Indigenous livelihoods and the global environment: understanding relationships

Simple simulation models have been built in remote locations with participation of local Indigenous peoples and their representatives to develop a shared understanding of the livelihood implications of conservation initiatives and the potential environmental impacts of measures to improve local livelihoods.\ud \ud Models were built with Ba'aka people in the Congo Basin, Punans and other Dayak groups in East Kalimantan, Indonesia and rural communities in Ghana. Recently, the program began developing landscape partnerships and modeling initiatives with Papuans in the West Papua province of Indonesia. The models facilitated discussion and negotiation between Indigenous peoples and representatives of conservationist groups, resource extraction companies and government officials and allowed exploration of different scenarios for both conservation and development interventions.\ud \ud The models failed to produce empirical evidence to support claims made by conservation organisations of the positive livelihood impacts of their conservation programmes. In all cases the material benefits to local Indigenous people of activities such as mineral extraction, logging, agro-industrial developments etc. greatly exceed the often hypothetical benefits postulated from the small-scale local development activities of conservation organisations. The modelling exercises also provoked debates and awareness of the broader dimensions of livelihoods as perceived by Indigenous peoples. Health care, education, infrastructure and employment consistently emerged as the highest priorities for Indigenous communities in all the study sites.\ud \ud Including Indigenous people in the process of participatory modelling, alongside other stakeholders such as government officials, conservation NGOs, and scientists is important in confronting the challenge of making trade-offs between human well-being and nature. Biodiversity conservation will only succeed in the long term if it is based upon approaches that fully recognize and address the inevitable trade-offs between the development needs of local people and the maintenance of areas of intact nature.\ud \ud Forest conservation programmes still do not give enough attention to the legitimate needs of people living within and dependent on the forests. It is all too easy to lay blame on developers, corrupt government officials, and other parties for forest destruction. Successful conservation programmes must allow for the improvement of and the stability of income streams and increasing food security

The principles of conservation and development: do they apply in Malinau?

Attempts to reconcile economic development with environmental conservation in a forest area in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, are reviewed for the district of Malinau, East Kalimantan, Indonesia, an area of 42,000 km2 that is still largely covered in rainforest. The history of the region is described and the conservation and development impacts of external drivers of change are assessed. Both government and conservation organizations have subscribed to the rhetoric of pursuing development pathways that would be sustainable and would conserve the rich biodiversity of the area. Three distinct approaches to conservation have been attempted. First spatial planning has been used to attribute land to different uses and particularly to identify and designate protected areas. Second, measures have been taken to lessen the negative environmental impact of industrial logging and to promote the preservation of biodiversity in logged forests. Last, decentralized and community-based management has been promoted on the assumption that this would yield better environmental and social outcomes than large-scale industrial development. These conservation measures have been pursued during a period when the governance of the region has been weak. Corruption, political collusion, and nepotism have been major factors in decision making about natural resources. We argue that a sustainable future for the district of Malinau must lie in finding an appropriate balance between protected areas, forests managed at both industrial and community scales, and land conversion. However, there is little empirical evidence that allows the outcomes of these approaches to be measured. The problem of knowing how conservation investments can be made in ways that optimize sustainable benefits to local livelihoods remains largely unresolved. A number of possible conservation and development pathways for the district are discussed

Learning from change in the Sangha Tri-National landscape

A participatory landscape monitoring initiative was introduced in the Sangha Tri-National landscape at the frontier of Cameroon, the Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic in 2006. The initiative allowed a broad range of stakeholders, called the Sangha Group, to monitor changes in local peoples' livelihoods and the environment. The group held annual meetings to discuss changes in the landscape. The intention was that the work of the Group would enable adaptation of management interventions. Simple simulation modelling techniques and a set of indicators were used to track changes in the landscape. Indicators were identified by local people who were then invited to assess them annually. The large number and diversity of stakeholders occupying a vast area of forest and a shortage of skilled enumerators meant that indicator values were difficult to measure consistently. However the existence of the models and indicator framework did enrich the discussions amongst the stakeholders and helped them to understand the main drivers of change in the landscape. Interventions of aid agencies and conservation organisations had little impact on local peoples' livelihoods but external influences, notably the global financial crisis in 2008 and the civil strife in the CAR sector beginning in 2011 caused a serious deterioration in livelihoods and the environment in the landscape

Global forest discourses must connect with local forest realities

Numerous inter-governmental conservation initiatives have failed to halt the loss and degradation of forests. This paper explores the role of policy processes in developing and delivering desired future forest outcomes that meet both global environmental goals and the needs of local forest users. There is a clear disconnect between global commitments and local interventions to achieve forest outcomes. There is an incoherence in forest policy development at different spatial scales. Future forest governance needs to recognise the diversity of actors in the policy process and the complexity of local forest contexts. New actors in the policy process will include knowledge brokers and policy entrepreneurs who increasingly shape the policy discourse. There is also a need for policy durability and problem focused policy-learning pathways. Forest and allied sciences continue to be critical for delivering desired forest outcomes, and learning from the diversity of local contexts is critical to creating effective and coherent policies

Global forest discourses must connect with local forest realities

Numerous inter-governmental conservation initiatives have failed to halt the loss and degradation of forests. This paper explores the role of policy processes in developing and delivering desired future forest outcomes that meet both global environmental goals and the needs of local forest users. There is a clear disconnect between global commitments and local interventions to achieve forest outcomes. There is an incoherence in forest policy development at different spatial scales. Future forest governance needs to recognise the diversity of actors in the policy process and the complexity of local forest contexts. New actors in the policy process will include knowledge brokers and policy entrepreneurs who increasingly shape the policy discourse. There is also a need for policy durability and problem focused policy-learning pathways. Forest and allied sciences continue to be critical for delivering desired forest outcomes, and learning from the diversity of local contexts is critical to creating effective and coherent policies

Governing the landscape: potential and challenges of integrated approaches to landscape sustainability in Indonesia

In recent years, landscape sustainability, the maintenance and improvement of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being in landscapes, has become a core objective of conservation initiatives. Yet efforts to promote sustainability often conflict with other landscape objectives. Globally, integrated landscape approaches have emerged as desirable processes for reconciling these conflicts. Integrated landscape approaches seek to foster improvements in landscape-scale governance to meet sustainability objectives. As scientific and political support for these new landscape approaches continues to advance internationally, there is a need to learn from the processes, constraints, and opportunities. We seek to enrich understandings of landscape approaches and their contributions to governance and sustainability through conserving biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem services. Focusing on eight case studies at different stages of development in Indonesia, we explore how practitioners influence landscape sustainability through integrated approaches. We used questionnaires and literature to collect information on objectives, attributes and challenges of landscapes approaches. We find landscape approaches in Indonesia closely reflect guidance principles. Emerging lessons from landscapes include adapting strategies to local priorities for inclusive problem-framing and engaging in nested learning systems. Aligning landscape actions with policy for coherent governance across scales remains a key challenge. Creating and maintaining governance that supports landscape sustainability is a core principle of landscape approaches. Establishing institutional arrangements for landscape sustainability will require working across legislative and political boundaries for coordinated action. We highlight the need to document and measure impact, and the potential for future learning from landscape sustainability science

Conservation Science and Practice Must Engage With the Realities of Complex Tropical Landscapes

There is a growing disconnect between the international conferences where grand solutions for tropical conservation are designed and the complex local realities in tropical landscapes where plans need to be implemented. Every tropical landscape is different and no “one size will fit all.” There is a tendency for global processes to prescribe simple generalized solutions that provide good sound bites that can be communicated with political actors and the media. Sustainable outcomes in tropical landscapes require locally adapted, unique approaches supported by long-term processes of learning and adaptation. Tropical biologists and conservationists can play a key role by establishing effective local–global links and by directly engaging in local policy discourses while remaining connected to evolving political imperative

Levers and leverage points for pathways to sustainability

Humanity is on a deeply unsustainable trajectory. We are exceeding planetary boundaries and unlikely to meet many international sustainable development goals and global environmental targets. Until recently, there was no broadly accepted framework of interventions that could ignite the transformations needed to achieve these desired targets and goals. As a component of the IPBES Global Assessment, we conducted an iterative expert deliberation process with an extensive review of scenarios and pathways to sustainability, including the broader literature on indirect drivers, social change and sustainability transformation. We asked, what are the most important elements of pathways to sustainability? Applying a social–ecological systems lens, we identified eight priority points for intervention (leverage points) and five overarching strategic actions and priority interventions (levers), which appear to be key to societal transformation. The eight leverage points are: (1) Visions of a good life, (2) Total consumption and waste, (3) Latent values of responsibility, (4) Inequalities, (5) Justice and inclusion in conservation, (6) Externalities from trade and other telecouplings, (7) Responsible technology, innovation and investment, and (8) Education and knowledge generation and sharing. The five intertwined levers can be applied across the eight leverage points and more broadly. These include: (A) Incentives and capacity building, (B) Coordination across sectors and jurisdictions, (C) Pre‐emptive action, (D) Adaptive decision-making and (E) Environmental law and implementation. The levers and leverage points are all non-substitutable, and each enables others, likely leading to synergistic benefits. Transformative change towards sustainable pathways requires more than a simple scaling-up of sustainability initiatives—it entails addressing these levers and leverage points to change the fabric of legal, political, economic and other social systems. These levers and leverage points build upon those approved within the Global Assessment's Summary for Policymakers, with the aim of enabling leaders in government, business, civil society and academia to spark transformative changes towards a more just and sustainable world