From displacement-based conservation to place-based conservation

The viability of biodiversity conservation based uniquely upon a model of protected areas is being questioned in the developing world, and new evidence is emerging on the social and ecological costs of displacing people in order to impose wilderness.  This re-evaluation of the strict protected area model is driven in part by new data showing that some human-dominated regimes of land use and tenure are effective complementary conservation strategies that can achieve both sustainable livelihoods and biodiversity conservation, although there are tradeoffs in all forms of conservation land use.  A vigorous debate frequently based on fragmentary data is giving way to a more nuanced appreciation of the costs and benefits of varying forms of land use and their benefits for conservation and development.  This is greatly assisted by the maturation of models of community forest management for timber and protection in Mexico, indigenous reserves in Brazil, and participatory landscape conservation planning in Madagascar.