Conservation of Pacific Sea Turtles

Chapter 11. Direct Incentive Approaches for Leatherback Turtle Conservation

164 The plight of leatherback turtles in the Pacific has captured the attention of scientists and conservationists around the world. In the western Pacific, a number of projects have been developed to encourage local communities to refrain from harvesting turtles or their eggs and forgo other economic activities with the potential to degrade nesting beaches, such as logging. Although turtle protection is perceived as a benefit to conservationists , it may also represent a loss to villagers in terms of forgone protein or income. Thus the economic sacrifice required to protect turtles may hamper the acceptance and sustainability of these projects. If economic needs are not met by supporting sea turtle conservation programs, people may be forced to choose alternatives that do generate economic returns. Some of these activities, such as logging or harvesting turtle products, could threaten both turtle conservation and long-term economic and environmental viability. This issue has been recognized not only for turtles but for conservation in general. The realization that protected areas could impose unacceptable costs on local human populations by excluding them from the land and resources within park boundaries led to the development of new approaches that attempt to create win-win outcomes promoting both environmental sustainability and economic development. These have occurred under various guises in the past two decades, and in developing countries CHAPTER 11 Direct Incentive Approaches for Leatherback Turtle Conservation HeiDi gjertSen anD toDD C. StevenSon Direct Incentive Approaches | 165 they have generally been known as integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) and community-based natural resource management . In general, these approaches tend to use development initiatives and indirect incentives to encourage local resource users to change their behavior . Unfortunately, empirical and theoretical assessments have indicated that many of these approaches are unlikely to be effective in conserving biodiversity (Wells et al. 1998; Inamdar et al. 1999; James et al. 1999; Salafsky et al. 1999; Barrett et al. 2001; Ferraro 2001; Ferraro and Kiss 2002). Furthermore, they are often not effective as development initiatives either. These approaches are discussed in the next section. More direct incentive approaches (e.g., land purchase, conservation concessions and easements, and direct payments) that have been used in developed countries are now being applied in developing countries. These approaches are discussed in a following section, and a case study using direct payments for turtle conservation is presented later in the chapter. Indirect Incentive Approaches Although the details of projects vary, indirect incentive approaches for conservation generally encourage rural communities to maintain biodiversity by helping them to use it sustainably; providing alternative sources of products, income, or social benefits as a means of encouraging communities to cooperate; and developing business opportunities and markets for products that depend on maintaining ecosystems. The incentives are indirectly linked to conservation objectives in that it is not conservation per se that delivers the benefit, but conservation may result indirectly from the pursuit of the benefit. Individuals are not directly rewarded for pursuing conservation activities, nor are they directly punished for degrading activities; rather, these indirect incentive approaches to achieving conservation and development have tended to fall under two general categories: (1) conservation by distraction and (2) community-based natural resource management. The first approach attempts to encourage individuals to pursue activities that are unrelated, or peripherally related, to the ecosystem and will thus not degrade it. This has been referred to as “conservation by distraction ,” and its aim is to redirect capital and/or labor away from activities that degrade the ecosystem (Ferraro and Kiss 2002). An example is the creation of alternative livelihoods. Alternative livelihood projects are promoted in an attempt to divert labor from destructive activities. Providing environmentally benign, “sustainable” alternative income-generating options is 166 | HeiDi gjertSen anD toDD C. StevenSon expected to reduce the need for activities that cause negative impacts on biodiversity. These activities are often not linked to conservation, but the aim is to absorb labor and make other activities more attractive. The hypothesis that people will substitute away from the destructive activity and toward the nondestructive alternative assumes that the returns will be at least as high as those from the original activity. In addition, even if people do adopt the nondestructive alternative activity, in many cases they may simply add it to their existing activities, resulting in no change to the resource at risk. In some cases, community members receive wages as patrollers (or rangers), creating a concrete economic benefit...