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Yayasan Palung (YP), a counterpart organization to the Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Project (GPOCP), focuses on several projects, including conservation research, sustainable livelihood programs, environmental outreach and education, and a monitoring and investigation unit. This proposed project will be a multi-community assessment to ascertain both the extent of orangutan-human interactions in villages in the vicinity of Gunung Palung National Park (GPNP) and to identify the impact of education and outreach efforts as well as areas where further programs could be beneficial. The project is currently in the design phase, with input on the methodology and survey instruments coming from YP staff, other local NGOs, and international collaborators, including doctoral students at Brunel University in London, University of Georgia in Athens, and Boston University. We are proposing to conduct interviews in 8-10 villages surrounding GPNP, composed of villages that have long-term relationships with GPOCP, others in which GPOCP has recently started sustainable livelihood and education programs, and others with which GPOCP has never worked. The goal will be to interview 30 people in each of these villages—25 through a door-to-door method, in which every fourth house will be approached, and 5 more targeted interviews with community leaders. All of these interviews will be semi-structured, with a survey composed of both closed and open-ended questions covering topics such as orangutan sightings and interactions (both positive and negative), perceptions of orangutans, use of the forest, and knowledge about conservation threats to humans, orangutans and other animals, and the forest ecosystem in general. To supplement these one-on-one semi-formal interviews, focus group-style interviews will also be conducted, to allow for a wider range of opinions and experiences to be heard and considered. Interviews will be led by trained YP staff, permitting for these individuals to gain skills in ethnographic methodology, and to build and continue relationships between YP staff and community members in the villages in which YP works. Funders: National Science Foundation (BCS-1638823); Conservation, Food and Health Foundation; ARCUS Foundation;
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Impermanence and failure: the legacy of conservation-based payments in Sumatra, Indonesia
Abstract Projects that pay communities or individuals to conserve natural areas rarely continue indefinitely. When payments cease, the behaviors they motivate can change. Previous research on conservation-based payments recognizes the impermanence of conservation success, but it does not consider the legacy of payments that failed to effect change. This research assesses impermanence and failure by investigating the legacy of village-level conservation payments made through one of the largest Integrated Conservation and Development Projects in Indonesia. The Kerinci-Seblat Integrated Conservation and Development Project aimed to conserve forest area and promote local development through voluntary conservation agreements (VCAs) that provided payments for pro-conservation pledges and activities from 2000 through 2003. Project documentation and previous research find that payments failed to incentivize additional forest conservation, producing nonsignificant differences in forest-cover change during the project period. To examine the legacy of these payments in the post-project period, this research uses matched difference-in-differences and triple differences models to analyze forest cover change in villages (n= 263) from 2000 through 2016 as well as matched binary logistic regression models to assess enduring differences in household (n= 1303) livelihood strategies within VCA villages in 2016. The analysis finds that VCA villages contained significantly more forest loss than the most similar non-VCA villages outside the national park, and greater payments predict increased forest loss in the post-project period. In addition, farming high-value tree crops and cultivating private land were the most important attributes for modeling VCA affiliation among randomly selected households. These results demonstrate that, after payments ceased, project failures increased in severity over time.Those who design and implement conservation-based payments bear great responsibility to ensure their projects are informed by local voice, align with community preferences, and provide sufficient benefits, lest they result in a conservation legacy of increased failure.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1912001
- PAR ID:
- 10366600
- Publisher / Repository:
- IOP Publishing
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Environmental Research Letters
- Volume:
- 17
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 1748-9326
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- Article No. 054015
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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