The "bottom up" versus "basic needs" debate of development planners is typified by the contrasting approaches to the integration of conservation and development at the Annapurna Conservation Area in Nepal and the Michiru Mountain Conservation Area in Malawi, Central Africa. Both projects aimed to reverse past environmental degradation, to move towards ecologically sustainable utilization, and to conserve species and ecosystems by empowering local people and coordinating, rather than administering, local conservation and development activities. However, while the Annapurna project focused on the means or process by which this was to be achieved, the Michiru project focused on the end results. Local people participated in a decentralized decision-making process at Annapurna while at Michiru they were represented in a centralized process. At Annapurna local people have been empowered while at Michiru they have been coopted and regulated. While the bottom-up approach may produce more desirable social outcomes in the long term its consequences for conservation are less certain. The basic needs approach appears to assure conservation in the short term but with less predictable long-term effects. The luxury of a choice between these two approaches may be precluded by ecological, sociopolitical and economic factors.