Conserving tropical biodiversity through local initiative: it may be essential, but can it be done?

The SANREM Program aims to develop a new paradigm of research for Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management: A paradigm that includes people, communities and local government bodies as reviewers, partners, and implementer of research with a depth and continuity of involvement that is quite unconventional. It is a paradigm that takes the whole landscape and lifespan of a watershed as the basis for formulating the questions and for resolving them. This approach seemed well suited to tackling some of the really difficult issues in protecting the natural habitats of unique tropical biodiversity in the face of inexorable human pressure. The Biodiversity Consortium of SANREM set out to see how it might apply this framework to develop tools and approaches that would increase the chances of conserving biodiversity with the active involvement of the communities that live near, and draw economic sustenance from, those habitats. This paper review that experience. I t focuses on what was done and why, and analyzes the implications. But beyond that it attempts to convey how our conceptual approach evolved over the few short years we have been working together. The story may therefore convey the iterative nature of trial and adjustment that are fundamental to such experiments at the interface between research and development.

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