Dilemma of Integrated Conservation and Development

National Parks dilemmas explores the rainforest conservation dilemmas under the Integrated Conservation and Development Projects approach. ICDPs dilemmas result from the neo-Malthusian or parks versus people views that local population growth degrades parks. State policy of relocation and lack of communication with resident communities provoke a local perception that national parks grant more rights to animals than to people when effective conservation requires a balance of interests. Lost control and ownership weakens the local system of forest governance via socially crafted rules to monitor resources. As a result, even foreign oachers pursue their activities without being sanctioned by communities. This book provides a dynamic approach to understand the real conservation threats to rainforest national parks. It recognizes the central role of communities in solving as well as how these dilemmas could be transformed into conservation gains. It also calls for political will to confer some sense of ownership to forest peoples by recognizing their ecological knowledge and common action against destructive extraction of forest resources and illegal poachers.