Conservation, Sustainability, and Poverty Alleviation in the Himalayan Region: Do Participatory Environmental Policies Work?

Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville NY

Investigators

Abstract

The goal of this research project is to assess and improve environmental policy in practical and politically feasible ways, consistent with broad policy goals of sustainable resource management, biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation. This is to be done by focusing on participatory policies and projects, Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) and other inclusionary policy processes in China, India, and Nepal. A secondary goal is to provide a methodology for understanding and evaluating environmental policy in the particular circumstances of these three countries, which will then be replicable elsewhere. The methodology involves a set of nested investigations from international, national to local scales. These include: 1) Data collection of policy outcomes at the project and local level, including quantitative survey work and participatory mapping with rural civil society. Paired comparisons of communities will be made between those included in internationally-funded participatory CBNRM programs, and those immediately outside the boundaries of project areas; 2) Policy analysis at the national level where political agendas involve a wide variety of actors and interests, including established bureaucratic structures and practices, strategic considerations, ethnic politics and issues of control of populations in the name of environmental conservation; 3) Analysis of the practice of policy negotiation at the international-national interface where ideas of participation and inclusionary policies meet national agendas; 4) Outlines of regional political ecologies that shape society-environment relations, including analysis of local institutions that mediate access to natural resources, settlement history, the different values attributed to the range of natural resources by various and contending potential users, and how these are politically represented; and finally 5) Dissemination involving participation and policy engagement at the local level, and seminars at the regional level at international centers. A comprehensive regional seminar will be organized at project conclusion with participants from all scales. In addition to the provision of training materials (simulation exercises, visual material, case studies and seminars) the project will provide a series of publications for public dissemination including policy working papers, academic papers, and a book with simultaneous publication in Asia and the West. The intellectual merit of the project rests on an innovative research methodology at different scales combining quantitative and qualitative data with more political and discursive methods; on the claim that it is the first time that this broad analytical vision is being attempted in the region; and on the careful attention paid to tangible as opposed to rhetorical outcomes of environmental policy. The broader impacts of the project are clearer insights of opportunities and constraints for all members of international and national negotiating teams in this field; inputs into a critical review of where the participatory conservation movement is going in "hotspot" countries and the circumstances which encourage or impede successful outcomes; an analytically rigorous input into the debate over participatory versus exclusionary conservation approaches; and an analysis of the trade-offs between participation, poverty reduction and specific conservation goals. The audiences include not only international policy makers, national governments and policy makers, local project and policy implementers, but also civil society organizations associated at one or more scales.