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Win-Win Illusions
OVER THE PAST TWO DECADES, efforts to heal the rift between poor people and protected areas have foundered. So what next?
Like many conservationists, Kent Redford dreams of a world where people and nature thrive side by side. But over and over, he has seen those illusions shattered.
Last fall, at the World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa, indigenous groups threatened to take the stage to broadcast a simple message to the world: that parks and protected areas are fundamentally incompatible with the rights and aspirations of impoverished local communities. Redford feared a public confrontation could drive a wedge deep into the heart of efforts to find common ground between protecting biodiversity and alleviating poverty in those parts of the world where biodiversity is rich and people are poor.
The irony is that Redford played a role in creating this rift. But now he is desperately trying to bridge the growing divide between poor people and protected areas, before it is too late.
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