Livelihoods

The notion that ecosystems and their biodiversity can improve human livelihoods is central to the utilitarian justification for conservation that currently occupies a prominent place in the thinking of many large environmental organizations.   Nature does indeed provide us with a diverse array of benefits, but what evidence is there that livelihoods are actually improved as a result of conservation per se, as compared to other economic uses of ecosystems?  With this overarching question in mind I examine in detail one large-scale conservation program that provides a variety of benefits to people: Namibia's Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) program.  The program facilitates the development of local governance structures and supports the generation of benefits from sustainable management of natural resources on communal lands.  These benefits include own-use of meat and plant products from local hunting and gathering, employment income from jointly-managed safari lodges and hunting operations, and revenues from photographic tourism, trophy hunting, and contracts with pharmaceutical companies.  At the community level, regular monitoring has shown that wildlife populations have increased since the advent of locally-managed conservancies, and studies have demonstrated that all else equal, conservancies with higher wildlife diversity generate greater financial benefits than wildlife-poor conservancies.  Financial benefits at the conservancy level have also increased over time, although the magnitude of change and the identity of benefit types vary by conservancy.  These aggregate financial gains may nevertheless mask heterogeneity in gains or losses at the household level, where the interplay between individuals' geographic location, position within local power structures, and existing socioeconomic characteristics is likely to mediate livelihood outcomes.  Data at the level of the household are relatively scarce, but preliminary research indicates that Namibia's CBNRM program may have positive, negative, or neutral effects on aspects of livelihoods, depending on household characteristics and the indicator in question.  Further investigation into the costs and benefits of individual households is necessary in order to understand the conditions under which conservation programs can deliver the highest net benefits to the greatest number of people.