Conservation as if people also mattered: Policy and practice of community-based conservation

Date: 2013-01-01

Creator: Ashish Kothari, Philip Camill, Jessica Brown

Access: Open access

Community-based conservation is being increasingly recognised as a major global force in the protection and sustainable management of ecosystems and species. Yet documentation of its main achievements and shortcomings, and the key issues it faces, is still at a nascent stage. This paper introduces the concept and experience of two forms of community-based conservation: Collaborative Management of Protected Areas (CMPA), and Indigenous Peoples' and Local Community Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCAs). It explores the emergence of these approaches in the context of global international conservation policy. Reviewing four case studies that were presented at a symposium convened at the Bowdoin College (Maine, USA, in November 2008), and drawing from the discussion during that session, it identifies some key lessons and principles that are likely to be applicable to community-based conservation across the world.

Social Science and the Analysis of Environmental Policy

Date: 2020-09-01

Creator: Cary Coglianese, Shana M. Starobin

Access: Open access

As much as environmental problems manifest themselves as problems with the natural environment, environmental problems—and their solutions—are ultimately social and behavioral in nature. Just as the natural sciences provide a basis for understanding the need for environmental policy and informing its design, the social sciences also contribute in significant ways to the understanding of the behavioral sources of environmental problems, both in terms of individual incentives and collective action challenges. In addition, the social sciences have contributed much to the understanding of the ways that laws and other institutions can be designed to solve environmental problems. In this review article, we distill core intellectual frameworks from among the social sciences that scaffold modern environmental policy in industrialized country contexts—focusing on key contributions principally from political science, economics, psychology, and sociology to the analysis of environmental problems and their solutions. These frameworks underlie how environmental problems are defined at multiple scales and the conceptualization and empirical testing of policy solutions that seek to shape human behavior in ways that improve environmental quality and promote sustainable economic growth. With the planet facing continued environmental threats, improving environmental policy decision-making depends on the insights and frameworks of social science research in addition to those of the natural sciences.