- Email: [email protected]
National conservation strategies: Choosing between competing demands for limited natural resources
265
ENVIRON IMPACT ASSESS REV 1985; 5:265-269
NATIONAL CONSERVATION STRATEGIES: CHOOSING BETWEEN COMPETING DEMANDS FOR LIMITED NATURAL RESOURCES
MARK HALLE
MARK HALLE is the Assistant Director of the Conservation for Development Center of the International Union for COnservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
The aim of conservation is to ensure that the exploitation of natural resources is not incompatible with their continued existence. The World Conservation Strategy (WCS), prepared by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) with the advice, financial support, and assistance of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the World Wildlife Fund, and published in 1980, defines conservation as the "management of human use of the biosphere so that it may yield the maximum benefits to present generations while maintaining its capacity to meet the needs and aspirations of future generations." This definition represents an important advance in modern conservation, because it accepts the appropriateness of resource usage while articulating the need for maintenance and sustainability. However, several requirements must be met if conservation, as defined above, is to be integrated into government policy making. One requirement is the capability to deal credibly with issues that are intersectoral by nature. Unfortunately, governments usually deal ineffectively with such issues. Complaints about the compartmentalization of government decision making and about the impermeable walls between government'departments are common. Fragmentation of decision making complicates the investigation of certain matters, such as the effect of agriculture on water resources or the effect of industrialization Address correspondence to: Mark Halle, Conservation for Development Center, IUCN, CH-1196, Gland,
Switzerland. O 1985 Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc. 52 Vanderbilt Ave., New York, NY 10017
0195-9255/85/$3.30
266
MARK HALLE
on human health. It also limits consideration of the long-term consequences of decisions taken today. One significant motivation behind the environmental movement of the 1970s was the desire to develop inter- or superministerial mechanisms for environmental action to reverse the disturbing trend toward the increasing subdivision of decisions. Success was only partial. One response to the situation was the elaboration of the World Conservation Strategy. The WCS is not simply the view of one conservation organization but the result of an extensive process of consultation with experts from many different fields, countries, and organizations. Following its launch in March 1980, the WCS was widely endorsed by international organizations, governments, and nongovernmental organizations throughout the world. WCS represents a bold step by the conservation community to trade in its safe, constituency-based approach for a greater say in the way development is planned and implemented. Conservationists had for some time been arguing with eloquence that, for development to be sustainable, conservation is a prerequisite. The WCS takes a bold step beyond this. It includes the ideas that, in many developing countries, conservation achievements will not be sustainable without development, and that since development and conservation operate in the same global context, the problems underlying both must be overcome if either is to be successful. NATIONAL CONSERVATION STRATEGIES The World Conservation Strategy introduced the notions of maintenance (of genetic diversity and essential ecological services) and sustainability into development and made the case that these ideas were essential to both conservation and development. However, WCS is a global blueprint and operates on global common denominators. IUCN has always focused on helping developing countries ensure the sustainability of their development investments. In many cases, officials in these countries do not know how to proceed. They need a practical "bridge" between the WCS philosophy and a functioning sustainable development pattern. IUCN's efforts have begun to achieve interesting results through the elaboration of National Conservation Strategies (NCSs) based on the WCS. The NCS process not only offers a means to identify which steps will remove the obstacles to sustainable development and to integrate conservation concerns into development planning and action, but also provides an excellent mechanism for negotiation between the different interests competing for the same natural resources. The NCS has also opened the debate to long-term objectives and offers a means of mitigating the "automatic" precedence accorded to short-term considerations. This shifts the balance in favor of a more objective choice between options. The NCS provides a guide to the achievement of sustainable development at the country level and involves consideration of the present and furore needs and aspirations of the people, the institutional capabilities of the country
NATIONALCONSERVATION STRATEGIES
267
and the status of its natural resources. It bases itself on the national development plan and associated aid programs. On the basis of review, analysis, and assignment of priorites, the NCS seeks to define the best possible allocation of human and financial resources to achieve the goals of sust/i'inable development. It brings together clear statements of the activities required to achieve conservation, estimates of the resources needed to implement those activities, and schedules for their implementation. It should also include a proposal for monitoring the implementation of the strategy and methods for its regular updating. An NCS is not an end in itself but an effort to achieve an appropriate understanding and knowledge of the interdependence of conservation and development and to ensure the ability and commitment to implement necessary corrective action. By preparing an NCS, a country makes it possible to build "sustainability" into its development programs. Preparing an NCS requires an exchange of information and views among ministries, departments, NGOs, the business community, the public, and where relevant, in less-developed countries, international organizations, and development assistance agencies. This process creates an awareness of the benefits of conserving natural resources and clarifies the roles various agencies and individuals can play in achieving sustainable development. The process can be divided into four overlapping phases: • initial promotion of the NCS concept in the country in question and assessment for preparation of the NCS; • definition of the conceptual framework and institutional arrangements for preparation of the NCS; • assembly and collation of data, and preparation of the NCS, including component sectoral strategies; and • implementing the various components of the NCS, monitoring and reviewing. There cannot be a rigid, universally applicable format for an NCS nor can there be a single approach to preparing one within any given country. The model NCS should have a flexible format adaptable to a country's unique economic and social context. There will certainly be a number of procedures and considerations likely to be applicable to the preparation of an NCS in any given country. The National Development Plan will normally be the central reference document in the development of the NCS. Those responsible for the development of the NCS will normally undertake a specific review of the objectives of national development. They may initially find that a higher rate of investment in conservation cannot be managed if budgetary allocations for development are to be maintained as planned. However, having analyzed the insidious consequences of the failure to conserve, the officials involved may ultimately conclude that the country cannot afford n o t to invest in conservation and that there should be some adjustment of development plans.
268
MARK~LLE
The recommendations arising from an NCS should not be limited to immediate "on-the-ground" conservation action. An NCS should also make recommendations with respect to organizations, procedures, legislation, incentives and penalties that have a bearing on conservation. National and regional procedures for setting development goals and for economic and physical planning should be reviewed and where necessary redefined. The concept of ecosystem evaluation and environmental planning should eventually become integrated with broader planning systems. Education, training, extension, and public participation in conservation are investments in the future capability of the country. Many of these activities will have to be designed to meet the specific conservation needs of each country, although the usefulness of existing arrangements should also be fully exploited. An NCS should recommend the steps necessary to ensure that these activities will help people to use resources sustainably. Beating in mind that no nation is isolated, designers of an NCS should be mindful of the international implications of conservation/development problems. The migratory habits of many species of animals, especially in drought conditions, the flows of important rivers from one nation to another, and the sharing of regional seas are examples of phenomena that require international cooperation in conservation. In addition, the state of natural resources in a developing country will inevitably be affected by the foreign policies of other nations, particularly by the policies of industrialized countries in regard to food, trade, armaments, and development aid. In the course of preparing an NCS, special attention should be devoted to an analysis of how the policies and practices of other countries determine the sustainable use of resources in the country in question. This analysis should also look in detail at the impact of the country's own policies and practices on eonservation in other countries. In its conclusion, the NCS should articulate all the recommendations for action in programmatic form, with allocation of priority, estimates of costs, indications of responsibility, and schedules for accomplishment. The form of presentation should be such that individual projects can readily be extracted from the program as a whole. A program for monitoring implementation should also be outlined, and criteria by which to judge the success of projects should be designed. Such criteria might include the reduction in the rate of soil erosion in an area, the diminution in the level of particular pollutants, or the recovery of particular decimated animal populations. The planning and finance authorities should be encouraged to give these criteria the same order of weight as is given to the more conventional criteria such as simple output levels. CONCLUSION National Conservation Strategies are currently under development in a score of countries, both developed and developing. While it is too early to judge how
NATIONAL CONSERVATION STRATEGIES
269
lasting an impact the NCS process is having on the way development is planned and implemented, it has achieved an impressive momentum in a short period of time and has won over an encouraging number of converts. Perhaps most encouraging is the steady increase in support to NCS projects from development assistance agencies and United Nations organizations. These groups see in the NCS a way of determining how their assistance can best lead to lasting results and make the most tangible contribution to sustainable development in their program countries. The NCS appears to offer an objective, systematic means of analysing conservation priorities in terms of their relevance to development objectives and of identifying solutions. They appear in a form and in a language development practitioners can appreciate and integrate comfortably into the process of formulating these objectives and with the design of projects to achieve them. Senior NCS practitioners from several countries gathered recently at a workshop with representatives from development assistance agencies, UN organizations and NGOs to review their experiences and to determine to what extent these are comparable. The workshop resulted in a publication on National Conservation Strategies--A Framework for Sustainable Development (available for $6.00 from IUCN, Avenue du Mont Blanc, CH 1196, Gland, Switzerland). This is a general manual on NCS development based on experience to date. The existence of this publication will in all likelihood further stimulate other countries to undertake NCSs. The NCS process goes well beyond the traditional environmental reviews and the analyses of environmental impacts of development which are now common currency. Most importantly, it involves those on the development side whose decisions affect the way resources are managed. It encourages review of the needs and priorities of all groups which have demands on the same resources or which have the ability to manage them for more productive use. The process offers three important contributions to planning for sustainable development: 1. The process opens the time horizon for development planning, redressing the unnatural and counterproductive balance against considerations of a long-term nature and bringing into the debate a number of important elements that have not always been given a fair hearing in decision making. 2. The process offers a mechanism for deciding between competing demands on the same resource, some of which are realized by exploitation and others by conservation. In doing so it assigns values to the ecological services provided by some resources and takes into account the value of resources as capital stored against future demand. 3. Finally, in any negotiation, it is always a victory for the weaker side when the stronger agrees to sit at the negotiating table. Whatever the outcome of the NCS process in any country, the fact that conservationists and developers have joined forces in seeking solutions to their problems must be regarded as a salutory development.
ENVIRON IMPACT ASSESS REV 1985; 5:265-269
NATIONAL CONSERVATION STRATEGIES: CHOOSING BETWEEN COMPETING DEMANDS FOR LIMITED NATURAL RESOURCES
MARK HALLE
MARK HALLE is the Assistant Director of the Conservation for Development Center of the International Union for COnservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
The aim of conservation is to ensure that the exploitation of natural resources is not incompatible with their continued existence. The World Conservation Strategy (WCS), prepared by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) with the advice, financial support, and assistance of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the World Wildlife Fund, and published in 1980, defines conservation as the "management of human use of the biosphere so that it may yield the maximum benefits to present generations while maintaining its capacity to meet the needs and aspirations of future generations." This definition represents an important advance in modern conservation, because it accepts the appropriateness of resource usage while articulating the need for maintenance and sustainability. However, several requirements must be met if conservation, as defined above, is to be integrated into government policy making. One requirement is the capability to deal credibly with issues that are intersectoral by nature. Unfortunately, governments usually deal ineffectively with such issues. Complaints about the compartmentalization of government decision making and about the impermeable walls between government'departments are common. Fragmentation of decision making complicates the investigation of certain matters, such as the effect of agriculture on water resources or the effect of industrialization Address correspondence to: Mark Halle, Conservation for Development Center, IUCN, CH-1196, Gland,
Switzerland. O 1985 Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc. 52 Vanderbilt Ave., New York, NY 10017
0195-9255/85/$3.30
266
MARK HALLE
on human health. It also limits consideration of the long-term consequences of decisions taken today. One significant motivation behind the environmental movement of the 1970s was the desire to develop inter- or superministerial mechanisms for environmental action to reverse the disturbing trend toward the increasing subdivision of decisions. Success was only partial. One response to the situation was the elaboration of the World Conservation Strategy. The WCS is not simply the view of one conservation organization but the result of an extensive process of consultation with experts from many different fields, countries, and organizations. Following its launch in March 1980, the WCS was widely endorsed by international organizations, governments, and nongovernmental organizations throughout the world. WCS represents a bold step by the conservation community to trade in its safe, constituency-based approach for a greater say in the way development is planned and implemented. Conservationists had for some time been arguing with eloquence that, for development to be sustainable, conservation is a prerequisite. The WCS takes a bold step beyond this. It includes the ideas that, in many developing countries, conservation achievements will not be sustainable without development, and that since development and conservation operate in the same global context, the problems underlying both must be overcome if either is to be successful. NATIONAL CONSERVATION STRATEGIES The World Conservation Strategy introduced the notions of maintenance (of genetic diversity and essential ecological services) and sustainability into development and made the case that these ideas were essential to both conservation and development. However, WCS is a global blueprint and operates on global common denominators. IUCN has always focused on helping developing countries ensure the sustainability of their development investments. In many cases, officials in these countries do not know how to proceed. They need a practical "bridge" between the WCS philosophy and a functioning sustainable development pattern. IUCN's efforts have begun to achieve interesting results through the elaboration of National Conservation Strategies (NCSs) based on the WCS. The NCS process not only offers a means to identify which steps will remove the obstacles to sustainable development and to integrate conservation concerns into development planning and action, but also provides an excellent mechanism for negotiation between the different interests competing for the same natural resources. The NCS has also opened the debate to long-term objectives and offers a means of mitigating the "automatic" precedence accorded to short-term considerations. This shifts the balance in favor of a more objective choice between options. The NCS provides a guide to the achievement of sustainable development at the country level and involves consideration of the present and furore needs and aspirations of the people, the institutional capabilities of the country
NATIONALCONSERVATION STRATEGIES
267
and the status of its natural resources. It bases itself on the national development plan and associated aid programs. On the basis of review, analysis, and assignment of priorites, the NCS seeks to define the best possible allocation of human and financial resources to achieve the goals of sust/i'inable development. It brings together clear statements of the activities required to achieve conservation, estimates of the resources needed to implement those activities, and schedules for their implementation. It should also include a proposal for monitoring the implementation of the strategy and methods for its regular updating. An NCS is not an end in itself but an effort to achieve an appropriate understanding and knowledge of the interdependence of conservation and development and to ensure the ability and commitment to implement necessary corrective action. By preparing an NCS, a country makes it possible to build "sustainability" into its development programs. Preparing an NCS requires an exchange of information and views among ministries, departments, NGOs, the business community, the public, and where relevant, in less-developed countries, international organizations, and development assistance agencies. This process creates an awareness of the benefits of conserving natural resources and clarifies the roles various agencies and individuals can play in achieving sustainable development. The process can be divided into four overlapping phases: • initial promotion of the NCS concept in the country in question and assessment for preparation of the NCS; • definition of the conceptual framework and institutional arrangements for preparation of the NCS; • assembly and collation of data, and preparation of the NCS, including component sectoral strategies; and • implementing the various components of the NCS, monitoring and reviewing. There cannot be a rigid, universally applicable format for an NCS nor can there be a single approach to preparing one within any given country. The model NCS should have a flexible format adaptable to a country's unique economic and social context. There will certainly be a number of procedures and considerations likely to be applicable to the preparation of an NCS in any given country. The National Development Plan will normally be the central reference document in the development of the NCS. Those responsible for the development of the NCS will normally undertake a specific review of the objectives of national development. They may initially find that a higher rate of investment in conservation cannot be managed if budgetary allocations for development are to be maintained as planned. However, having analyzed the insidious consequences of the failure to conserve, the officials involved may ultimately conclude that the country cannot afford n o t to invest in conservation and that there should be some adjustment of development plans.
268
MARK~LLE
The recommendations arising from an NCS should not be limited to immediate "on-the-ground" conservation action. An NCS should also make recommendations with respect to organizations, procedures, legislation, incentives and penalties that have a bearing on conservation. National and regional procedures for setting development goals and for economic and physical planning should be reviewed and where necessary redefined. The concept of ecosystem evaluation and environmental planning should eventually become integrated with broader planning systems. Education, training, extension, and public participation in conservation are investments in the future capability of the country. Many of these activities will have to be designed to meet the specific conservation needs of each country, although the usefulness of existing arrangements should also be fully exploited. An NCS should recommend the steps necessary to ensure that these activities will help people to use resources sustainably. Beating in mind that no nation is isolated, designers of an NCS should be mindful of the international implications of conservation/development problems. The migratory habits of many species of animals, especially in drought conditions, the flows of important rivers from one nation to another, and the sharing of regional seas are examples of phenomena that require international cooperation in conservation. In addition, the state of natural resources in a developing country will inevitably be affected by the foreign policies of other nations, particularly by the policies of industrialized countries in regard to food, trade, armaments, and development aid. In the course of preparing an NCS, special attention should be devoted to an analysis of how the policies and practices of other countries determine the sustainable use of resources in the country in question. This analysis should also look in detail at the impact of the country's own policies and practices on eonservation in other countries. In its conclusion, the NCS should articulate all the recommendations for action in programmatic form, with allocation of priority, estimates of costs, indications of responsibility, and schedules for accomplishment. The form of presentation should be such that individual projects can readily be extracted from the program as a whole. A program for monitoring implementation should also be outlined, and criteria by which to judge the success of projects should be designed. Such criteria might include the reduction in the rate of soil erosion in an area, the diminution in the level of particular pollutants, or the recovery of particular decimated animal populations. The planning and finance authorities should be encouraged to give these criteria the same order of weight as is given to the more conventional criteria such as simple output levels. CONCLUSION National Conservation Strategies are currently under development in a score of countries, both developed and developing. While it is too early to judge how
NATIONAL CONSERVATION STRATEGIES
269
lasting an impact the NCS process is having on the way development is planned and implemented, it has achieved an impressive momentum in a short period of time and has won over an encouraging number of converts. Perhaps most encouraging is the steady increase in support to NCS projects from development assistance agencies and United Nations organizations. These groups see in the NCS a way of determining how their assistance can best lead to lasting results and make the most tangible contribution to sustainable development in their program countries. The NCS appears to offer an objective, systematic means of analysing conservation priorities in terms of their relevance to development objectives and of identifying solutions. They appear in a form and in a language development practitioners can appreciate and integrate comfortably into the process of formulating these objectives and with the design of projects to achieve them. Senior NCS practitioners from several countries gathered recently at a workshop with representatives from development assistance agencies, UN organizations and NGOs to review their experiences and to determine to what extent these are comparable. The workshop resulted in a publication on National Conservation Strategies--A Framework for Sustainable Development (available for $6.00 from IUCN, Avenue du Mont Blanc, CH 1196, Gland, Switzerland). This is a general manual on NCS development based on experience to date. The existence of this publication will in all likelihood further stimulate other countries to undertake NCSs. The NCS process goes well beyond the traditional environmental reviews and the analyses of environmental impacts of development which are now common currency. Most importantly, it involves those on the development side whose decisions affect the way resources are managed. It encourages review of the needs and priorities of all groups which have demands on the same resources or which have the ability to manage them for more productive use. The process offers three important contributions to planning for sustainable development: 1. The process opens the time horizon for development planning, redressing the unnatural and counterproductive balance against considerations of a long-term nature and bringing into the debate a number of important elements that have not always been given a fair hearing in decision making. 2. The process offers a mechanism for deciding between competing demands on the same resource, some of which are realized by exploitation and others by conservation. In doing so it assigns values to the ecological services provided by some resources and takes into account the value of resources as capital stored against future demand. 3. Finally, in any negotiation, it is always a victory for the weaker side when the stronger agrees to sit at the negotiating table. Whatever the outcome of the NCS process in any country, the fact that conservationists and developers have joined forces in seeking solutions to their problems must be regarded as a salutory development.