2. Stories From the Field

The implementation grant projects in the BCN portfolio are all less than three years old. Some projects have only been on the ground for one year. It is too early to draw definitive conclusions regarding the effectiveness of enterprise oriented approaches to community based conservation. However, our partners have already generated a fascinating wealth of information about the conditions under which these enterprise oriented approaches can work - and perhaps even more importantly, what some of the challenges are constraining these approaches.

2.1 Content of the Following Pages

The stories from each of the 20 BCN-funded implementation grants are presented below. Each of these stories is organized into four sections: Project Overview, 1996 Accomplishments, Success Stories and Challenges. The project overview sections were written by the BCN staff. The remaining sections were written by representatives of the project teams.

Project Overview

We provide a brief description of the project that focuses on why the site is important from a biodiversity perspective, the major threats to this biodiversity, how the project is seeking to address these threats, and the major potential policy impacts that the project hopes to have.

1996 Accomplishments

We asked project team members to provide an overview of the project's accomplishments during the past year. These accomplishments include both process and impact-oriented achievements.

Success Stories

Here each team tells one or more "stories from the field" describing successes that its project has had over the past year. Groups perceive their "successes" in a wide range of ways. Some groups describe success in terms of enterprise development and enhancement of community incomes. For example, the Tasar Silk Project in India [#3] describes the excitement that the villagers felt upon harvesting their first crop of oak leaves. Others describe successes in terms of directly improving environmental conditions - the Ecotourism Project in Nepal [#2] tells how the habitat that they have developed and managed provides food and shelter for rhinos and other species.

Still others describe their successes in terms of changing policies. For example, the Fish Harvesting Project in the Solomon Islands [#18] relates how a local regulation of turtle hunting is becoming the model for national legislation. And, for some of the projects, success is seen in terms of the direct reduction of threats to biodiversity conservation - the Oil Nuts Project in the Solomon Islands [#19] tells how a large logging firm decided to leave the island following community outcry sparked by project awareness workshops.

Challenges

In this section, we asked the team to describe one or more challenges that the project encountered over the past year. The range of challenges that these stories describe varies considerably. For some groups, the major challenge seems to be enterprise production such as the difficulties of establishing a base of operations for the Rafting Project in Sulawesi [#9]. For others it is finding access to markets such as the Essential Oil Project in Nepal [#1]. Another challenge involves overcoming community organization problems such as the long-standing disputes between clan members in the Scientific Tourism Project in Crater Mountain [#15]. In still other cases, challenges lie in dealing with powerful outside stakeholders such as the corporate logging firms poised to take over project sites in the Eco-Timber Project in PNG [#17] or in managing relations with authorities such as the need to get government permits in the Butterfly Projects in Sulawesi [#9] and Irian Jaya [#10]. And, for a few projects, the challenges are related to either logistics such as the difficulty in maintaining supply lines to the Scientific Tourism Project in Lakekamu Basin [#16], or natural disasters like the tidal wave that swamped the Dive-Tourism Project in the Padaido Island[#11] and the viral outbreak that plagued the cocoons of the Tasar Silk Project in the Garhwal district of India [#3].

2.2 Lessons Learned From These Stories

Challenges in Promoting Conservation....

BCN's first goal is to promote enterprise-oriented approaches to biodiversity conservation. The stories presented in this section represent the experience of diverse projects at different stages of maturity. Some of the projects have made major strides towards developing viable enterprises that are creating incentives for communities to meet the threats to biodiversity at the project site. Others, however, are still grappling with basic issues of project design and community organization. At this point, it seems difficult to say how many of the BCN-funded projects, at the end of their three year project life, will have developed fully self-sustaining enterprises or will have been able to completely deal with the threats facing the biodiversity at their project sites. The challenges facing them, in terms of the general lack of capacity for business, access to markets, logistics and ability to set up monitoring systems are enormous.

....and Successes in Evaluating this Approach

While it is difficult at this stage to be able to rigorously evaluate the success of the BCN in terms of meeting its first goal, it is clear from the stories that the program is well on its way to collecting the information required to meeting its second goal of evaluating the effectiveness of these enterprise-oriented approaches to conservation. We are learning a great deal about the specific conditions under which these approaches can be effective -- especially in conjunction with other conservation strategies. Although it is still too early to draw definitive conclusions, it is possible to capture recurrent themes and insights from the stories and BCN staff's experience to date. Major themes that have emerged include:

• Community-based enterprises are faced with enormous challenges. A number of projects are facing significant challenges in terms of the general lack of capacity for business management, access to markets, logistics and ability to set up monitoring systems. This is not surprising. In the United States, which has a population that is experienced with a cash economy, a well developed transport and communications infrastructure, and established markets, only one out of every seven newly formed businesses survives beyond five years. And these are businesses that merely have to worry about turning a profit in financial terms. By contrast, BCN and its partners are working in remote areas of the developing world with people who are often entering into a cash economy for the first time. These areas generally only have rudimentary infrastructure and markets do not yet exist for their products and services. Furthermore, we expect these businesses not only to be financially self-sustaining, but also to be both ecologically and socially sustainable! Given these daunting odds, the degree of success that many of these projects have had to date obviously reflects the hard work and dedication that these project teams have brought to their work.

• Project team's are good sources of advice and leadership on conservation issues for other national groups. In the Sikkim project, the team is increasingly sought out as a key contributor to sustainable tourism development efforts in the state. The Nepali Government will use the Chitwan area as one of two pilot areas for rolling out the new legislation for recycling of some tourist tax revenues to local user groups. Community members from the Arnavon area of the Solomon Islands are considering forming an emissary group to go to neighboring communities to give advice on starting similar community-based conservation projects. At these and other projects, the teams are having a multiplier effect on the investments made to date.

• The process of establishing community-based monitoring systems can generate enthusiasm for conservation at the community level. In the Rabual area of Papua New Guinea, the community's discussion about the biological monitoring and evaluation plan led to "lateral thinking" about the value of the forest and the need to conserve it. At the Kalahan Education Foundation project in the Philippines, construction of a "food web" diagram by community members led to insights about broader conservation needs. In Indonesia, an assessment of the depleted rattan and bamboo resources led some local people to begin enrichment planting of those biological resources. These and similar realizations are important steps in the process of having communities begin to adaptively manage their resources to address threats, achieve conservation, and provide a sustainable source of income.

• Empowered stakeholder groups will reduce threats before enterprise benefits are evident. A key determinant of success involves forming representative stakeholder groups with explicit governance structures. The local or national government often needs to be a key player within this structure. In Fiji, the communities in the project area have taken several measures to conserve marine resources such as discontinuing the issuance of fishing licenses, placing size limits to catches, and banning the killing of turtles and the use of gill nets. In Mindanao, Philippines, project communities have refused access to a concessionaire seeking to harvest rattan. Along the Meliya River in West Kalimantan, the communities have at least temporarily ceased all hand-logging activities. In Makira province, Solomon Islands, community members have rejected overtures from logging companies leading to one major company deciding to leave the island. These examples are some of the most satisfying -- and unexpected -- impacts of the BCN program to date.

• Strong leadership is consistently the most important ingredient for progress. In Humla Nepal, Tsewang Lama, a former member of the parliament, has spearheaded community discussions on the project. Dr. Sudarshan of the NGO, Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra, has intergrated the BCN-funded project in the Western Ghats to wider development efforts with the Soliga people. In the Arnavons area of the Solomon Islands, the elected management committee comprised of two individuals from each of the different communities has established a management plan for the considerable marine resources of the area. And the Kalahan Education Foundation is in the process of passing the mantle of leadership from Pastor Delbert Rice to the Ikalahn people. This leadership can either be an individual or a group. Either way, these leaders consistently intergrate BCN-fundeded activities in to a larger development context, remain focused on communicating with their constituencies, and move to adopt new policies and practices when the situation warrants it.

• Don't underestimate the impact of "mother-nature." Early, heavy snowfall significantly reduced the quantity of Jatamansi collected in Humla, Nepal. Mites have decimated the honey-bee population in the Western Ghats, India. A tidal wave after an earthquake wiped out whole villages in Biak, Indonesia. Chronic illness reduced the effectiveness of field staff in the Lakekamu Basin, Papua New Guinea. The above and others are just some of the challenges which mother-nature has thrown up in the path of project teams.

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