more fun.” This variety of responses when faced with what seems to be a relatively straightforward mathematical problem hints at the degree of emotion, dispersion, and irrationality that can be present in a negotiation situation, above all if we are not privy to the intentions of the other parties.

SOURCES <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#The_iterated_prisoner.27s_dilemma> <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat>

Box 9.4

SAVING THE PUREORA FOREST IN NEW ZEALAND: DEVELOPING A CONFLICT FROM ACTIVISM TO ECO-TOURISM Talía Zamboni, The Conservation Land Trust Argentina The story of Pureora Forest on New Zealand’s North Island is a good example of how generating a creative conflict can help promote Full Nature. Like many other ecosystems in these remote islands, Pureora harbors unique species of flora and fauna, including the North Island kōkako (Callaeas wilsoni), an endemic bird threatened by extinction.

With the arrival of Europeans in New Zealand in the nineteenth century, and the imposition of their vision of development, many local forests began to be exploited for timber; the construction of roads and railways soon opened up remote areas and Pureora saw the beginning of commercial logging and charcoal burning. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the New Zealand Forest Service, whose aims were essentially extractive, was established. Pureora was declared a State Forest in 1935 in order to clear-cut and then repopulate with plantations of exotic tree species. However, given the evidence that the exploitation of the region’s forests would not be sustainable in the

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long term, the Forest Service soon began to explore other silvicultural techniques that would help prevent soil erosion and protect watercourses in tall forests. The huge efforts made by the Service’s technical staff led to great leaps forward in terms of forest inventories and sampling that were used to analyze the state and composition of New Zealand’s forests.

However, towards the second half of the century new, somewhat mutually contradictory ideas began to appear regarding how to exploit the nation’s forests. Grass-roots pressure favored greater protection for forests, while others defended forestry as a key social and economic motor. Although the country as a whole had pioneered the declaration of a network of protected areas and had invested much time and energy in forest regeneration and environmental studies, the continued exploitation of its forests was, nevertheless, still endangering many threatened species such as the endemic North Island kōkako. Despite having been declared a protected species, there were no legal restrictions placed on the destruction of its habitats.

At the same time as local silviculture was increasingly opting for the selective extraction of high-quality timber and the creation of exotic tree plantations, technical advances such as the use of chain saws were also being implemented. More jobs were created and whole new townships, whose inhabitants depended on work in the forests for their livelihoods, were being established.

With the precedent of the campaign Save Manapouri – in which many sectors of New Zealand society had protested against an HEP project designed to produce energy for an aluminum-smelting plant – firmly in mind, environmentalist groups began to realize that public protest would be an excellent way of making the nation’s government sit up and take note. However, in 1970, hoping to be permitted to diversify its operations in the country’s forests, the Forestry Service petitioned the New Zealand Wildlife Protection Agency, dependent on the Ministry of the Interior, for a study of which forests could be managed and how. The Agency recommended a zoning of the area of Pureora based on ecological criteria, and identified priority protection areas for the North Island kōkako.

The Forest Service thus found itself in a dilemma: on the one hand it was receptive to the idea of recreational activities in the forests that would help guarantee the protection of wild species but, on the other, it had already awarded concessions to a number of logging companies. For the first time, the Service’s bureaucrats had to face up to a vision of forest management based on ecological rather than economic factors, and had to respond to this new demand from New Zealand society.

Meanwhile, visits by members of the public and conservationists to the forests of Pureora, keen to see for themselves what was happening there, were becoming ever-more frequent. As well, given the Government’s lack of concrete proposals, active protests were beginning to get underway. At this point, the environmental activist Stephen King, already known as one of the leaders of a grassroots group devoted to defending the country’s forests, appeared on the scene. His view that it was essential to safeguard the country’s oldest trees that played such vital roles in ecosystems contrasted with the views of the logging companies who felt that the small size of the country justified exploiting all its forests in one way or another. To confuse the issue further, many of the forestry companies’ employees were of Maori origin, who had a further, particular dilemma to confront: their cultures regard the majestic trees they were being told to cut down as noble ancestors but, at the same time, they and their families had to eat and so they couldn’t risk losing their jobs.

The events that would eventually lead to the protection of Pureora mainly took place in 1978.

That year, on a January weekend, two buses loaded with over 100 environmentalists accompanied by journalists descended on an area of forest that had been earmarked to be cut. Initially, the Director of the Forestry Service warned that nothing the activists could do would stop the advance of the chainsaws since the contracts with the logging companies were perfectly legal. In reply, King and other activists positioned themselves on platforms hidden in the tops of the tallest trees in the forest.

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When the lumberjacks began to cut down the forest, the activists would begin to whistle but without revealing their hiding places. This risky action had been kept secret from even the other activists but as soon as the press began to spread the news, protests started to pour into the Forest Service from all sides. Conservationists, scientists, and Maori communities supported the brave protests of the tree-climbers, whilst the wives and families of the lumberjacks opposed what they saw as an illegal action that would endanger their livelihoods. Although this was the first protest of this type that had ever made the world sit up and take notice, a month later the Forestry Service set fire to the trees the activists had occupied and unwittingly burnt other parts of this age-old forest.

Despite this set-back, the action was partially successful: the chainsaws were silenced and a roundtable organized by the Forestry Service to discuss alternative ways of exploiting the forests was attended by various representatives of the interested parties. Subsequently, the public were asked for proposals for the future of Pureora and over 1700 letters were sent in by private citizens, families, environmental associations, scientists, logging companies, and tour operators. Fewer than 1% of the proposals backed the continued exploitation of Pureora and the vast majority underlined the importance of preserving the nation’s forests. Most of the letters were from the country’s cities, which at that time were home to over half the population of New Zealand. Given this flood of proposals and reclamations, the only way to settle the problem for good was to establish a well-defined, long-term management policy.

The growing public awareness of the conflict in Pureora and the controversy generated by a socio-economic study of the different ways of managing the forest forced the Government to take a rapid, drastic decision. The Forestry Service had contracted the Otaga Center for Business Development to study the socio-economic impact that different types of forest exploitation – including a total halt on all logging activities – would have on local communities. After just a couple of months in an unexpectedly short period of time, the Center presented a report that warned against the local population’s overdependence on logging and suggested, instead, that the selective extraction of trees would be the most recommendable system for the forest. Criticism rained down from ecological, sociological, and business interests. The report was accused of showing a lack of impartiality given that it backed selective extraction and did not take into account other possible sources of income that local people could derive from the forests. The economic estimates of potential earnings from the forest after logging had been stopped were also faulty as they ignored the ecosystem services provided by the forest, the value of a standing tree, the possibility that lumberjacks could find new jobs, and the value of the equipment used to cut the timber. Despite these evident miscalculations and all the criticism, the report produced by the Center for Business Development was approved.

However, much to the surprise of all, in July 1978 the New Zealand Government announced a moratorium on all extractive activities in Pureora. Two months later the forest was legally declared a State Forest Park, a less rigorous figure of protection than a national park, and one in which a certain degree of economic activity is still permitted. During this halt to the logging, the scientists were expected to progress in their study of the populations of the North Island kōkako.

Although the scientists were able to begin monitoring the forest’s birds in peace, local people were less fortunate. In the following years, millions were paid in compensation to the logging companies who had been awarded concessions, and the local sawmills were forced to shut up shop, thereby laying off hundreds of workers who received not a cent in compensation. The small villages in the area depended entirely on logging and no other employment opportunities were available. Understandably, most local people failed to see eye-to-eye with the environmentalists in their struggle to save a bird whilst they were left to rot. Whole villages of over 100 people were dismantled: mills, schools, post-offices, and shops were closed and, although a few people managed to stay in the employ of the Forest Service in forest management, the majority were forced to emigrate in search of

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new horizons. Those who refused to leave managed to “reinvent” their communities; some formed cattle cooperatives and used the abandoned playing fields and school gardens to graze their livestock.

In March 1978 it was decide to replace the Forest Service with a Forestry Corporation, a Forestry Ministry, and a Department of Conservation, which began work the following year. Pureora was subdivided: the remaining area of native forest was to be run by the Department of Conservation (including areas of interest for mining, landscape, recreation, and tourism), while the areas with plantations of exotic species were to be looked after by the Forestry Corporation and then subsequently exploited commercially. Once again, thanks to mobilizations organized by Stephen King, part of the forest was regenerated and was handed over to the local Maori communities. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of his climb up one of the forest’s tallest trees, King climbed it again and from the top wrote a letter to the government requesting that the parts of the exotic plantations that were to be sold off be kept and restored to their original state. The Government partially accepted his petition and transferred a section of the plantations to the Maori communities to be restored rather than harvested. Although theoretically a State Forest Park in which some of the forests can be logged, in practice Pureora is treated as a Conservation Park in which all extractive activity is forbidden. In 1987, it began to be managed under a Conservation Act that established the terms of the protection of its natural and historical heritage as a tool for promoting public enjoyment and recreation.

Subsequent changes in governments did not halt the increase in size of the country’s protected areas.

Under this new scenario, research into endemic species such as the kōkako, as well as genetic studies, the control of exotic mammals, and direct management of the birds themselves could all continue apace. Thanks to these studies, the kōkako has recovered in Pureora from just 15 breeding pairs in 1979–1981 to over 115 pairs in 2014, which represents the species’ largest population in New Zealand.

In terms of its recreational uses, Pureora now includes an Area of Sports Hunting in which exotic species such as wild boar and red deer can be shot, which helps control these unwanted invaders. The Park today has infrastructure for welcoming tourists including an interpretation center, a wildlife observation tower, trails, and campsites. Its most popular attraction, though, is the so-called Timber Trail, an 85-km downhill mountain-bike trail designed to be ridden by families over 2–3 days that also helps visitors learn about the culture and history of Pureora. This infrastructure provides jobs for local people and this and the other ecotourism projects that have been set up have already generated income that greatly exceeds the total paid in compensation to logging companies for having halted their activities in the forest.

A complex history of struggle and debate between conflicting interests was played out in the forests of Pureora. Even though on occasions the interests of one particular sector were given priority over and above the demands of the others, over time the authorities and the other interested parties were able to agree upon a shared vision, which has gradually been put into practice to benefit the whole of New Zealand society. There can be no doubt that the actions of passionate people looking to influence governments via pressure exercised by public opinion, combined with the willingness of successive governments to consult people over what they wanted the forests to be used for, were key in ensuring that this story had a happy ending that satisfied the ecological, cultural, and economic interests of the whole region.

SOURCES King, C., Gaukrodger, J., Ritchie, N. (2015). The Drama of Conservation: The History of Pureora Forest, New Zealand. Springer.

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CHAPTER 11.

ORGANIZATIONS TYPES OF PERSONALITIES AND THEIR INTERACTION IN CONSERVATION TEAMS Unlike the widely held perception that we are all unique beings, ever since the days of the Greek (Hippocrates) and Roman (Galen) philosophers the idea has existed that certain basic temperaments or characters define our proclivities, strengths, and weaknesses. A notion dating back centuries identified four classical personality types: melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic, and choleric. It was salvaged by the psychologist Carl Jung in the 1920s and was even used by the United States Army to decide where to post each of the thousands of its nurses who worked during World War II. In more recent years the idea of personality types has been used extensively in businesses and human resource departments, and systems such as the Myers/Briggs and Kersey/Bates Indicators are now widely employed. The first person to speak to me about the importance of the concept of personality types was Devra Kleiman, who for decades played a leading role in the golden lion tamarin recovery program in Brazil (see Box 11.1). Then, another biologist friend, Jorge Gibbons, introduced me to the personality profiling system True Colors created by Don Lowry.1 Since then I have talked about personality types in dozens of workshops and had many conversations on the subject with colleagues, and I am convinced that they can be very useful in any organization for improving personal relationships, managing interpersonal conflicts, assigning roles to team members, and finding the right person for the right job.

The following lines consist of a brief explanation of True Colors (TC). I feel that it is an easy system to understand intuitively as it is both sufficiently simple and flexible to be applicable to almost anybody, but does not resort to stereotypic labels. I have seen how TC has become part of the everyday language we use in the organization I work for and in other like-minded groups with whom we work or exchange ideas. The practical, easily understood, and contagious – almost “viral” – nature of this system has established it as a powerful tool helping conservation teams get the best out of their members and improve their interactions with others.

TC postulates that all of us have a unique combination of the four established personality types or, in its own terminology, colors. Nevertheless, in general – and I can confirm this after years of use and observation – most people tend to have a dominant and a secondary color that define the type of situations and positions where they feel comfortable and where they can “shine.” As well, there are the situations where they have to work harder and where, as a result, they often respond less effectively. Knowing which colors dominate in our personalities and in those of the people we interact with helps us become more aware of our own failings and be more tolerant of the weaknesses of others; likewise, we will become more proficient at assigning responsibilities and identifying the personal weaknesses we need to remedy if we are to carry out our duties appropriately and deal with other people successfully. Personality types are not pre-determined definitions of what we can (or cannot) do; rather, they describe our strengths and weaknesses and those of other people and allow us to manage or cope with them as needs must. They describe tendencies and do not attempt to predict exactly a person’s behavior in any given situation.

A final advantage of this system is that if a whole group incorporates it into their everyday language – as has happened with various groups I have been involved with – it not only helps all get to know their colleagues (and themselves) but also discourages the use of certain tactless words that

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sometimes slip out when talking about those who do things differently from us, since we tend to think our way of working is the “correct way.” The aim of TC – as in any other of the similar systems used by organizations throughout the world – is to encourage us to understand, respect, and approve the actions of those who have different personalities from ours, and to refrain from prejudging, labeling, and stereotyping.

The following paragraphs describe the main characteristics of the four “colors.” It is important not to lose sight of the fact that we are not any one specific color; in other words, we all have unique combinations of the four colors — even though, inevitably, we tend to identify most with one in particular and feel that we have much less of the others. As we will see, each color highlights positive aspects and only touches partially on more negative personality traits. Thus, it is easy to ensure that, once understood, all team members will feel relatively comfortable with “their” color.

Oranges: bold, tactical, spontaneous, and negotiators. People identified by a dominant orange color tend to live for the moment, not plan ahead, and be informal and unpunctual. When in charge they are capable of adapting to change, and take risks, solve practical problems, and manage crises well. As part of a team, they are good at facing up to problems and taking appropriate action, thereby generating an atmosphere of enthusiasm; they see the possibilities that lie ahead, push the team onwards, and work well under pressure. Unlike Greens, Oranges are, above all, tactical rather than strategic thinkers and tend to solve problems straight away instead of making long-term plans.

Their flexible nature enables them to seize opportunities and handle crises better than other personality types. They may appear opportunistic, fickle, and chaotic since, given that they handle emergency situations well, they make no attempt to foresee issues or calculate the risks involved (in fact, they do the opposite). They are intuitively pragmatic, unlike Greens who take decisions based on often time-consuming logical analysis. As they positively thrive on change and adventure, they find it hard to maintain a constant line of work and strive to avoid mundane tasks, and will even provoke “fires” or crises just to escape routine.

Oranges like to play and compete. They are very competitive as they accept that life is a game: all of us have opportunities and it is up to us to grasp them with both hands. Unlike for Blues, for Oranges “the end justifies the means.” This type of world view can lead them to clash with some people as they often fail to take into account what others are doing — unless they form part of their grand game plan. When communicating with Oranges it is essential to get to the point, respect their lack of structured ideas and need for spontaneity, involve them in some kind of physical activity, and appreciate their contagious enthusiasm. In conservation programs they tend to be highly motivational and energetic leaders but their love of taking risks must be compensated for by good advice from people with different personalities or “colors.” They can also be good at tackling tasks that involve risk-taking and tough physical challenges, or that require quick-thinking and improvisation when faced with the unexpected. For readers who are familiar with the Kersey system, Oranges correspond for the most part to the SP personality.2 Blues: empathetic, diplomatic, compassionate, and mediators. People who correspond closely to the “blue” personality ensure that their colleagues are relaxed and comfortable, that everybody in the group can be who they really are, that nobody is excluded from the group, and, above all, that the group dynamic does not break down. They understand the human dimension of a group better than anyone and worry about their workmates’ personal situations, above all outside the workplace.

They like to generate spaces where all can make their voices heard, participate, and feel important, which may stimulate many hitherto hidden talents. They don’t believe that the end justifies the means and, besides simple results, look to ensure that all participants in a process feel comfortable.

However, their emphasis on relationships and the group’s overall well-being can lead them to lose

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sight of an organization’s ultimate goal and the specific tasks that it has been entrusted with: in other words, their exaggerated concern for the details of the process may end up hindering the fulfillment of the mission. The mere existence of an interpersonal clash can make a Blue personality feel so uncomfortable that he or she will do anything (including contradict the organization’s principles) to avoid provoking a conflict. This personality type is the most sensitive to criticism and their feelings can be hurt – and remain so for a protracted period of time – if the criticism is harsh or issued in public, or when they see that others are publicly criticized in the same way. They are very good at appreciating the personal contexts of every situation and reading between the lines, which sets them apart in particular from those with “gold” personalities.

When it comes to communication, Blues are very skillful at dealing with people who talk around the subject and converse using vague allusions, largely because they tend to talk that way too. If patience and three or four attempts at broaching a subject are needed, then a Blue will get you there.

In conservation programs they are particularly good at working with rural or indigenous people who often use implicit forms of communication and are in no hurry to “get to the point.” However, they also get on well with middle-ranking officials who like to talk to someone who will respect their position. Blues are usually thought of as “good people” by those who appreciate this type of personal treatment; on the other hand, they may overthink certain subjects and be regarded as both ambiguous and indecisive by those who want concise replies and rapid action. When dealing with a Blue, it is important to respect their need to talk about personal subjects, to generate a positive atmosphere if dealing with a delicate matter, to invite them to solve problems creatively, and to be sincere — but also to be respectful and understanding in the event of having to deal with tricky subjects. In conservation programs Blues show their worth in public relations, and are proficient at obtaining permits and licenses and, owing to their oral communication skills, are adept in dealings with rural people and communities. A blue personality corresponds most closely to the NF temperament in Kersey’s system.2 Greens: inquisitive, visionaries, analytical, strategists, and architects. Green temperaments think extremely logically and analytically. They have the ability to see the bigger picture from the outside and thus perform accurate cost-benefit analyses. They are also good at seeing how relationships and processes work but, unlike Blues, are less interested in personal details or, unlike Golds, in practical matters. They coincide with Oranges in their ability to adapt to change, although they require more time to analyze whether or not the new situation will generate greater benefits than the former. If justified by positive results they will change their opinions and ways overnight, and will even modify positions that they had once defended passionately. They are very critical of others (and of themselves) but are open to modifying their ways if convinced by rational argument.

Greens respect authorities and hierarchies that are legitimated by the professional or intellectual capacities of their leaders. Yet, they are open to suggestions and criticisms by peers and subordinates if they are expressed logically and clearly. They only consent unwillingly to what they see as “dumb” orders and as leaders will always justify the orders they give (often at great length, to the exasperation of the other colors who just want to get the job done) and try and share the decision-making process.

However, this search for joint solutions (which Greens see as agreeable, respectful, and democratic) may be perceived as a threat or an attack by workmates with other dominant colors who are less capable of – or interested in – analyzing problems, who expect simple clear commands, and who often feel that they (above all, Golds, as we shall see below) are being tested or “analyzed” by Greens.

Unlike Oranges, Greens look ahead and are well versed at creating alternatives in their heads as possible responses to the opportunities and threats that arise. Whilst Golds look anxiously to the future because “things were better in the past” and Oranges optimistically think “everything is going

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to be alright,” Greens observe the future with skepticism and construct a mental series of alternative scenarios. For Golds, there are plans A and B, but for Oranges only plan A until it stops working and they have to invent another; however, for Greens there are plans A, B, C, D, and so on, and for Blues there are mainly “sensations” about what is to be done.

Greens appreciate knowledge for what it is far more than any other color. A “green” house will contain dozens of books and technical manuals, many full of theories and complex models. Like Blues, Greens tend to talk using metaphors and symbols, whilst Oranges and Golds are more explicit.

Given that they tend to get caught up in their own thoughts, Greens can seem distant and uncaring to other people, which can upset them (although they generally fail to express their hurt openly).

People of this temperament are generally articulate, use language precisely, and in speech employ metaphors, similes, and anecdotes, and construct well-structured narratives.

In the context of their teams Greens have a wide-ranging gaze, are good at predicting potential obstacles, are experts at improving efficiency, don’t shrink from challenging established ways of doing things, and tend not to get involved in personal questions. They are often highly critical, and may even ignore the chain of command when they feel that there is no point in obeying it (which offends Golds) or may publicly criticize a colleague (which annoys Blues). Their strengths include their systematic and energetic thought processes and analytic capacities, and their weaknesses a propensity to overcomplicate matters and impatience with what they consider to be incompetence or stupidity.

When communicating with Greens, it is important to respect their need for ideas and logic, to bear in mind that they do have feelings even if they find it hard to express them openly, to be aware of their knowledge and wisdom, to plan what you are going to ask of them and why, and to speak clearly without assuming that they will be able to read between the lines. They often seem to live with their heads in the clouds and at times need to be helped with day-to-day details. We should recognize their ingenuity, intelligence, and professional know-how, and to separate ends and means clearly because, if we don’t, Greens will spot it. They work well with scientists and are adept at strategic planning, evaluation, experimentation, and written communication. They can be good public speakers but rather distant in personal interaction. Greens correspond to the NT temperament in the Kersey system.2 Golds: trustworthy, precise, traditional, implementers, and foresighted. Golds form the backbone of any organization. They base their personalities on the creation, maintenance, and fulfilling of the rules, traditions, and customs that define the group or institution they belong to. Golds share with Greens high standards regarding behavior including all types of professional conduct. Nevertheless, unlike Greens, who tend to study, compare, and reformulate belief systems and customs to create their own versions, Golds tend to be faithful to the standards that define their group and as such are generally intrinsically conservative. They are exact with data and details but struggle to embrace an all-encompassing vision of processes; they often fail to see the wood for the trees, which distinguishes them, above all, from Greens.

Both Oranges and Golds live and act in the real world, unlike Greens and Blues who are both prey to their own thoughts and feelings. Golds feel especially at home with data and details, while Greens prefer to watch processes unfold and embrace theories and abstract ideas; Blues thrive on sensations and feelings and Oranges on change, enthusiasm, and adrenaline. Golds work best for Orange leaders, but may find it difficult to work with both the inquisitive and critical character of Greens (above all, if they question the group’s established structures) and the more abstract, implicit, and intuitive ways of Blues. A person with strong components of both Gold and Blue temperaments may experience certain internal conflict as, on the one hand, they may be demanding and tough with others but, on the other, may abhor the fact that their demands make people feel uncomfortable.

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Golds are unstinting workers who feel comfortable when involved with stable and predictable processes and so are not wont to get bored easily. This sets them apart from Greens and Oranges, and makes them particularly suitable for logistical, administrative, legal, and accounting work. They are good at setting up and running meetings and understand the value of ceremony and appearance, thus compensating for this absence in Oranges. By contrast, they are not so good at creating emotive and creative milieus, although they can transmit ideas with passion if they learn from other colors.

Golds will never stand out as originators of new strategic directions or as designers of experiments but they do have the knack of being able to convert the strategic vision of Greens and the improvisations of Oranges into actual action and rules.

Their principal strength resides in their highly developed sense of responsibility towards the organization they belong to, while their weaknesses include a tendency to be inflexible and an obsession with sticking to the rules and regulations come what may, regardless of context or strategic priorities. As bosses, they have a predisposition towards micro-management and find it hard to delegate as “no one does things as well as I do.” When communicating with Golds it is best to be clear and direct and not be tempted to “sweeten” things up (which you might do with Blues). In general, Golds feel happier receiving specific orders and instructions than questions or queries — indeed, orders are what they expect from their superiors. When dealing with Golds it is vital to be organized and to have all details at hand, to fulfill all commitments undertaken, to plan and coordinate activities ahead of time to avoid having to improvise, to respect their love of tradition and stability, and to give clear support for their need for structure and security. Golds appreciate, above all, people who speak clearly and are predictable, trustworthy, and loyal, a personality type that corresponds in essence to the SJ temperament in Kersey’s system.2 Using personality types in conservation teams. Knowing our own personality type (or combination of colors) and those of the people we have to interact with in conservation processes will help us: • To be more tolerant with people who differ from us, which will improve communication within our organization and with other people.

• To prevent unnecessary personal and institutional conflicts. A good example of this is the strategic selecting of those we choose to dialogue with from other groups on the basis of their personality type (that is, their “color”) rather than their position in the group.

• To be more strategic when designating tasks and responsibilities to ourselves and the rest of the team in order to take full advantage of all the qualities of all team members, to minimize frustrations that arise when someone is assigned a task they do not feel comfortable with, and to ensure that as many team members as possible feel fulfilled in positions in which they can “shine.”

• To be more efficient when choosing team members for vacant positions by taking greater heed of how their personalities will fit the tasks they will be required to undertake than of their professional experience or academic record.

When the personality types of team members are known throughout the organization, and are understood, shared, and constitute part of the team’s daily internal discourse, a degree of awareness builds up that improves interactions between group members, increases tolerance to other personalities, and strengthens the notion that “to get anywhere, all types of personality are necessary.” In my experience, when this type of knowledge is used appropriately (i.e. to encourage comprehension and tolerance and rebuff stereotyping and scorn towards “inadequate” colors) group ties are bolstered and the work of the organization is reinforced so that this body of diverse people joined by a common cause that forms the entity in question can sparkle both individually and collectively.

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DIFFERENT ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES AND THEIR ROLE IN CONSERVATION Each organization has its own set of rules, traditions, structures, policies, and philosophies that create a single culture. Nevertheless, even though no two organizations are ever exactly the same – just as no two people are ever identical – there do seem to exist a certain number of basic types of organizational cultures. And understanding their distinct types and strengths and weaknesses will help us design and implement the organizational structures that are best suited to our mission. A useful descriptive framework proposed by Handy defines four basic types of organizational cultures: power, role, task, and person.3 Power culture. Organizations with a power culture generally have a single central head or leader who defines strategic tasks and from whom radiate the organization’s principal decisions. Such cultures occur in small organizations with short histories, family businesses, and government bodies or NGOs where technical levels have little political influence and obedience to a leader is paramount. In power cultures people are chosen in terms of their proximity to and confidence in the leader rather than any purely professional criteria. When they work well, team members operate as one and seem to communicate by telepathy. These close ties recall how the musicians in an orchestra or the members of a sports team that have been playing together for years understand each other. In this type of organization, the terms “team” and “group” are extensively used; whoever is unable to work in harmony runs the risk of being excluded and regarded as a “foreign body” regardless of his or her professional capacity and aptitudes.

This type of culture is characterized by vertical relationships focused on the leader and often no formal organigram exists. This makes these organizations very “political” and engenders constant jockeying for position to get closer to the power-wielders, which can lead team members to prioritize access to the leader over everything else including the overall institutional vision of the entity.

These leaders are especially skilled at responding to crises and unforeseen events since decisions can be taken and implemented more swiftly than in other types of organizations. However, the success or otherwise of the project will depend greatly on the quality of the leader and their closest collaborators. Meetings and contacts are quick and informal and based on rapid communication (e.g. short conversations, e-mails, and WhatsApp messages) rather than formal notes, memos, or internal reports. Those who work best in this environment tend to feel at home in risk situations, are comfortable playing internal and external politics, and are not searching above everything else for job security. Of the personality types discussed above, Oranges are best suited to assuming leadership roles in this type of organizational culture, with Greens acting as assessors and Golds and Blues as followers of the Oranges.

Role culture. This type of culture is clearly structured in terms of a series of pre-established roles and positions rather than specific individuals. This tends to create complex but durable organigrams in which workers adapt to their jobs and not vice versa. Team members are – ideally – selected on a basis of their suitability for the job to be done and not for their character or ability to get on with the bosses. Often, these roles or positions remain unchanged for years and team members move from job to job. These organizations tend to be large and have time-honored bureaucratic structures and ways of working (good examples include government departments, big businesses, and large international NGOs). Vertical relationships dominate in what is a relatively inflexible organigram that in the largest, best-established organizations tends to contain many different tiers or hierarchies. If in power cultures there is much talk of leadership, teams, and group spirit, in role cultures the emphasis is much more on job descriptions, rules, and colleagues. Both internal and external meetings and contacts are formal and follow pre-established rituals with written communication

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via memos and minutes. At times, rules regarding procedures and responsibilities take precedence over strategic objectives and specific tasks and concepts. Enormous importance is given to sticking to the rules even if such intransigence may hamper the performance of certain important tasks or make it impossible to take advantage of fleeting opportunities. If a decision is not put in writing it doesn’t exist.

This type of organization is thus somewhat inflexible and finds it hard to adapt since its members will always look to comply with pre-existing rules and regulations before creating a new framework better suited to each particular situation. This type of culture is especially useful for managing predictable and standardized systems (e.g. accounts, storage, logistics, and permits) but is less adroit at coping with more uncertain scenarios beset by risks and crises that do not conform to accepted rules or protocols. Such organizations therefore tend to be conservative in nature and reward workers who fulfill their roles without taking unnecessary risks or showing too much initiative. They are particularly attractive for people who value stability and a steady job, and who – unlike Oranges – do not welcome too much workplace excitement or too many novelties (which only make them feel insecure).

Task culture. This culture focuses on the development of specific projects. The project is the basis of everything and people are contracted for their ability to perform certain specific tasks. Once the task has been completed, in general that person is now no longer needed and so this type of organization tends to change shape and composition according to the projects and tasks to be performed.

This often leads to a rapid turnover of staff who have to adapt to the different roles required by the project if they are to continue as part of the organization. Communication is less ritualized than in role cultures and formal evaluations and technical reports tend to be more esteemed than in a power culture. Horizontal relationships based on professional capacity dominate and far less importance is given to personal links to the bosses or obedience to the rules. Criticism (even of the bosses if warranted), new ideas, and group reflection are welcome. Members of this type of organization tend to have great freedom to take decisions and leaders limit themselves to delegating tasks. Given that there is no leader or clear internal body of regulations, this culture can be difficult to govern, above all if recourses are scarce and within-team relationships are poor.

In this culture, new and unforeseen problems tend to provoke systematic analysis of the situation and little is left to intuition. This can mean that responses take longer – due to time lost in interminable discussions – than in a power culture but in general this culture is less resistant to change than, say, a role culture. In fact, in times of crisis this culture easily transmutes into a power-based culture if one of the “horizontal” members or parts of the team takes over the leadership owing to their ability to handle a calamity, a move that other members of the teams may find hard to assimilate.

A task culture encourages the presence of professionals seeking stimulating projects (or well-paid ones) on which to work intensively in the short-term rather than people pursuing stable, long-term positions. The most suitable personality types for this culture are Greens, followed by Oranges. This type of culture is especially propitious for carrying out highly technical, experimental, and innovative tasks, and for diagnosing situations, leading planning processes, and strategic innovation. Words typically heard in this type of organization are “project,” “expert,” “team,” “goals,” and “indicators.”

Person culture. This is the case of organizations that consist of a group of people with differing interests who get together to share “common expenses” but without creating a clear organigram, hierarchy, or working methodology designed to coordinate progress towards a common goal. Typical examples include small NGOs created by groups of friends, research centers, and academic groups.

They usually lack a common overriding goal, detailed rules regarding organization, or clear leadership. They are especially good at stimulating a free flow of ideas and creativity but less skilled at

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encouraging enduring team work or responding as one in the event of a crisis. Consequently, they are not very effective at steering or managing conservation processes over long periods of time. Even so, professionals working in this culture can work with other groups on specific projects, and organizations with dominant person cultures may make positive alliances with organizations where other cultures dominate. The personalities that best work together in this culture are Blues and Greens, and those that fit in least well are Golds.

It is worth stopping to reflect on which type of culture is best for managing conservation programs.

The answer is that it depends on the type of process and the size of the organization. Most organizations working on conservation projects of a certain size will have to confront the following tasks: • Routine: administration, infrastructure, maintenance, licenses, etc.

• Technical/scientific experiments • Strategy/politics • Crisis management Each of the four cultures works best in one of these four key areas of activity, as shown in Figure 11.2. Depending on the relative importance of each of these four activities within the mandate and context of the institution, one culture or another will be the most apposite for a particular conservation program. Much will also depend on historical context and the direction the organization is taking. For example, during the initial phases of the recovery program of an endangered species that require experimentation and risks, the best option is a power culture, with clear leadership offering good strategic and political vision, combined with a good dose of task culture. As the program matures and captive breeding centers are set up and reintroduced populations become established, and when captive breeding techniques are successful and the organization can count on a solid human and technological apparatus, then it is time to opt for a role culture that will “stabilize” the whole system and rule out any temptation to indulge in improvisation or unnecessary experiments.

Power Power Task

Task Crisis Experimentation

Strategy

Routine People

People

Roles Figure 11.3 Diagram showing the main tasks required by a conservation organization and the most appropriate cultures for each one.

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Beyond the differences that exist between different organizations and historical epochs, most conservation programs able to guarantee good results and generate genuine change will require political muscle, crisis management, experimentation, and innovation. In these cases, a mix of power culture guided by visionary leaders with practical experience, combined with a task culture focused on explicit urgent objectives (often referred to as task forces) will probably be highly effective. You can supplement this dominant culture with role subcultures in order to perform management and administrative tasks and with temporary members and external allies who otherwise would be more at home in a person culture.

REFERENCES 1 Miscisin, M. (2001) Showing your True Colors. True Colors Inc. Publishing.

2 Keirsey, D. (1998). Please understand me 2. Prometheus Nemesis Book Company.

3 Handy, C. (1999). Inside organizations: 21 ideas for managers. Penguin UK.

Box 11.3

CONSTRUCTING A RELEVANT WILDLIFE SERVICE IN A PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Juan Jiménez, Head of the Valencian Government’s Wildlife Service, Spain The beginnings I remember well the day I was asked, 30 years ago, to form part of the first conservation service set up by the Government of the Valencian Autonomous Region (Spain). Although delighted at being able to work at something I really liked and to “resolve,” at a stroke, my professional future (in Spain we thought then – and still do to a certain extent – that a job as a civil servant is forever), I was still daring enough to ask my future boss which wildlife service was he inspired by. He answered the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), which I knew of through publications and documentary films, and so I accepted the offer. Thirty years later, 15 of which as head of this Service, I cling to this vision even though I have never actually got to know how the USFWS works from the inside — that’s the thing about personal inspiration.

Throughout these long years of work I have been able to reflect and make decisions aimed at constructing a Wildlife Service capable of playing a relevant role in the management of ecosystems and wildlife populations. My concern has always been how to ensure that our Service is as politically relevant as all the other directorates and agencies empowered to act on the environment, and that our opinions, knowledge, and strategies are taken into account by the decision-makers (the bosses) and the rest of Valencian society.

To begin with, the problem that all workers in nature conservation have lies in the very word “conservation,” which generally makes us suspicious of any project that introduces change into the natural environment. This may be based on the belief that if nothing changes, then everything will be better. Or on a misunderstanding of the principal of responsibility whereby we exonerate ourselves in the event of any change that puts a species or habitat at risk by writing uncommitted reports that “cover our backs” and absolve ourselves of any accountability. The first assumption is in many cases erroneous, above all in countries such as Spain and the rest of Europe where human activity has for centuries been modifying the presence of species and habitats. The second example is in my opinion

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irresponsible since in the mid- or long-term it can detach us from the decision-making process as, if the contents of a report are predictable, then there is no sense in commissioning it.

The next problem lies in the fact that – at least in Spain – a job as a civil servant is a job for life — other than in the event of extreme misconduct such as physically attacking a colleague, repeated absenteeism, a misuse of funds, or a constant failure to comply with regulations in an attempt to seek personal gain. Simple poor workmanship or delays in executing decisions are generally regarded as inevitable in public bodies. That said, entry into the civil service in Spain and in similar countries is a demanding process but, once in, it is almost impossible to be turfed out. This inherent difficulty in sacking a civil servant in a fixed “position” reduces any motivation there may be to achieve results or to “do things properly” since it is clear that holding onto the job does not depend on results.

The civil service system in neither flexible nor transparent enough to reward workers or make demands of them given that promotion (I know of no way of actually demoting someone from a position) is very tied to political questions, friendships, and relationships of trust (let it be said, though, that these two latter factors are also present in private enterprises). In this context it is understandable that it is difficult to galvanize a group of civil servants who can’t be promoted or be paid more, and to persuade them to work more under stricter conditions than their colleagues — who are essentially interchangeable. How then to achieve this? I believe the key is to possess tools that work within, above, and outside the service.

Working within the Service The main thing is to build a vision. I say the “main” thing and not the “first” thing since to have a workable vision you need years of experience. I’ve already mentioned that I was originally seduced by the USFWS, whose principles heavily influenced the configuration of our nascent Service. Essentially, we base our work on our excellent technical capacity, which involves the active monitoring of both natural and human-driven processes and subsequent controlled and evaluated interventions.

In terms of the long-term direction of our Service, if I can choose, I make an effort to attract top professionals with a broad-based knowledge of our flora and fauna. When we created the Service I was lucky in that we were able to develop a group of people who had professional experience outside the public administration as well as solid links with the universities and conservationist movements.

Unlike other similar services, whose members have little work experience when they join, our wildlife experts were already well versed in the subjects they had to tackle and well respected beyond the world of the administration. This positive technical ability and academic reputation (many of our staff are in fact PhDs) confers great credibility on our work.

I also ask of the people who come to work with us that they have an excellent knowledge of the territory they will be working in. By this, I mean not only biological and geographic knowledge but also how local people think, how vested interests behave, and how people live in rural areas, as well as a grasp of some of the history (the past 200 years, for example) of the relationships between our human settlements, landscapes, ecosystems, and wild animal and plant species.

Once established (the group will inevitably vary somewhat over the years), I gauge its enthusiasm for the tasks in hand: to what extent does each member of the group see his- or herself as a possible agent for positive change in conservation matters? Some will see themselves as leaders, above all when involved with habitat or species restoration. Others will regard themselves simply as necessary links in the chain required to perform the allotted tasks — and then will head for home with the job well done. The bottom line is that they commit themselves to the project in the long term, enjoy their work, and are happy to explain to family and friends how proud they are to be earning their living working for the common good.

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I also ask my team members that, when evaluating projects that affect species and habitats, they do not limit themselves to purely legal and administrative issues but that they also take into account the effects on populations and connectivity, and the potential reversibility of any potential impact.

A simple recital of legal texts and regulations is the quickest way for those of us working in conservation to lose all of our credibility, as in this way we will all end up being replaced by legal advisors who normally lack sufficient ecological knowledge and experience to evaluate impacts in real situations. To fully understand the ecology and the responses of populations to disturbance you have to be well up on the scientific literature; even more importantly, you need experience in population monitoring, and should be well aware of the factors affecting how populations evolve (i.e. productivity, trophic resources, reactions to environmental changes, etc.) and how ecosystems function (i.e. inter-specific competition, reactions to abiotic factors, and the possible responses to habitat change and the absence of disturbance). A humanized environment like ours is a wonderful place to learn how species and ecosystems respond to a wide array of disturbances. In many cases there’s no need to search the literature to discover what will happen if a new road is built or if a wetland is ploughed up since there are hundreds of examples close to home.

Nevertheless, for the motivated professional, a role as a mere monitor of what’s going on will probably not satisfy his or her professional longings to act and have a positive impact; this can be achieved by undertaking projects in which personal initiative is key. It must be said, though, that introducing personal projects into what is otherwise a team activity needs to be done with delicacy.

Any project to be launched must be coherent with the overall vision of the Service (e.g. work with threatened species), have clear objectives (e.g. reach a point in which the species in question is no longer threatened), and be subject to continuous monitoring (measureable results must be presented at least once a year). Over the years, we have worked successfully with plants, animals, and habitats but we have also had our failures — all, however, have taught us something. We’ve closed down many projects, some because we failed and some because we fulfilled our targets, and then started fresh ones; our resources are always finite but, above all, we aim to keep alive our spirit of enterprise.

Finally, to ensure that the internal cohesion of the Service – replete with projects requiring great personal dedication, often territorially scattered and functionally highly diverse (technically, administratively, and operationally) – does not suffer, we have discovered that an annual calendar of events helps us preserve our identity as a group. At the beginning of each year we meet up to look back at the previous year and discuss the projects of the year ahead; in May we hold our Biodiversity Week in which most of the Service’s staff leave the office and undertake five day’s fieldwork at a previously chosen site (which is generally received with great satisfaction locally); in October we organize a day of bonding when we all grab tools and head out into the field to help restore a habitat; and, finally, at the end of the year we meet up and poke fun affectionately at ourselves!

I’m sure that much of this won’t come as anything new to most high-powered management teams, above all in the world of business. However, it is much rarer to find this – the singular sense of belonging and identity that we have created in our Service – in a public administration.

Working above the Service None of what we do will have any relevance if we are unable to communicate our results and processes upwards. Our superiors’ trust in us is essential if we are to be able to complete our projects and receive appropriate backing in the shape of both human and financial resources.

In our administration, my chiefs are the General Directors appointed by the Government, often as a result of their past political work. Given that nature conservation tends not to be a priority on the political agenda, I have had to work with many General Directors over the years. Let’s say

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that, on average, they change every couple of years, which has given me ample experience in the subject: I can safely say that I have no preference for either young or old, experienced or inexperienced, women or men, biologists or lawyers. That said, they all share characteristics that we need to appreciate if we are to get on with them.

Our bosses like to be recognized as such and don’t appreciate being told what to do. Presenting a project backed up by a vast array of administrative or environmental reasoning, and concluding that it must be signed off without debate does not generally work (unless your boss in question cares very little for the project or activity in question). The best way to ensure that a relevant project is approved is to present a series of alternatives that your boss will have to study and choose from. This is known as “discretional” behavior – choosing one out of a number of alternatives – and is what characterizes good government (this is not the task of the technical staff), and is very different from “arbitrary” behavior, which is based on impulses and whims (even though they are often confused).

How can we positively influence how our superiors think and act? At first I thought that this could be done by avoiding personal opinions, presenting good-quality data clearly and simply, and offering a number of possible options. I have never met the head of department who can fully digest a report as long as this article, full of scientific names (which they find superfluous) and legal considerations (which often seem aggressive); a couple of pages with a map and a table is often good enough. Nonetheless, after many years of presenting these abbreviated documents, I can roundly affirm that the way to influence your superiors in this context is to gain their confidence.

Thus, the question should be: how can I earn the trust of my boss? First of all, you have to respect the established hierarchy, which evidently will put them at ease. Then, work hard but quickly to fulfill their demands. No boss likes to be kept waiting just because you have a lot of work or more important things on your plate. Try to use their language and not seem too distant or over-fond of academic jargon. Offer advice, respect their desire to be discreet, and leave them looking good. This may not seem a very attractive roadmap for someone with a high-powered professional CV, but, believe me, if you manage to get the trust of your superiors, your work and all your projects are much more likely to be successful.

Working outside the Service It is important to remember that our Service is a cog in a large machine (a regional government) and exists to serve the people. Governmental organizations tend to spend a lot of time looking inwards and justifying their actions to themselves. The logical way of establishing an effective outward-looking relationship with others is by making it clear that we care about “those outside” and, however much we lament that we are busy with other things, we will respond to their needs.

Firstly, we should never shirk direct contact with the public. When we are evaluating projects, I ask my staff to talk to all those involved, be they local people, businesses, or administrations. Contrary to what some think, I believe that a decision that takes into account local and sectorial interests will always be fairer and less arbitrary, and even subject to change, if the people behind it appreciate its weak points. I don’t worry that this contact between my staff and local people on the ground might be construed as exerting pressure because these people will always be in touch directly with our superiors. It is always better to get to know them personally as a means of arming ourselves with first-hand information on their standpoints and interests.

The other key to ensuring that these “others” feel that they are being taken into account is to simply answer their enquiries quickly. Surprisingly, I receive more thanks for a quick “no” than for a “yes” that takes too long. Answering quickly keeps you in the decision-making chain and also allows

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you to get on with your other tasks – the ones that really inspire – that generally do not coincide with many of the things that are asked of you.

How can we be sure that our work is noticed? In the first place, if we have done our jobs well, we provide clear comparable information regarding the presence or absence of species or habitats that require legal protection. Specifically, we achieve this through the Biodiversity Database of the Valencian Autonomous Region, an open-access tool that boasts around 2 million georeferenced records corresponding to 19,000 wild species. All the information is accessible at a scale of 1 km², even for some of our most threatened species. Contrary to what some voices cautioned, this precision has not – to the best of our knowledge – increased the negative impact on any of these species by hunters or plant collectors (they have their own ways of obtaining information that don’t require the Internet).

It has turned out to be an excellent passive and preventative way of protecting wild populations: anybody who wants to carry out an activity where it is publicly known that there is a population of a threatened species will have to confront, to say the least, a series of additional difficulties. As a public resource, in the 10 years that we have been working on this project nobody has ever accused us of publishing false information or asked us to remove over-sensitive data.

To conclude, the two keys to looking outwards and earning credibility in our work are communication and participation. We need to be visible and transparent, that is, to explain to all everything that we know and what we spend our money on. Unlike what used to be said, knowledge is only power if it is made available. If you keep what you know to yourself, you lose the trust of other people and run the risk of not being involved when the process becomes public. In terms of participation, it is evident that a single Service will not change things to any great extent, however much it is backed up by the pertinent administration. The importance of having a well-informed and well-respected team is that it will be accepted as a guide for the actions of others, be it by teaching them how to do things or by evaluating subsequently the success of their actions. And, with that, we will have completed the large journey between Potestas and Auctoritas that I outlined in the previous Box.

Box 11.4

AN INDIAN TRANSFORMATION: CHANGING THE CULTURE OF A GOVERNMENTAL CONSERVATION AGENCY Harbhajan Singh Pabla. Former Chief Wildlife Warden, Madhya Pradesh State (India) India woke up to centuries of incessant loss of her wildlife and biodiversity late in the twentieth century, when two landmark developments stemmed the decline for the first time in history, albeit temporarily. The Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972 created a comprehensive legal framework for designating protected areas (PAs) for wildlife, regulation of hunting, and trade in wildlife products.

Almost at the same time, in 1973, Project Tiger was launched and captured the imagination of the country like no other conservation program had done in history. The recovery in tiger populations within tiger reserves seemed to affirm the country’s belief in the dictum that “nature shall take care of itself if left alone.” However, while we were seeing the shining successes of our tiger reserves, the country continued to lose wildlife outside the reserves. While the depletion of wildlife outside protected areas, due to habitat degradation and poaching by locals and smugglers, was understandable, though regrettable, we also lost species inside protected areas due to a combination of factors, not

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yet clearly understood. PAs are meant to preserve all the species of plants and wildlife, not just tigers, even if one is called a Tiger reserve. Extinction of a species within a protected area means our conservation strategy is not comprehensive enough to neutralize all the decimating factors which different species face, even under a protected environment.

Our PA management is essentially limited to protection of animals against poaching and protection of habitat against grazing by domestic livestock, fires, encroachments, etc. Although there is no way of ensuring foolproof protection to animals against poaching, even in a so-called PA, due to their open boundaries and the mobility of animals, small populations can be wiped out by predation and competition as well. Management of wildlife populations to balance poaching, predation, competition, and habitat availability is the cornerstone of modern conservation across the world, but Indian law and policies discourage such an interventionist approach. While the activists have been forcing the government to become more and more preservationist, it never occurred to the wildlife managers of the country that anything other than protection was also required for effective conservation. Reintroduction of the rhino in Dudwa National Park in the 1980s was almost forgotten as a one-off event. As a result, India has just not developed the expertise and wherewithal to undertake active wildlife management programmes. Even when interventions to stem the decline of certain species should have been the obvious solution, we never considered such solutions primarily because of the lack of ability to do so. Moreover, local extinctions of wild animals which may not yet be critically endangered, though lamented, were never taken seriously by society, forgetting the fact that all global extinctions begin only as local depletions. Thus, when we lost gaur from Bandhavgarh and blackbuck from Kanha in the 1990s, it did not raise the same deafening hue and cry which we heard when we lost tigers from Sariska in 2005 and Panna in 2009. Nor did anybody think of stopping these extinctions by reinforcing the declining populations, through translocation from elsewhere, before the extinction was complete. We just did not have the culture of managing wildlife; we only protected it.

But all that has changed now, at least in the state of Madhya Pradesh (MP). While much of the world was wringing its hands in despair over the inexorable loss of biodiversity, Madhya Pradesh Forest Department (MPFD) decided to take the proverbial bull by the horns. It took an unthinkable plunge into the realm of retrieving the lost heritage of its various national parks via the reintroduction of the lost species. Between 2009 and 2015, MP brought back four species, namely, tiger (Panthera tigris), gaur (Bos gaurus), blackbuck (Antelope cervicapra) and swamp deer (Cervus duvauceli branderi), through reintroduction, after their local extinctions. In this process the state has also acquired the capacity to prevent any future extinction by supplementing and reinforcing dwindling populations before they fall off the cliff.

As in many other countries of the region, conservation of wildlife in India is the responsibility of the Forest Departments staffed by foresters, not wildlife managers. Although things have changed now, wildlife (not wildlife management) was only an insignificant and peripheral part of a forester’s training until the 1980s. Although a large number of protected areas were designated after the new Wildlife (Protection) Act came into being in 1972, there were no professional PA managers in the country. Moreover, because a PA manager was required to be nothing more than a poor man’s policeman, any forester was considered good enough for that job: he or she would do one or two short stints as a PA manager in a 35-year career, spending the rest of his or her career planting trees and hauling timber. Thus, until recently, India did not have a class of professional wildlife managers who could develop the consistent, long-term thinking about conservation of wildlife that comes from a lifetime, even generations, of professional work and involvement. Mine was the first generation of Indian foresters who received some kind of professional training in wildlife management and some

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of us chose to make our careers in wildlife management, within the forest bureaucracies. This long association with wildlife gave us an opportunity to reflect on the state of affairs in the conservation domain and we started forming some more definitive vision about wildlife management in the country, in comparison to the previous generations of foresters. Opportunities, though rare, to travel to countries like South Africa, USA, Australia, etc., where wildlife management was far more advanced than in India, further helped in refining this new vision. Incidentally, I was one of the lucky few PA managers of my generation to become the head of the wildlife wing (Chief Wildlife Warden) of the state, and got a chance to do what I thought we should have been doing all along, i.e. actively and objectively manage wildlife populations.

I had seen some gorgeous species disappear from the PAs I had managed in my younger days and always considered these events as our professional failures. Although the thoughts of bringing them back had crossed my mind all along, I had to push them away as impractical fancies, because we neither had the capacity nor the culture of doing such things. But when I sensed an opportunity to pull it off, I hugged it tightly. Thus, when &Beyond, a commercial ecotourism company from South Africa, which also had the capacity to translocate large mammals in large numbers, decided to expand into Madhya Pradesh in 2006, and agreed to help us build our capacity in that field, my joy knew no bounds. In 2011 and 2012, &Beyond worked with us, shoulder-to-shoulder, in translocating 50 gaurs, also known as the Indian bison, from Kanha National Park to Bandhavgarh National Park.

The South African experts also trained our veterinarians and other field staff in modern wildlife capture and transportation techniques. With the successful reintroduction of gaur in Bandhavgarh National Park, it was natural for us to become more ambitious. So, we prepared plans for reintroduction of blackbuck in Kanha National Park and swamp deer in Satpura Tiger Reserve, which have since been successfully carried out. The expertise acquired by the department in implementing these plans has now been fully internalized and hundreds of animals are now being moved around, either to bolster prey base in tiger reserves or to reduce crop damage. The reintroduction of tigers in Panna National Park, which in fact started as a reinforcement program, is now complete. The reserve is not only full of tigers to capacity, it is already donating tigers to other parks. The successful training and release of two orphaned and hand-reared tigresses in Panna in 2011, has opened the doors to an entirely different road to large cat conservation. Since then, several orphaned wild tigers, reared in captivity in different reserves, have been released in the wild and have bred successfully.

Although several other reintroduction projects, like the lions and cheetahs in Kuno sanctuary, tigers in Madhav National Park, and white tigers in Sanjay Tiger Reserve (from where the father of all the white tigers of the world came), are still awaiting a final decision, I have no doubt that one day all this will be done. Perhaps new wildlife reserves will be created in India as well, as is done in Africa, by translocating animals from elsewhere, rather than waiting endlessly for nature to fill the reserves. MP Forest Department now has the experience, expertise, and the enthusiasm to undertake ventures which were mere fancies a few years ago! And all this is happening despite some very restrictive laws, conservative mindsets, and bureaucratic straitjackets.

I am often asked how we were able to pull off all this in a country where bureaucracy is believed to be so averse to taking risks of any kind. Although it does sound like self-aggrandizement, there is no other way of explaining this adventurous journey except my own madness and infatuation with the idea of leaving Madhya Pradesh’s wilderness as rich as, or better than, I had inherited it. I was uncomfortable with the feeling that we had lost entire populations of several species from our PAs, without ever trying to do anything except squirming in despair. Another concern that had been bugging me for long was that wildlife conservation in India was so low-tech that almost anybody could do it. Apart from digging a few ponds here and there, the only thing we did in the name of

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conservation was to patrol the forests, which could be done better by any police agency. I thought we needed to be doing something more sophisticated, more adventurous, and more effective to earn the respect of society, if for nothing else. If we have only failures to show, and no ways of recovering the lost ground, our crying for more resources and capacity would not move any hearts, I used to think. Patrolling is of course critical but off and on it will fail and criminals and other drivers of degradation would have an upper hand. Leaving a reserve to the mercies of nature, without any attempt to repair the damage done by poachers (even by nature), is nothing but incompetence and callousness. So, when I thought we had an opportunity, and the capacity, to change all that, I could not resist the temptation to test the waters.

I do not think bureaucrats, in general, are reluctant to tread the untrodden path just because they are afraid of any adverse consequences for themselves in case of failure. On the other hand, I believe a government position is the safest place to take risks in pursuit of something you believe in, as probably the only thing that can wreck your career is getting caught in a case of financial wrong-doing. Any technical or administrative errors, even sheer incompetence, can invite only a transfer or a minor punishment, even in a worst-case scenario. Losing one’s job or getting a major punishment for administrative or technical lapses is almost unheard of, at least, in India. A lot of young minds come to the civil service with a real fire in the belly to do good to the society but end up doing nothing, primarily due to the complicated decision-making systems, not due to any lack of individual initiative. If you know that your idea can germinate only after a dozen permissions from the people who do not understand what you are talking about, not many will have the perseverance, or the speed, to be able to achieve something before their tenure in that position ends. If one looked at old government records, one would come across hundreds of wonderful initiatives which never saw the light of day because others prevented someone from taking a risk with something he or she believed in.

We went through all this too. I was often advised not to put my career on the line but when I discussed the risks with my well-wishers, nothing concrete came out. A transfer could have lowered my prestige a little but not my salary! In fact, I was transferred in the middle of our tiger reintroduction program in Panna Tiger Reserve, but luckily, I was back in less than a year. When the first gaur we darted barely escaped death and the second one actually died, I did imagine a gruesome future for myself, but that was only a fleeting weakness as I had a strong faith in bureaucratic safety.

When we lost some translocated Blackbucks in Kanha, due to capture myopathy, our permission to translocate swamp deer to Satpura Tiger Reserve was suspended (why these blackbucks, which are a crop pest all across India, died is a separate story). The most difficult thing for me was to obtain all the permissions from the central government. Almost all the permissions came with impossible conditions imposed by people who, inexplicably, wanted to play safe, despite knowing fully well that all the risk was mine. And all the permissions were cancelled at least once, midstream, on flimsy grounds, when we had already spent considerable sums in preparations and infrastructure. Though it may sound paradoxical, scientists and activists were generally opposed (at best neutral) to these initiatives. In fact, I was transferred out of my position, in the middle of the tiger reintroduction program in Panna, under pressure from these groups.

Looking back, I can see no reason, except my own perseverance and sheer luck, that all the pieces finally fell in place and we were able to produce results which could encourage my successors to continue on that path. Not many in government jobs, in India, get the seven years I got in the same office (including a 10-month interruption) which allowed me to go after my passion. And a dynamic minister opened all the doors every time they were slammed in my face by my own colleagues! I think my sincerity somehow touched his heart and he forced his officials to revive the stalled per-

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missions whenever he came to know. In fact, he would sometimes call me to know what he could do to facilitate my work. Once he brought one of his key officials to my office and forced us to sit together and find an agreed way to revive the cancelled permissions, without anyone having to lose face. Without his support, not much would have happened!

My return as the Chief Wildlife Warden, after I was unceremoniously shunted out, was another stroke of luck, although I was fully resigned to retire without having anything further to do with wildlife. The new Chief Secretary of my state, who had been the secretary of the forest department earlier and knew of my passion, immediately put me back in the coveted (though hot) seat. And most of the stuff we are talking about here happened in that second stint of 22 months before I bade adieu to the Indian Forest Service. Although people used to tell me that nobody was likely to be so foolhardy as to carry my legacy forward, they have been proved wrong. The tiger reintroduction program continued even when I was out of the office, while my successors have achieved a landmark success with the reintroduction of swamp deer in Satpura Tiger Reserve. Hundreds of spotted deer (Axis axis) have been shifted out of Van Vihar, Pench, and Bandhavgarh national parks to other parks. Recently, they captured several crop-raiding blue bulls (Boselaphus tragocamelus) for translocation, opening a new chapter in mitigating human-wildlife conflict, using their new-found expertise in the mass capture of herbivores.

Although I was keen that the experience and expertise acquired through our programmes should be institutionalized with the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), which is responsible for wildlife research and training in India, we did not do anything specifically to ensure that our legacy lives on in the state. So, what is the reason that the wildlife translocation programmes did not die with the departure of their protagonist, as is often the case with individual fancies? I think the reason is that similar ideas were on the minds of everyone dealing with wildlife management but things did not happen because of lack of exposure, experience, and expertise. Now that they have done it, not once but several times, there is no stopping them.

Interestingly, another remarkable operation was going on at the same time in the state of Assam where reintroduction of the great Indian one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) has been going on in the Manas National Park since 2008. The rhino population in this park has now reached 30, despite heavy poaching. After the reintroduction of the rhino in Dudwa National Park in 1980s, where the species still lives in a fenced space, this was perhaps the only significant reintroduction operation undertaken in India, besides ours, since then. Hopefully, other states will pick up the gauntlet sooner or later, and many more such resurrections will take place in the Indian wilderness.

If that fortuitous coincidence, of my coming back to the wildlife wing of the MPFD after a 15-year absence, and &Beyond’s coming to Madhya Pradesh, had not happened, we would perhaps have still been the same laid-back government agency, counting extinctions, rather than resurrections.

This transformation was just an accident, like life itself!