Community benefits for conservation: how beneficial?

One aspect of community involvement in a conservation project is that members of the community may be involved in activities that contradict, or seem to contradict, the project’s aims – this may include things like fishing, hunting, and culling activities. The idea is to get people to either abandon these activities or adopt a more sustainable method of carrying them out, and the way this is done is through community incentives or benefits.

In Lucy Emerton’s paper on community benefits in Africa, she summarises the general approach to providing community benefits:

In order to achieve the joint ends of conservation and human welfare improvement such projects and programmes have followed a common approach to generating economic benefits for the people who live in wildlife areas. In combination with other forms of local participation in wildlife management, benefits have tended to be provided by returning a proportion of the revenues earned by the state from wildlife back to them through indirect benefit-sharing arrangements and grass-roots development activities mainly the provision of social infrastructure such as schools, water supplies and health facilities.

It’s important to consider that wildlife may have a serious cost to communities which in turn leads to culls. The International Gorilla Conservation Programme refers to this as “human-wildlife conflict”, which includes crop raiding by gorilla, elephant, buffalo, etc. Where this kind of conflict is a problem, building a school is not going to much of a deterrent for culling, because the original conflict remains a problem. Other types of benefit can be implemented instead with some success, provided there is significant community participation to determine the best course of action. The IGCP’s page on community initiatives says this:

In DRC and Rwanda, for example, with support from IGCP, park staff and local communities have been building a dry stone wall (one meter high and one meter thick) around the park perimeter. Building the wall has been a positive step toward reducing conflict between the park and the community as buffalo no longer raid crops and people are able to cultivate field closer to park boundary; thus increased crop production and increasing income. The record harvest in areas already protected by the new wall has encouraged local communities to extend the project.

There was a recent story that was a prime example of blatantly inadequate community involvement (not to mention wildlife assessments) in decision making, where a 4-year $575,000 USAID project to improve the lives of coastal communities in Kenya resulted in the provision of plastic fishing nets, rather than the traditional hook and hand lines (against the requests of the local fishermen’s associations). The plastic nets have been damaging the ecosystem, killing wildlife and coral. That’s quite a lesson right there.

In this month’s Landscape Research there’s an article by Monica Lorenzo Pugholm about potential community benefits for Jamaican fishermen, which largely fall under the category of “alternative livelihoods” (which actually means a career in tourism – see my post on the dangers of ecotourism here). The result was that the benefit may have made sense in terms of financial income, but occupation comes down to a lot more than money, and ultimately the switch from fishing to tourism did not constitute a sufficient benefit.

The actual fiscal value of an area in terms of natural resource products may be huge, so don’t be fooled into thinking there isn’t a substantial financial benefit in fishing to begin with. The Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem, for example, has been evaluated in the last month (by authors from UNIDO, BDCP, IGCC, and the University of Nigeria) at US$49,941.4 million, or over US$20,081 million not including offshore oil. In theory, the value of an area’s natural resources should be an incentive in itself, in that unsustainable harvesting of resources will result in a catastrophic boom-bust dynamic. Unfortunately, that’s a detached and simplified way of looking at it, because in reality fishing less (for example) may not be an option depending on other community or personal pressures, particularly when people are living in poverty. A person has certain requirements for feeding themselves and their families, and it is not enough to say “your requirements are too great.” You need to find not just other avenues of meeting those requirements, but better avenues.

Along a similar vein, I’ve been reading this article in Environmental Conservation by authors from the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Kent about the India Eco-Development Project at Periyar Tiger Reserve in Kerala, India (summarised on Nature Data):

The Periyar Tiger Reserve, India, is supported by the India Eco-Development Project (PTR-IEDP), an integrated conservation and development project (ICDP) funded by donors. The project has been internally evaluated as successful, although out of the US$6million received, only 43.2% went to community-based conservation activities. When an independent survey of 180 people (half of whom had benefited from the PTR-IEDP, half of whom had not) was carried out, 71.1% of those who had benefited said their attitude to conservation was not changed by the project, and of the 55 community benefits only 36.4% were still being used.

Unfortunately I can’t see beyond the abstract because I don’t have an athens login or whatnot, but I would love to know what exactly those community benefits were, and why 63.6% of those benefits are no longer deemed beneficial.

The reason I started thinking about community benefits was that I saw the very engaging film The Age of Stupid, which is about climate change and why the switch to green energy pronto is so important. Among other things, it features a group of middle-class English people protesting a wind farm because it will ruin their view and damage house prices and be noisy (despite being right next to a go-kart track), although when pressed they claimed to be very concerned about climate change. The general consensus from those I knew was that the protesters were stupid and selfish, and actually I was inclined to agree, but I think this attitude is not helpful and only succeeds in isolating the green energy movement from local community members. What would be more helpful would be to consider the specific grievances and by collaborating come up with solutions, such as adapting the turbines’ design or offering tax breaks for existing homes near turbines, or some previously unthought-of marvel. Could a community benefits project be applied to middle-class rural English communities? Can’t hurt to try.

Misplaced ‘vulture restaurants’ may harm Canarian ground-nesting birds

The Canary Islands sound very interesting. You can access some GIS data via Google Earth, thanks to the Canary Islands Spatial Data Infrastructure.

As well as 50% of their vertebrate species (Juan et al., 2000), 21 non-migratory vertebrate species, and 7 birds (Blanco and Gonzalez, 2002), endemic fauna of the Canary Islands include 5 bird of prey subspecies: the Canarian Egyptian Vulture (or Guirre), a Common Buzzard, a Eurasian Sparrowhawk, two Eurasian Kestrel subspecies, and a Barn Owl. The Islands are also home to Barbary Falcons and Ospreys (Palacios, 2004).

The Canarian Egyptian Vulture is an endangered bird now restricted largely to Fuerteventura and to two territories on Lanzarote. The subspecies declined rapidly due to collisions with power lines, poisoning, and increased tourism, and in 2000 there was estimated to be only 25-30 breeding pairs (Donázar et al., 2002).

The European Commission’s LIFE (Financial Instrument for the Environment) project for Spain planned to introduce measures to protect the Canarian Egyptian vulture by October 2009:

A 50% reduction in the adult mortality through collision with power lines will be attained by introducing corrective measures in the island’s power lines. An increase of 20% in the breeding success will be achieved through reinforced surveillance of nesting areas. Surveillance and awareness raising measures will be implemented with the aim to reduce the use of poison. Finally, to avoid the potential threat of famines, three controlled middens will be created with the collaboration of local livestock breeders.

Middens are also known as ‘vulture restaurants’, and are basically areas with a constant supply of carcasses (provided by humans) so food availability for the birds is never erratic. This would hopefully encourage breeding and improve survival, thereby increasing the number of birds and helping to establish a sustainable population. Sounds like a great example of a simple and easily implemented conservation method, right?

Sort of.

In an article in this January’s Animal Conservation by a team from CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) including a member of the team that originally described the species in the first place (Donázar et al., 2002), it was found that, when artificial ground-nesting birds‘ nests were placed along lines 200m to 34km from vulture restaurants (as summarised on Nature Data) “of the 67% lines predated by carrion-eaters, 90% of nests were attacked.”

It’s never simple, is it?

At least it’s predictably never simple. The complexities of population dynamics are mind-blowing, but by anticipating that there are complexities and learning more about the ecosystems, reserve management continually gets more effective.

References:

Blanco JC, Gonzalez JL, 1992. “Libro rojo de los vertebrados de Espana.” (Red List of the vertebrates of Spain) Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentacion, Madrid, Spain. (via Donázar, 2002)

Cortés-Avizanda A, Carrete M, Serrano D, Donázar JA, 2009. “Carcasses increase the probability of predation of ground-nesting birds: a caveat regarding the conservation value of vulture restaurants.” Animal Conservation, 12(1): 85-88, doi: 10.1111/j.1469-1795.2008.00231.x (CSIC, full pdf here)

Donázar JA, Negro JJ, Palacios CJ, Gangoso L, Godoy JA, Ceballos O, Hiraldo F, Capote N, 2002. “Description of a new subspecies of the Egyptian Vulture (Accipitridae: Neophron percnopterus) from the Canary Islands.” Journal of Raptor Research 36(1): 17–23 (CSIC, full pdf here)

Juan C, Emerson BC, Oromí P, Hewitt GM, 2000. “Colonization and diversification: towards a phylogeographic synthesis for the Canary Islands.” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 15: 104-109, doi: 10.1016/S0169-5347(99)01776-0 (Universitat de les Illes Balears)

Palacios JC, 2004. “Current status and distribution of birds of prey in the Canary Islands.” Bird Conservation International, 14:3:203-213, doi: 10.1017/S0959270904000255 (CSIC)

The brouhaha over “National Park Service Gets the Lead Out!”

There has been a bit of a brouhaha, to say the least, over the National Park Service’s press release distributed on 10th March saying they were going to phase out all ammo and tackle containing lead by 2010.

First off, let’s have a look at what a ban on lead ammo and tackle would actually mean. What it applies to is the use of bullets and shots (the little lead spheres that go inside cartridges), and sinkers (attached to the end of a fishing line to get a better cast distance and to weigh down the lure) in National Parks. This ban certainly doesn’t equate to a ban on hunting (the NRA is not a force to be taken lightly) and, as mentioned in the press release, non-toxic alternatives (tungsten, copper, and steel) are pretty freely available throughout the USA. The California Department of Fish and Game has produced this list of approved non-lead ammo manufacturers, and there’s a similar list of approved non-lead shots for wildfowl hunting by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

So why ban lead, anyway? Well, you probably already know that lead is bad for people, which is why you won’t see any new lead plumbing (including solder), lead paint, or leaded petrol in the UK and elsewhere. Here is a really good list of things that lead has been shown to do to people (by mimicking calcium in the body’s chemical reactions), from lowering our IQ, turning us into criminals, and causing schizophrenia to killing us. Lead was used for so long in plumbing because it is so non-corrosive (i.e. non-biodegradable), so over time it can build up to toxic levels (bioaccumulate). Although absorption of lead via skin contact is very low, absorption of ingested lead is much higher and can build up, especially if you’re a carnivore and therefore eating lots of things with low levels of lead them. It all adds up.

For instance, lead poisoning is of particular concern for birds of prey, which eat the carcasses of animals that may have been shot with lead ammo. Lead poisoning is a primary cause of death in the critically endangered California Condor, and it’s already illegal to shoot deer, bear, wild pig, elk, pronghorn antelope as well as coyotes, ground squirrels, and other non-game wildlife in areas designated as California condor range. Just a few days ago a California Condor was taken in by the Los Angeles Zoo suffering not only from lead poisoning but also from having been shot. The Peregrine Fund (a birds of prey charity) hosted a conference last May called “Ingestion of Lead from Spent Ammunition: Implications for Wildlife and Humans”, in which several papers were presented with evidence that eating game shot with lead ammo substantially increases lead concentrations in the blood (pdf here). As in humans, lead is stored in bone and soft tissues, especially kidneys and brain, impairing reproduction and causing cognitive and behavioural defects as well as tissue damage and death.

The use of lead shot when hunting waterfowl is already banned by the Fish and Wildlife Service since 1991, but is still permitted for shooting game birds in neighbouring fields (e.g. pheasants) and even to hunt snakes in the same water body. Waterfowl may be particularly susceptible to inadvertent ingestion of lead shot due to their feeding habits. For example, swans swallow grit to help with digestion, but shots are the same sort of size and shape that they can be easily confused and inadvertently ingested. According to the Swan Society, it only takes three or four shots to kill a swan, but in the major swan die-off of winter 2000/2001 up to 30 shots were found in each bird. The use of lead sinkers was made illegal in the UK over 20 years ago, and in some US states it’s illegal to sell certain lead sinkers or jigs, but nationwide the Environmental Protection Agency estimates:

approximately 2,500 metric tons of lead, zinc, and brass sinkers (over 98 percent of the volume represented by lead), an estimated 480 million sinkers, are manufactured each year in the United States.

This phenomenal number is so high because lines break not too infrequently, leaving the sinkers in the water, so they have to be replaced. You can imagine for yourself what this means for the number of lead sinkers that get lost in the US’s water bodies every year, and how much lead this constitutes. Straight Dope estimates up to 3000 tons of lead entering Canadian and US waterways annually.

So why are people still up in arms (so to speak) about switching to lead-free? I have seen a lot of people claiming that there is no evidence that lead ammo/tackle damages wildlife in any way, but there is so much evidence out there to suggest lead has dangerous implications for the health of both wildlife and humans (see the AEWA’s list of papers regarding waterbirds, the proceedings of the Peregrine Fund’s conference on spent lead ammo, and Needleman’s book “Human Lead Exposure”) that I find it hard to believe that people still believe hunting with lead can continue without repercussions. I think it’s partly about tradition and self-reliance: for a lot of people hunting can be a way to distance oneself from bureaucracy and regulation, and return to tradition. It’s also not necessarily immediately obvious that lead ammo and tackle have a detrimental effect on wildlife, because the fact that hunting is still such a popular and historic activity and there’s still wildlife to be had seems to suggest that its practice is sustainable. Consider, though, that lead sticks around in the environment and that for example in California the number of Lifetime Hunting licenses issued has tripled since 2000 to 4,159 – there is more lead in the environment now than there ever has been. Furthermore, birds of prey are already pretty rare (some more than others, after suffering hugely from other persistent toxins, e.g. DDT), so it’s not like you’re going to see them falling out of the sky en masse, but the fact that California Condors are showing up pretty regularly with lead poisoning has got to mean something, right?

Also, I’ve seen people on forums saying if they were going to get lead poisoning (and by implication if lead poisoning were an issue for serious consideration) they would have done so by now, because they used to carry lead pellets around in their mouth, and regulating lead comes under the same category as constantly using anti-bacterial hand wash. One problem with that is that and that although absorption of lead through the skin may be minimal, absorption of ingested lead is considerably higher, especially in children (40%). The effects of low levels of lead may also not be immediately obvious or expected – behavioural changes, problems with hand-eye co-ordination, hyperactivity, lowered IQ and cognitive function, higher incidence of miscarriage, impotence, abdominal pain, etc. But the thing you have to bear in mind is that lead may build up in the body’s soft tissues and over time more serious effects can be seen, in some cases leading to death. See Herbert Needleman’s book “Human Lead Exposure” and LEAD Action News’ list of referenced effects of human lead exposure for papers on lead toxicity in humans. When it comes to equivalent effects in wildlife, it’s also important to consider that feeding habits (whether it’s birds of prey feeding on big game killed with lead ammo or swans inadvertently swallowing shot along with grit) and animal size are factors.

To cut a long story short, this is a very complex issue, and although there is an awful lot of support for the ban, there is also an awful lot of opposition. As a result of this, on the 18th of March NPS issued a new press release, effectively backtracking:

1. Nothing has changed for the public. We are simply announcing the NPS goal of eliminating lead from NPS activities to protect human and wildlife health.
2. We will work to clean our own house by altering NPS resource management activities. In 2009, we will transition to non-lead ammunition in culling operations and dispatching sick or wounded animals.
3. In the future, we will look at the potential for transitioning to non-lead ammunition and non-lead fishing tackle for recreational use by working with our policy office and appropriate stakeholders/groups. This will require public involvement, comment, and review.

I was quite saddened and frustrated by this, but I am ever-hopeful that by effective provision of information and public involvement by the NPS and other environmentally-minded people, those that opposed this ban this round will consider the effect that lead-containing hunting tools are having on wildlife and come to understand that the benefits of a lead ban are worth the minimal hassle of using non-toxic alternatives.