• Services made available by foreign assistance, such as health care, education, and livelihoods programs;
• Employment opportunities as park staff or in the tourism industry;
• Better ecosystem services, including food, water, wood, and traditional medicine;
• Easier access to markets, due to roads built to attract tourism; and
• Improved security provided by park guards and government staff.

Other features of protected areas deter migrants, including:

• Land-use restrictions;
• Conflict with wildlife (e.g., attacks on livestock and crops);
• Disadvantages associated with tourism, including higher cost of living and potential loss of cultural heritage;
• Isolation from urban centers; and
• Conflict with park staff, government representatives, or rural militias.

Higher Population Growth Near Protected Areas

Brashares and Wittemyer examined IUCN Category I and II protected areas in Africa and Latin America—which limit human activity within their boundaries—and excluded potentially confounding urban, marine, and new parks. Using UN Environment Programme population data from 1960-2000, they compared population growth in a 10-kilometer “buffer zone” surrounding each protected area with average rural population growth for that country. In 245 of the 306 parks they examined—and 38 of the 45 countries—population growth at protected-area edges was significantly higher than average national rural population growth.

Brashares and Wittemyer found three factors correlated with higher levels of population growth: more money for parks (as measured by protected-area funds from the Global Environment Facility); more park employees; and more deforestation on the edges of protected areas. Brashares emphasized, however, that there could be equally relevant correlations between population growth and employment in extractive industries, but that “the timber industry won’t give us their data and the mining industry and the oil industries aren’t so happy to share.” Thus, the study might inadvertently penalize NGOs and international organizations for their transparency.

Some researchers hypothesized that because protected areas are usually located in ecologically dynamic areas, this ecological wealth might be attracting new residents, rather than the protected areas themselves. But Brashares and Wittemyer found that proximity to a protected area, not general ecological abundance, was driving the trend. Others suspected that population grows at protected-area edges because the people who have been displaced by the creation of a park move to the park’s border. But population growth rates within the parks have been mostly stable or positive, so Brashares and Wittemyer doubt this is driving the trend.

Implications for Conservation

Brashares and Wittemyer outlined several policy implications of their research:

• Emerging infectious diseases are a serious risk in areas with high human density close to wildlife populations, so governments and international organizations should try to limit potential outbreaks near protected areas.
• If the effectiveness of a protected area is measured by its ability to preserve biodiversity for generations, then community development programs must be executed carefully. For instance, roads and schools should not be built in an ecologically fragile corridor between two parks.
• Multi-use buffer zones that make core areas less accessible can allow individuals to continue to benefit from their proximity to nature while protecting biodiversity. “Some of the best protection of biodiversity is through isolation,” said Brashares.

Bremner took issue with some of Brashares’ and Wittemyer’s methods and conclusions; his full critique is available on the New Security Beat. Although Bremner agreed that migration—not natural increase—is likely driving higher population growth around protected areas, he believed the authors did not provide adequate evidence to demonstrate that this migration is driven by investments in conservation. “I hope that publishing this conclusion here in Science doesn’t provide our detractors, those who don’t want us to be spending on conservation, with the means to limit future spending for international conservation,” said Bremner.

Photo: Justin Brashares. Courtesy of Dave Hawxhurst and the Woodrow Wilson Center.

For more information, including a webcast of this event, visit ECSP’s website. To receive invitations to future events, e-mail ecsp@wilsoncenter.org.

Improving Health, Conservation, Livelihoods in an Insecure Region

According to Merlo, charcoal production, illegal mining, poaching, and ongoing conflict have converged to create a punishing environment for conservationists in Landscape 10, a 50,000-square kilometer region in eastern DRC that is home to 90 percent of all eastern lowland gorillas, 80 percent of the country’s intact forest, and the largest headwaters in the Congo basin. Nevertheless, the DRC–CCC program has successfully promoted environmentally sustainable economic development; stronger local governance; and access to health care, including family planning.

For instance, a micro-hydroelectric power plant in Kasugho village—backed by the DRC–CCC and built and maintained by local residents—has increased energy security, generated sustainable jobs, and reduced pressure on the surrounding forest. To support alternative livelihoods, the DRC–CCC program has also invested in agriculture and livestock and purchased equipment for the 300 community eco-guards and park rangers who patrol approximately 40 percent of the surrounding forest. In addition, the program has provided training for health care workers and has refurbished formerly defunct clinics.

The DRC–CCC program uses radio to reach rural audiences with its conservation and family planning messages. “These people in remote places,” said Merlo, “when they are working they listen to radio, walking, everything they do, they listen to radio…it helps us to spread the conservation messages, but also the family planning aspect.”

Healthy Communities Lead to Healthy Environments

“People on the forefront [of conservation] need to be healthy…in order to be able to accomplish conservation,” argued Edmond. “Our main objectives are to reduce population pressure on natural resources and the environment,” she said. “We do that by providing access to family planning, reproductive health services,” as well as other basic health services often lacking in rural communities. CI has partnered with local health and development NGOs to bring these services to rural communities in areas of high biodiversity in Cambodia, the Philippines, and Madagascar. Meanwhile, CI has achieved its conservation targets by promoting sustainable livelihoods like agroforestry and improved rice production, as well as by rehabilitating habitats by planting trees. “We really built the capacity in the community—in the people—to be, basically, our agents of change. They’re the ones who are integrated. Now they know how to do the family planning, the health, the conservation,” said Edmond.

A Dose of a Vaccine, a Dose of Conservation

“Although we protect marine turtles on our side of the border, they are butchered across the border” in Somalia, explained Weru—one of the many challenges stymieing conservation efforts in the Kiunga Marine National Reserve on the northeastern coast of Kenya. Other threats include the growing global demand for fish, unsustainable mangrove harvesting, use of illegal fishing nets, and oil and gas exploration.

In Kenya, WWF has combined its conservation programs with efforts to meet local needs in order to generate goodwill and build healthier communities that are better prepared to manage their natural resources. By initiating mobile health clinics, WWF has vaccinated children and expectant mothers, while at the same time spreading the message of conservation. “You’d get a dose of your vaccine, and then you also get a dose of the science of conservation,” Weru quipped.

WWF implemented a fishing-gear exchange program to reduce the incidence of illegal gear; improve fishermen’s income by using legal, larger mesh nets that catch bigger fish; and bolster the health of the environment. WWF has also supported beach cleanup by creating programs where local residents turn flotsam like flip-flops into art—in some instances increasing household income by US $130 per month.

“By and large, the conservation world is practiced by biologists, and therefore we may not know how to deal with changing peoples’ behaviors and attitudes,” Weru said. To be truly effective in implementing a PHE program, “you need skills beyond the biological, the ecological skills—you need social skills.”