Why Politics Matters for Nature Conservation

I have cared very little for politics my entire adult life, but if you asked, I might call myself a conservationist. These aspects of my life might not appear in any way contradictory. However, as I have come to better understand the importance of politics for conservation outcomes, a slight cognitive dissonance has started to creep into my life as an apolitical conservationist. This blog post charts my own personal journey to understanding the inseparability of politics and conservation, across three chapters in my life and three different continents.

Figure 1: My path to becoming a more political conservationist

Management of protected areas in Africa is largely determined by the state

My main project while working as an intern was focussed on the use of collaborative management partnerships (CMPs) for the governance of protected areas (PAs) in Africa. Through this experience it became clear to me that governments vary in their uptake of different mechanisms for conservation, which in turn determines conservation outcomes.

CMPs are contractual agreements between a PA authority and some other partner [1], but mostly exist as partnerships between the relevant state and a non-governmental organisation (NGO), such as a wildlife conservation charity. Agreements fall broadly on the spectrum shown in Fig 2 with one extreme representing hands-off financial or technical support, like ranger training, versus taking full control of the reserve. The difference is akin to directing a portion of your salary into the stock market compared with quitting your job and starting your own company. Unsurprisingly, each strategy has different outcomes for conservation, with evidence suggesting that more collaborative and delegated approaches can raise more money and thus more effectively manage PAs [1]. In other words, CMPs seem to deliver positive conservation outcomes. However, they have also been referred to as neo-colonial and some states fear that delegating any level of PA control to international NGOs could be perceived as a sign of weakness, causing their uptake to vary significantly across Africa. I can’t admit to reaching any kind of consensus on the role of CMPs for African conservation, nor is it my place to, but they certainly are a political issue just as much as they are a mechanism for conservation.

Figure 2: Schematic illustration showing how the 4 forms of collaboration between governments and NGOs vary across key characteristics. Source: World Bank’s Collaborative Management Partnership Toolkit [2].

South America’s Chaco hung out to dry

My experience with consultancy left me feeling somewhat disconnected from the actual, boots-on-the ground conservation work being done globally, and no doubt influenced my decision to travel. It was on this trip that I was properly introduced to the Gran Chaco, South America’s second largest forest, which spreads across Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina. Countless hours on rickety buses with far too-frequent police checks (often just as I was dozing off) allowed me to see the diverging fate of the Chaco across each of these countries, further imprinting the importance of political context and will for conservation outcomes.

The Chaco consists mainly of arid landscapes which are collectively referred to as the Dry Chaco, and despite its size, remains relatively unknown when compared with its wetter cousin, the Amazon rainforest. Lack of publicity and protection has caused the Chaco to suffer, and between 2000 and 2019, the overall extent of Dry Chaco forest cover decreased by 20.2% (9.5 million ha) [3]. However, there are three sides to the loss of one of the world’s most important dry forests. Figure 3 shows how deforestation rates have differed substantially between the countries containing the Chaco. In fact, the difference in condition of the Chaco was tangible even through my own visits to Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia, both visually and through the discussions I was able to have with NGOs fighting to protect it. It was one thing to theorise how conservation outcomes might vary at the level of protected areas due to differing government agendas, it was something else entirely to see it happen at the scale of countries with my own eyes.

Figure 3: Left: Map showing the loss of Dry Chaco forest cover relative to its original extent [3]. Right: pictures from my travels. From top to bottom the pictures show: the landscape of the Dry Chaco in Reserva Cañada del Carmen (owned and managed by Guyra Paraguay); beekeepers and apiaries operated in collaboration with local communities in the Bolivian Dry Chaco (project run by Nativa Boliva); two rangers setting up camera traps in Reserva Las Mesillas (owned and operated by Fundacion Biodiversidad Argentina).

Bravery is required to influence political agendas

Half-a-year later I had returned home with the understanding that conservation could no longer afford to be apolitical in the fight to protect nature. However, events unfolding around me at the time showed that resistance to this notion remained. Earlier this year, Wild Isles, Sir David Attenborough’s first ever domestic documentary was released. For me, and likely many others, it transformed my sentiment towards UK wildlife. Yet it also failed to deliver the full picture with any level of conviction by relegating the show’s final episode to the BBC’s on-demand service, for fears of adding a political dimension to an otherwise resounding success. Around the same time, the RSPB, our largest conservation organisation in the UK took to twitter to publicly criticised the current government, but swiftly issued an apology for these same comments. So then, if politics really matters for conservation, which I hope to have convinced you of even if only slightly, why are conservation initiatives so afraid to be political?

https://twitter.com/RSPBEngland/status/1696845799383003180

Figure 4: The RSPB’s controversial tweet accusing key government figures to be ‘liars’ after relaxing environmental protection measures. Source: X

There are probably a multitude of reasons in truth, most of them larger and more complicated than I can yet understand. However, I can reflect on what I think was holding me back. Politics elicits a feeling of powerlessness by forcing you to confront the reality that things might not (and probably will not) go your way. It takes bravery to confront this feeling, stare it in the face, and walk towards. But this truly is the only direction towards more effective conservation. With 2024 poised to be the year of elections, involving 40 countries and 3.2 billion people [4], for all those that hold the political opinion of caring for the natural world, the time to find that bravery is now.

References:

1. P. Lindsey et al., Attracting investment for Africa’s protected areas by creating enabling environments for Collaborative Management Partnerships. Biological Conservation. 255, 108979 (2021)
2. Collaborative Management Partnership : Toolkit (English). World Bank Group (2021), (available at http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/562331632845684383/Collaborative-Management-Partnership-Toolkit
3. N. U. de la Sancha et al., The disappearing dry Chaco, one of the last dry forest systems on Earth. Landscape Ecology. 36, 2997–3012 (2021)
4. E. Curran, A. Crawford, 2024 is election year in 40 countries and podcast Elon, inc.. launches next week. Bloomberg.com (2023), (available at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-11-01/2024-is-election-year-in-40-countries-and-podcast-elon-inc-launches-next-week)