The role of science in NGO mediated conservation: insights from a biodiversity hotspot in Mexico
Introduction
Biodiversity, as a modern representation of nature, has become articulated and institutionalised as an actor (Latour, 1993) in global politics through its performance in scientific studies and discourses (Latour, 1999, Gordon, 2006). The loss of biodiversity is seen by many scientists and non-scientists as one of the gravest threats faced by humanity (Myers, 1979, Terborgh, 1999) and an internationally coordinated response to this threat has been outlined in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 2001). This global political response to the ‘biodiversity crisis’ (McNeely, 1992) is given financial support through funding mechanisms directly associated with the CBD (e.g. The Global Environment Facility, GEF) and indirectly through the various national and international organisations that are, more-or-less, aligned to the principles encapsulated by the CBD.
Raustiala, 1997a, Raustiala, 1997b argues that the people and institutions that have helped bring the CBD into being, and continue to support it, are part of an epistemic community which is defined by Haas (1992, p. 3) as:
A network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within a domain or issue-area.
A feature of such communities is that they may be distanced from the localities at which those issue-areas are relevant. Indeed they have an interest in policy precisely because they wish to extend their influence to such localities and the CBD is a manifestation of this. Science and scientific practices are central to biodiversity conservation, from the formulation of the problem that has come to be known as the biodiversity crisis, to the solutions that are offered to that problem (Takacs, 1996). Together, the politics of both the problem and the solutions are here referred to as the biodiversity agenda, and the epistemic authority that supports the biodiversity agenda is therefore derived to a large extent from science and scientists.
Despite this success in setting the agenda and shaping international politics, many biodiversity scientists based in, and speaking for, northern institutions lament the continued loss of biodiversity and the slow, erratic or even negative progress of many conservation initiatives when measured by such parameters as area of habitat protected and number of species and ecosystems conserved (e.g. Heywood and Iriondo, 2003, Margules and Pressey, 2000, Salafsky et al., 2002). Prescriptions for the identification of areas to be conserved, especially at local scales, are not followed (Pressey et al., 1993) and protected areas are often far from adequately protected (Terborgh, 1999). It seems that at least some influential scientists are frustrated by their lack of influence on the practice of biodiversity conservation. This raises questions about how the biodiversity agenda is enacted and contested. Here these questions are considered in the context of the extension of this agenda into the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico with particular reference to the networks formed around one international conservation NGO, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and a small community of Mexican conservation NGOs. Oaxaca is here used as a case study because its global importance as a biodiversity hotspot has been established by the epistemic community of biodiversity scientists. It contains several priority ecoregions as defined by the World Bank/WWF Global 200 assessment of biodiversity (Dinerstein et al., 1995), an endemic bird area (ICBP, 1992) and is part of the Mesoamerican hotspot of Myers et al. (2000). As such Oaxaca has international importance as a ‘biogeographically imagined community’ (Bryant, 2002, p. 275) towards which the influence of the biodiversity agenda is being extended. It has received significant national and international funding for biodiversity conservation and attracted the interest of local and international NGOs. Yet conservation planning and practice, as elsewhere, have not followed scientific prescription (Gordon et al., 2006) and important areas within the state are still considered to be inadequately protected (Ceballos et al., 1998).
The study is based on 25 semistructured interviews carried out between 2002 and 2003 with individual senior staff of local and transnational NGOs and a variety of other institutional actors relevant to Mexican and Oaxacan conservation. Amongst these were six locally based NGOs for whom biodiversity conservation was a primary stated objective as demonstrated by on-going conservation related activities. Institutions were chosen based on the author's prior knowledge of Oaxacan conservation, from information in the Mexican Directory of Conservation (FMCN, 2001) and at the suggestion of other interviewees. All institutions chosen were willing to be interviewed and in each case the most senior staff member available was interviewed. In compliance with the terms under which interviews were given, local NGOs and their staff are not referred to by name. Additional insights were also gained from participation in conservation activities with one of the local NGOs during the same period (Gordon, 2006).
Section snippets
Transnational NGOs
Transnational conservation NGOs such as WWF, The World Conservation Union (IUCN), The Nature Conservancy, Birdlife International and Conservation International occupy a central role in bridging the science and the practice of biodiversity conservation. They fund conservation science and employ conservation scientists (da Fonseca, 2003), are active in the policy processes that shape biodiversity conservation (e.g. Raustiala, 1997a) and are also important as implementing agencies of conservation
Discussion: networks and translations
It has been shown that outside of CONANP administered protected areas, the Mexican federal government has limited its role in nature conservation to the provision of funds (FMCN), information (CONABIO) and regulation (SEMARNAT), and that even within CONANP there is an increasing tendency to involve the non-governmental sector. This has had the effect of creating a space for international and local NGOs to become dominant actors in the practice of biodiversity conservation in Oaxaca. However,
Acknowledgements
This research was part funded by a joint grant from the UK government's Economic and Social Research Council and Natural Environment Research Council (R42200134147). Paul Harrison, Sarah Hutchison and Janet Townsend are thanked for advice during field work and manuscript preparation. Above all, the staffs of numerous organisations in Mexico City and Oaxaca are acknowledged for their generosity in granting interviews.
James E. Gordon does research on biological and social aspects of forest conservation in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean. He has an academic background in forest sciences and social sciences and has worked in Belize, Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica, and Mexico. He is currently initiating a Caribbean conservation programme at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Florida.
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