a challenge to conservationists - mac chapin

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Excerpted from the November/December 2004 WORLD WATCH magazine© 2004 Worldwatch Institute

www.worldwatch.org

A Challenge to Conservationists

BY MAC CHAPIN

November/December 2004 WORLD•WATCH 17

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A WAKE-UP CALLIn June 2003, representatives of major foundationsconcerned with the planet’s threatened biodiversity*gathered in South Dakota for a meeting of the Con-sultative Group on Biodiversity. On the second evening,after dinner, several of the attendees met to discuss aproblem about which they had become increasingly dis-turbed. In recent years, their foundations had given mil-lions of dollars of support to nonprofit conservationorganizations, and had even helped some of thosegroups get launched. Now, however, there were indi-cations that three of the largest of these organiza-tions—World Wildlife Fund (WWF), ConservationInternational (CI), and The Nature Conservancy(TNC)—were increasingly excluding, from full involve-ment in their programs, the indigenous and traditionalpeoples living in territories the conservationists were try-

ing to protect.† In some cases, there were complaintsthat the conservationists were being abusive.

The meeting led to a series of soul-searching dis-cussions, led by Jeff Campbell of the Ford Foundation,who initiated two studies—one to assess what was reallyhappening between the indigenous communities andconservationists, and the other to look into the finan-cial situation of each of these three big groups.

The work plan (or “terms of reference”) given tothe investigators contained two key observations aboutthe three conservation giants: they had becomeextremely large and wealthy in a short period of time;and they were promoting global approaches to con-servation “that have evoked a number of questions—and complaints—from local communities, nationalNGOs and human rights activists.”

Because the two studies provided only a quick firstforay into terrain that is undeniably complex, geo-graphically extensive, and diverse (WWF, for example,works in more than 90 countries around the world),

A Challenge to Conservationists

As corporate and government money flow into the three biginternational organizations that dominate the world’s con-servation agenda, their programs have been marked by grow-ing conflicts of interest—and by a disturbing neglect of theindigenous peoples whose land they are in business to protect.

BY MAC CHAPIN

* Among those foundations represented were Ford, MacArthur,Moriah, Wallace Global, C.S. Mott, and Oak. † “Indigenous and traditional peoples” is a more inclusive category thansimply “indigenous peoples.” “Traditional peoples” includes non-indigenous groups that are long-standing residents of wilderness areas,such as the rubber tappers of Brazil and long-term Ladino and Creoleresidents of the Caribbean coastal region of Central America.

Documentation of this article is presented here in two forms: foot-notes (flagged by asterisks and daggers) elaborating on key points; andsource references (flagged by superscripts) listed in sequence at theend of the article.

Editor’s NoteWe anticipate that this article will launch an open and publicdiscussion about a complex and contentious issue that has beendebated behind closed doors in recent months. While the fresh airmay at times be chilly, we believe that active, engaged discussionis essential to resolving these issues and to strengthening the con-servation and indigenous community movements.

The author of the article is an active “player” in that debate,and we look forward to publishing other views in the January/February issue. We therefore invite all interested readers, includ-ing staff of the “Big Three” conservation organizations discussedherein, to submit responses for publication. We welcome the viewsof indigenous people, NGOs that are working with indigenousgroups, foundations or agencies that fund such work, and othersconcerned with these issues.

WORLD•WATCH November/December 200418

they were understood to be just rough sketches thatcould help orient discussions among the concernedfoundations. The findings were not intended—initially,at least—for publication.

There were many people working either in the field(as I was) or in the foundations sponsoring field proj-ects in biodiversity and cultural diversity, who wantedto see these findings aired. As an anthropologist whohad been working with indigenous peoples for morethan 35 years (most recently as director of the Centerfor Native Lands), I was acutely familiar—and increas-ingly uneasy—with the conditions that had precipitatedthe two Ford investigations.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Complaints had been building for more than a decade,and they paralleled the extraordinary growth of themajor conservation organizations. WWF, for example,was founded in 1961 with a small office in Switzerland.Its program was limited to coordination and fundrais-ing activities for the International Union for the Con-servation of Nature (IUCN), which implementedprograms in the field. WWF grew slowly over the ensu-ing years, spawning country and regional offices in var-ious countries of the industrial north. Third Worldcountries weren’t included until later. During the firsttwo decades, despite its expansion, the WWF familyremained small. In the late 1970s, for example, the U.S.branch of WWF fit on one floor of a relatively smallbuilding on Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., staffedby 25 people. In the early 1980s, it began to grow rap-idly—and today fills up four floors of a luxurious build-ing nearby. Worldwide, the U.S. and internationalbranches of WWF now employ close to 4,000 people.

The Nature Conservancy started up in the mid-1940s, when a small group of scientists joined forcesto save natural areas in the United States. In 1965TNC used a grant from the Ford Foundation to paythe salary of its first full-time president. In the 1970s,it grew to cover all 50 states and expanded into LatinAmerica. Fueled by fresh injections of bilateral andmultilateral money, as well as corporate support, itbegan a vertiginous growth spurt in the 1990s—andspread into new regions of the globe; yet the bulk ofTNC’s work is carried out domestically. It is now thelargest conservation organization in the world, withassets in excess of $3 billion.

Conservation International began in dramatic fash-ion in 1986. During the previous several years, TNC’sinternational program had grown rapidly, and tensionwith its other programs had mounted. When TNC’scentral management tried to rein it in, virtually the entireinternational staff bolted and transformed itself into CI.From the start, the new organization was well equippedwith staff, contacts, and money it had assembled before-

hand. In 1989, it brought in yet another group ofdefectors—this time from WWF—and began expand-ing with the help of an aggressive fundraising machinethat has become the envy of all of its competitors.However, a substantial portion of its funding comes fromjust four organizations: the Gordon & Betty MooreFoundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the WorldBank, and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).TNC and WWF, in contrast, have far more diversefunding bases.

Discussion of “natural” alliances between conser-vationists and indigenous peoples and the need to workclosely with local communities, common just a fewyears ago, has largely disappeared. It has been dis-placed, in the biggest conservationist NGOs, by talk ofchanged priorities, with a new focus on large-scale con-servation strategies and the importance of science,rather than social realities, in determining their agen-das. At the same time, there has been an undercurrentof talk about how “difficult” indigenous peoples canbe, how hard they are to work with, and, in places suchas Ecuador, Bolivia, and the Chiapas region of Mex-ico, how some have moved in the direction of civil dis-ruption and even violence. Then there have beencautions from various quarters of the conservationmovement that indigenous peoples are not—contraryto what many of them have been advertising—suitableallies because they, like most other people, are not evengood conservationists, sometimes choosing their eco-nomic wellbeing over preservation of natural resources.Examples of the Kayapó in Brazil logging their forestsand Mayans slashing and burning the forests of the Peténof Guatemala are often trotted out as examples of thedestructive tendencies of indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples, on whose land the three con-servation groups have launched a plethora of programs,have for their part become increasingly hostile. One oftheir primary disagreements is over the establishment ofprotected natural areas, which, according to the humaninhabitants of those areas, often infringe on their rights.Sometimes the indigenous people are evicted, and theconservationists frequently seem to be behind the evic-tions. On other occasions, traditional uses of the landhave been declared “illegal,” resulting in prosecution ofthe inhabitants by government authorities. Coupled toall of this has been the partnering of conservationistorganizations with multinational corporations—partic-ularly in the businesses of gas and oil, pharmaceuticals,and mining—that are directly involved in pillaging anddestroying forest areas owned by indigenous peoples.

How did relations deteriorate so rapidly and so dras-tically? In the 1970s and through much of the 1980s,conservationists and indigenous peoples had little to dowith each other. In Latin America, for example, thelarge conservation NGOs tended to work through

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urban-based local groups and there was little awarenessof who the indigenous peoples in the various countrieswere. By the mid-1980s, however, the wall was breachedwithin WWF by a program called Wildlands and HumanNeeds, a community-based conservation effort, withfinancing from the U.S. Agency for International Devel-opment (USAID). This was seen as something of a dis-traction by many within WWF, who were mainlybiologists lacking experience working with communi-ties. They viewed the new program as an unwanteddiversion from strict conservation, which they saw as theirmission. It was seen as an imposition by USAID, whichwas pushing for a more grassroots approach.

In 1989, the Coordinating Body of IndigenousOrganizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) made anappeal directly to “the community of concerned envi-ronmentalists” at the international level, proposingthat they form an alliance “in defense of our Amazon-ian homeland.”1 COICA’s call for collaborative actioncame at a time when the Amazonian ecosystem wasbeing threatened as never before by heavily fundedand ill-conceived development and colonization proj-ects, cattle ranching, and unregulated logging and min-ing operations. The appeal noted that theconservationists “have left us, the Indigenous Peoples,out of your vision of the Amazonian Biosphere.” Thatomission, they claimed, was the primary reason the

conservationists’ programs were ineffectual. COICA’s appeal presented Two Agendas—one for

conservationists, the other for the multilateral banks.It included this declaration:

We, the Indigenous Peoples, have been an integralpart of the Amazon Biosphere for millennia. We haveused and cared for the resources of that biosphere witha great deal of respect, because it is our home, andbecause we know that our survival and that of ourfuture generations depends on it. Our accumu-lated knowledge about the ecology of our home, ourmodels for living with the peculiarities of the Ama-zon Biosphere, our reverence and respect for thetropical forest and its other inhabitants, both plantand animal, are the keys to guaranteeing the futureof the Amazon Basin, not only for our peoples, butalso for all humanity.2COICA’s arguments combined human rights con-

siderations with practical suggestions for action in theareas of sustainable development, territorial defense, con-servation, and research, all reflecting indigenous pri-orities. It proposed that the conservation anddevelopment organizations “work directly with ourorganizations on all your programs and campaignswhich affect our homelands.” At the time, this sug-gestion came as a revelation to many conservation-ists—an alternative approach that just might work!

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Some of them wondered why such an obvious con-nection had not occurred to them earlier.

Two Agendas had great impact around the world andgenerated much discussion about partnerships, alliances,co-management of protected areas, participatory man-agement, and a variety of other working relationships.In May 1990, COICA hosted The First Amazon Sum-mit Meeting Between Indigenous Peoples and Envi-ronmentalists, in the Peruvian city of Iquitos. Delegatesarrived from indigenous communities in Peru, Bolivia,Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil, as well as from the BankInformation Center, the Fundación Peruana para laConservación de la Naturaleza, Friends of the Earth,Greenpeace, National Wildlife Federation, Probe Inter-national, Rainforest Action Network, The RainforestAlliance, the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, theWorld Resources Institute, CI, and WWF. At the endof this meeting, everyone signed the Declaration of Iqui-tos, which, among other things, concluded that “it isnecessary to continue working in the future as analliance of indigenous peoples and environmentalists foran Amazonia for humanity.”3

In 1992, the role of indigenous peoples in protectedareas was a major topic at the International Union forthe Conservation of Nature-sponsored IVth WorldCongress on National Parks and Protected Areas, heldin Caracas, Venezuela. During this period, the IUCNand WWF began producing a stream of declarations,statements of principles, and policy documents dis-cussing the value of traditional knowledge, the need torespect indigenous traditions, and the importance offorging partnerships.4

The IUCN-WWF “Principles and Guidelines onIndigenous and Traditional Peoples and ProtectedAreas,” was formally presented in October 1996.5 Itbegins with the observation that indigenous peoples havea long history with the natural world and “a deepunderstanding of it.” It continues: “Often they havemade significant contributions to the maintenance ofmany of the earth’s most fragile ecosystems,” and there-fore there is no inherent conflict between the objectivesof conservationists and indigenous peoples. “More-over, [indigenous peoples] should be recognized asrightful, equal partners in the development and imple-mentation of conservation strategies that affect theirlands, territories, waters, coastal seas, and otherresources, and in particular in the establishment andmanagement of protected areas.” If somewhat patron-izing in tone, at least the document spelled out the needfor co-management and respect for both indigenouspeoples and their knowledge of the environment.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the conservationgroups began designing programs to work with com-munities. Donors, too—both private foundations andmulti- and bilateral donor agencies—strongly sup-

ported this approach to what was then in vogue: theconcept of sustainable development. It soon became abandwagon onto which many organizations jumped.6The initiatives that appeared were variously called “com-munity-based natural resource management,” “com-munity-based conservation,” “sustainable developmentand use,” “grassroots conservation,” “devolution ofresource rights to local communities,” and—perhapsmost commonly—“integrated conservation and devel-opment programs” (ICDPs). It is important to note thatall of these terms were generated by the conservationorganizations, not by the indigenous peoples; and theprograms were designed and run by the conservation-ists, not the indigenous peoples. Funders providedmoney to the conservation organizations to develop pro-grams for indigenous communities, and small unitswere formed in-house to carry out this mandate.

EMERGING DIFFICULTIES

The outcome of these attempts to work with indige-nous communities was, with a few exceptions, a stringof failures. On the ground, ICDPs were generally pater-nalistic, lacking in expertise, and one-sided—drivenlargely by the agendas of the conservationists, with lit-tle indigenous input. As a consequence, few partner-ships were formed in the wake of COICA’s proposal,and few of those that were formed functioned very well.According to Thomas McShane of WWF International,“Encouraged by the frantic quest for examples of sus-tainable development, ICDPs exploded in popularity,rapidly advancing from an untested idea attracting seedmoney to ‘best practice’ for biodiversity conservation.”The fact that conservation organizations were perhapsnot suited to work in the social and economic realmswas missed in all the excitement. Successes have beenfew and far between, and today an expanding barrageof mostly critical literature has fueled concern amongorganizations implementing and financing ICDPs.7

Others, however, have claimed that community-based conservation schemes are inherently contrary tothe goals of biodiversity conservation, which should bebased on rigorous biological science. For this reason,it is said, they are doomed to failure, regardless of whoruns them or how they are run. TNC’s Katrina Bran-don and her colleagues Kent H. Redford and StevenE. Sanderson wrote, “The trend to promote sustain-able use of resources as a means to protect theseresources, while politically expedient and intellectuallyappealing, is not well grounded in biological and eco-logical knowledge. Not all things can be preservedthrough use. Not all places should be open to use.Without an understanding of broader ecosystem dynam-ics at specific sites, strategies promoting sustainableuse will lead to substantial losses of biodiversity.”8

In their discussion of TNC’s Parks in Peril (PiP){


program, financed by USAID during the 1990s, Bran-don, Redford, and Sanderson repeatedly call commu-nity-based conservation approaches “catchy phrases”and “slogans” based on “stereotypes.” These slogansand catchy phrases, they say, mislead by promisingthat “conflicts over resources can be resolved with rel-ative ease” (Ibid.) and divert us from the true task ofprotecting biodiversity, which has to be an enterprisebased on sound science. Redford, in particular, hassought over the years to debunk the stereotype of the“noble ecological savage,”9 which he claims has beencynically used by “…indigenous peoples and theiradvocates…because they recognize the power of thisconcept in rallying support for their struggle for landrights, particularly from important international con-servation organizations.”10

Be this as it may, the core fact remains that indige-nous peoples were never given the chance to design andrun their own projects, and with conservationists at thehelm the failures mounted. Many projects were ill con-ceived by the conservationists. Projects dealing withagroforestry and organic gardening fell apart becauseno one had figured out how to market what was grown.Local ecological conditions were often wrong for thecrops introduced. Local people were not interested insetting up parks and doing management plans, whichwas what the conservationists proposed. Environmen-tal education projects in indigenous areas were mod-eled on urban programs. In short, the conservationistshad little experience working with community groups.

Funders grew impatient, and relations between con-servationists and indigenous peoples became increas-ingly tense—and, in some respects, intransigent. In itsofficial policies, WWF-U.S. has continued to voicerespect for indigenous peoples, yet in many of its pro-nouncements it displays a studied lack of interest towardpartnerships with indigenous or local communities ofany stripe.* In broad strategy statements about itsecoregional approach, WWF simply avoids talk ofinvolvement with indigenous peoples at all.† In late2002, the director of the WWF Latin America programtold me flatly, in reference to the Amazon Basin, “Wedon’t work with indigenous people. We don’t have thecapacity to work with indigenous people.” Around thistime, a CI biologist who works with the Kayapó in theLower Xingu region of Brazil told me: “Quite frankly,I don’t care what the Indians want. We have to workto conserve the biodiversity.”

This last comment may sound crass, but I believe thatit accurately represents the prevalent way of thinkingwithin the large conservation organizations. Althoughthey won’t say it openly, the attitude of many conser-vationists is that they have the money and they are goingto call the shots. They have cordoned off certain areasfor conservation, and in their own minds they have a clear

idea of what should be done. “They see themselves asscientists doing God’s work,” says one critic, pointingout the conservationists’ sense of “a divine mission tosave the Earth.” Armed with science, they define theterms of engagement. Then they invite the indigenousresidents to participate in the agenda that they have laidout. If the indigenous peoples don’t like the agenda, theywill simply be ignored. “I think there’s been a shift,” saysa key official at one of the major foundations that havesupported the conservationist NGOs—“a shift awayfrom building local capacity [by helping to launch localNGOs that can then work with the indigenous com-munities in their own countries]. These groups now seethemselves as semi-permanent international organiza-tions, that are not working themselves out of a job.”

The fact is that indigenous peoples and conserva-tionists have very different agendas. Indigenous agen-das almost invariably begin with the need to protect andlegalize their lands for their own use. They emphasizethe importance of finding ways to make a living on theland without destroying those resources. And they givehigh priority to documenting their people’s history, tra-ditions, and cultural identity.

Conservationist agendas, by contrast, often beginwith the need to establish protected areas that are off-limits to people, and to develop management plans. Ifthey include indigenous peoples in their plans, they tendto see those people more as a possible means to an endrather than as ends in themselves. They are seldomwilling to support legal battles over land tenure and thestrengthening of indigenous organizations; they con-sider these actions “too political” and outside theirconservationist mandate. They have been reluctant tosupport indigenous peoples in their struggles againstoil, mining, and logging companies that are destroy-ing vast swaths of rainforest throughout the world.Again, the excuse is that such interventions would be“too political,” and the conservationists often defer to

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* In 2000, WWF International, in collaboration with a group calledTerralingua, produced a report entitled Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the World and Ecoregion Conservation: An Integrated Approachto Conserving the World’s Biological and Cultural Diversity (endnote32). This was an attempt to bring together the earlier policy statementsand the ecoregional approach; yet it appears to have had little effect onWWF’s program, and in any case the major author, Gonzalo Oviedo,departed from WWF International shortly after.

† A WWF document titled “A Guide to Socioeconomic Assessments forEcoregion Conservation,” published in 2000, talks about potential col-laborators and partners (“‘partnership’ implies a closer working rela-tionship”). It notes that “reversing biodiversity loss at the scalesrequired by ecoregion conservation may require close collaboration orpartnerships with and among industry, the private sector, resource own-ers and harvesters, government development agencies, foreign affairsdepartments, policy fora, and others” (WWF-U.S. Ecoregional Conser-vation Strategies Unit 2000: 5-6). Indigenous peoples are not includedas potential collaborators or partners. Also notable is the absence ofmention of local NGOs.


national governments to handle those matters. Beyond this pervasive reluctance, there is the diffi-

culty of reconciling cultural differences between indus-trialized and indigenous ways of viewing the world,deliberating, negotiating, and making decisions. AndrewChapeskie notes the difficulties faced by those seekingco-management schemes in the Canadian context:

How should co-management arrangements beestablished for lands and waters where one set ofrelationships to land—the aboriginal—have beenbuilt around the normative values of equity, coop-eration and reciprocity that is expressed in termsof local authority and common property accessarrangements while the other set of relationships toland—those regulated by the state—have beenbuilt around the normative values of competition,exclusive rights to property/resources, and cen-tralized management authority? These are chal-lenging questions as much for aboriginalcommunities as they are for their non-aboriginalcounterparts in Northwestern Ontario.11

Establishing a relationship of trust across cultures,when people come to the table carrying different agen-das and worldviews, requires patience and respect—qualities that are hard to muster even in normalcircumstances. The challenge grows exponentiallymore difficult when money intervenes and the rela-tionship becomes glaringly asymmetrical, with virtu-ally all of the money and power held by one side.

THE MONEY

Since 1990, there has been a sharp decline in theamount of money available for conservation programsoverall. According to a recent assessment of the financesof the conservation sector, “between the mid-nineties

and the turn of the century, the amount of funds avail-able for conservation [has] declined almost by 50 per-cent.” At the same time, “the funding made availableto the large NGOs [WWF, TNC, and CI] has increased[italics added] in both relative and absolute terms.”12

Against the overall decline in conservation funding,the growth of the big NGOs has been accomplished inlarge part through an expansion of their fundraisingreach into new areas, with a wide array of tactics. Onerecent estimate notes that the combined revenues ofWWF, TNC, and CI in 2002 for work in the develop-ing countries amounted to more than half of the approx-imately $1.5 billion available for conservation in 2002;and the Big Three’s investments in conservation in thedeveloping world grew from roughly $240 million in1998 to close to $490 million in 2002.*13

The Big Three’s fundraising covers virtually all ofthe bases: private foundations, bilateral and multilat-eral agencies, corporations, the U.S. government, andindividuals (WWF even has a program called “Penniesfor the Planet” that taps into children’s piggy banks).The boom can be traced to a strategic shift. Whereastwo decades ago the bulk of the Big Three’s fundingcame from private foundations and individuals, it nowflows more abundantly from bilateral and multilateralagencies and private corporations. The foundationsand individual donors have by no means been aban-doned, and still make up a large percentage of the totalbudgets. But the offerings of the new bilateral, multi-lateral, and corporate “partners,” or “collaborators,”as they are called by the conservation groups, havebeen added to the traditional sources—and those newofferings have been lavish.

This attraction of strong financial support in a weakeconomic environment has been accomplished in sev-eral ways. First, starting in the mid- to late 1990s, WWF,CI, and TNC all reformulated their mission statementsto focus on what they term “large-scale conservation”approaches. The terms used differ—“hotspots”† forCI, “ecoregions” and “Global 200”‡ for WWF, “ecosys-tems” for TNC,§ and “living landscapes” for WildlifeConservation Society (WCS)—but they are similar inthat they are high off the ground and, as all of theNGOs note, they are “ambitious” and even “vision-ary.”** These are global approaches that are viewed asnecessary to take on the huge global threats to ecosys-tems and species now being faced. As Myers and his col-leagues wrote, “The traditional scattergun approach ofmuch conservation activity, seeking to be many thingsto any threatened species, needs to be complementedby a ‘silver bullet’ strategy in the form of hotspots withtheir emphasis on cost-effective measures.”14

The gist of the argument for this large-scaleapproach—one that is unquestionably appealing tothose of us who try to see the world in more wholistic

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* “Analysis of the finances of just three large conservation organiza-tions—the U.S. branch of the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation Inter-national, and The Nature Conservancy—reveals that their combinedrevenues and expenditures (i.e., their investment in conservation) in theyear 2002 were $1.28 billion and $804 million, respectively. This snap-shot of NGO finances in the year 2002 is not an aberration but ratherpart of a continuing trend, evident since the mid-1990s, of increasingrevenue, expenses and asset accumulation. The combined revenues ofthese three NGOs increased from $635 million in 1998 to $899 millionin 1999 to $965 million in 2000” (endnote 12). † “Hotspots” are “areas featuring exceptional concentrations of endemicspecies and experiencing exceptional loss of habitat” (endnote 14). ‡ An ecoregion is a “large unit of land or water containing a geographi-cally distinct assemblage of species, natural communities, and environ-mental conditions;” the Global 200 “is based on an analysis of allterrestrial regions and ocean basins of the earth, so the extent of theapproach of the terrestrial region is equal to approximately 150 millionkm2.”§ TNC has largely taken the ecoregion approach pioneered by WWF.

** Example: “Ecoregions are the appropriate geographical unit for set-ting conservation goals; they represent an ambitious and visionary scalenecessary for biodiversity conservation” (see endnote 16).


ways than have prevailed in the past—is that it’s notjust isolated ecosystems dotted about the landscapethat are in danger; the entire world system of inter-connected ecosystems is imperiled. In presentations tofunding agencies, this pitch can be put on vivid and con-vincing display with GIS and satellite imagery—tech-nology that was unavailable only a few years ago. And,as the argument goes, large-scale strategies can accom-plish more for less money. Of course, large amounts ofcash are needed to run them on the scale being pro-posed. In reference to CI’s hotspot strategy, Myersand his colleagues suggest that $500 million per yearwould be an appropriate amount for preserving 25prime hotspots.15 The Big Three make it clear thatamong the thousands of organizations working to con-serve the world’s biodiversity, only they have the capac-ity to manage such large-scale schemes.

It’s here that we come to two divergent interpre-tations of how the conservationist NGOs developed theirlarge-scale approaches to conservation. Advocates withinthe NGOs maintain that these approaches are the endresult of scientific processes based on biological—asopposed to social or political—criteria.* Critics bothoutside and within the NGOs note that concepts suchas “ecoregions,” “hotspots,” and “conservation land-

scapes” are little more that slick marketing tools—slo-gans and catch phrases, if we may borrow from Bran-don, Redford, and Sanderson—and that the “science”part, given that it exists, is largely for decoration. Per-haps it is more accurate to say that these approachesare a mixture of the two; but the marketing angle isundeniably strong. A recent WWF document, for exam-ple, instructs: “Ecoregion conservation programmesshould develop a bold, engaging, and ambitious visionfor an ecoregion in order to set directions and arousesupport. This vision should contain an inspirationalmessage to motivate and engage stakeholders and part-ners.”16 Whatever we may think of the science, thereis no doubt that the new focus on global conservationis profitable.

One of the largest and most talked-about grants inrecent years has been the $261.2 million donationfrom the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation to CI for

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* CI: “The hotspots’ boundaries have been determined by ‘biologicalcommonalities’” (endnote 14). WWF: “Ecoregions are defined in biological terms and, as such, are logical units for conserving biodiver-sity” (endnote 16). Social aspects do not figure in the calculus ofWWF’s ecoregions, except at the level of “threats,” and they are intro-duced after the priority setting, based on biological criteria, has beencompleted.

“Relax, we’re from Conservation, Inc.”


conservation activities, with a focus on science, in“hotspots and tropical wilderness areas” around theworld. Bringing together CI’s Center for BiodiversityConservation ($121.2 million), Scientific Field Sta-tions ($40 million), and the Global Conservation fund($100 million), the project is defined in terms of large“conservation corridors,” which the Moore Founda-tion defines as “networks of protected areas (nationalparks, reserves, etc.) and other areas under biodiversityfriendly land uses that are big enough to sustain eco-logical and evolutionary processes.” The Moore per-spective continues, “Addressing biodiversityconservation at this larger geographic scale—estab-lishing connectivity between individual parks and pro-tected areas—increases conservation impact andenhances the prospects for individual species to be con-served over the long term.”17

If the first means of increasing the flow of cash wasto wow foundations with large-scale goals, a second tac-tic was to go after the bilateral and multilateral agen-cies. The Big Three eased slowly into thesearrangements, often amid internal discussion and debate.WWF’s relationship with USAID, which began in theearly 1980s, is illustrative. In the late 1970s, as USAIDwas becoming increasingly interested in the environ-ment, the conservationist NGOs realized that this couldbe a lucrative new source of support for their work. Atfirst, WWF took relatively small amounts, never morethan 50 percent of any project budget, and supple-mented the new money with privately raised funds. Itdid not want to be caught up in USAID’s politicalagendas or in the instability that comes with them. Yetgradually, according to a senior WWF official who wasin the middle of these transactions at that time, the 50percent rule began to erode. As budgets from other,privately funded, projects dried up, WWF started shift-ing funds from the USAID-supported projects to keepthose projects alive. Larger amounts of USAID moneyflowed in to fill the hole left by the shifted funds, andbefore long there was a string of projects in which 80to 90 percent of the budget was funded by USAID.“Then somewhere along the line we stopped askingquestions,” the official said. “We just eased into it. It’snot clear where or when, but at some point we crossedthe line and having entire projects and programs fundedwith government money was OK.” Not to be out-done, the other large NGOs eagerly followed suit.

Despite initial misgivings, this strategy has paid offwith the formation of a variety of joint ventures, co-oper-ative agreements, and partnerships.* Examples includethe World Bank-WWF Global Forest Alliance, which wascreated in 1998 and currently works in 30 countries, andthe Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund (CEPF), a$150 million initiative formed by CI, the World Bank,the Global Environmental Facility, the MacArthur Foun-dation, and the government of Japan.

From 1990 through 2001, USAID provided atotal of roughly $270 million to NGOs, universities,and private institutions for conservation activities.18 Thelion’s share of this amount destined for NGOs was har-vested by WWF, which received approximately 45 per-cent of the available money.† A small yet significantportion of the total budget for conservation goes tojust five other NGOs—CI, TNC, WCS, the AfricanWildlife Foundation (AWF), and Enterprise Works—through the Agency’s Global Conservation Program.The theory behind this arrangement is that thesegroups will re-grant a portion of the money they receiveto local NGOs for their work. This may ease the paper-work load for USAID; but it also gives the six NGOsconsiderable power over the agendas of local groupsto which it re-grants.

For example, there was USAID’s support ofPROARCA, a joint five-year project in Central Amer-ica started in the mid-1990s. It had a budget of $5to $6 million per year, with roughly $1 million per yeargoing to TNC, WWF, and the Rainforest Alliance. Theproject’s aim was “to improve environmental man-agement in the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor(CBM)”—which, in turn, was a project being run bythe World Bank, with GEF money. The first phaseentailed planning for the second “implementation”phase, which was approved in 2002 with a slightlyhigher yearly budget. While the bulk of the NGOcomponent deals with large-scale activities at the pol-icy level, it also contains a small grants fund that the-oretically benefits local NGOs involved in biodiversityconservation.

A third strategy, which at first seemed fairly inno-cent, was to reach out more to the corporate sector.TNC and WWF have long been involved with privatecorporations, but by the mid-1990s the pace beganincreasing. At present, TNC has some 1,900 corporatesponsors, which in 2002 donated a total of $225 mil-lion to the organization.19 CI’s website lists over 250corporations, which donated approximately $9 millionto its operations in 2003. WWF’s share is smaller, butit actively courts such support. In WWF’s scheme, thehighest category of corporate sponsor is “conservationpartner,” which consists of “multinational companiesthat contribute major funding to WWF’s global con-servation work.” “Independent research shows,” we

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* In the early 1990s, WWF-U.S. began to tap into World Bank moneyand there were loud cries of protest from the international branch inSwitzerland. This and other differences eventually culminated in a seriesof costly lawsuits and an eventual split between the International andU.S. offices. The panda symbol was re-claimed by the Internationalbranch and later licensed back to the U.S. branch.

† Approximately 22 percent of WWF’s global income comes from gov-ernments and assistance agencies (endnote 16).


are told, “that consumers have a high regard for acompany that invests in its social and environmentalresponsibilities.” WWF selects “the very best in cor-porate social responsibility and environmental bestpractice,” but it also sees the need to “engage with com-panies that have a poor or mixed record on the envi-ronment where there is a real potential for positivechange.”20 Among the corporations channeling moneyto the three conservation NGOs are Chevron Texaco,ExxonMobil, Shell International, Weyerhauser, Mon-santo, Dow Chemical, and Duke Energy.

THE CONSEQUENCES

All told, the new mixture of fundraising strategies, cou-pled with the intensity of the hunt for money, has madethe largest conservation NGOs both rich and power-ful. In the 1980s, many of us thought that this was animportant goal. Conservation requires money, and itseemed clear to environmentalists that the leading envi-ronmental organizations needed far better funding tocarry out the huge mission of saving the planet fromecological calamity. There may still be truth in thisbelief—the conservation groups have developedadmirably ambitious plans—but their growth has alsobrought unforeseen complexities and contradictions.

One problem is that the larger the three NGOs havegrown, the more dependent on large amounts of cashthey have become. This has created a climate ofintense—and not always beneficial—competitionamong them. The result has been a strong reluctanceto partner with each other, or with anyone else. In deal-ings with smaller organizations, either they tend to usetheir sheer heft to press their agendas unilaterally orthey exclude the smaller groups altogether. A commontactic is to create new organizations out of whole clothin foreign countries, implanting local bodies as exten-sions of themselves. In dealings with each other, thelarge conservationist NGOs enter into contractualarrangements when they must—USAID’s CentralAmerica program, for example, has a custom of set-ting up consortia of several organizations—yet in mostcases they assiduously keep their distance and show greatreluctance to share information. Thus, the USAID-funded PROARCA program in Central America is akind of shotgun marriage in which TNC and WWF(with the Rainforest Alliance affixed as a smallappendage) were pressed into a collaborative rela-tionship. From the start, WWF and TNC kept their dis-tance from each other, maintaining two almost entirelyseparate programs, with minimal overlap. WWF con-centrated on the coastal area, while TNC handled theprotected areas of the interior.

Such insular behavior, often manifested in a roping-off of real estate, has been common for years, yet it hasbeen exacerbated as the conservation NGOs have grown

in size and strength. It is generally recognized, forexample, that CI has staked off Suriname and Guyanaas its “territory”; TNC controls the BOSAWAS regionof Nicaragua, and WCS guards the gate to the BolivianChaco. Territoriality even manifests itself within organ-izations. Initially, WWF U.S. had control over Tanza-nia but later moved aside and transferred responsibilityto WWF International. During the mid-1980s, WWFdivided the world into two parts, giving Latin Amer-ica to the U.S. branch and the rest of the world to theinternational office (this division was short-lived). Thereare also occurrences of the most powerful NGOs try-ing to pressure foundations to deny entrance to rivalsin claimed territory.

In the Petén region of Guatemala during the 1990s,all of the large NGOs had programs, yet they workedseparately and there was intense competition for funds,which were considerable. Between 1990 and 2001, anestimated $56.6 million flowed in for conservation andsustainable development from USAID ($31.2 million),the Guatemalan government ($15.3 million, largelyfrom international agencies), and international NGOs($10.1 million).

It should be acknowledged that territoriality of thissort does serve the function of diminishing conflict. Werea number of competing NGOs to be given access to asingle area, bidding wars for the favors of local groupsand the bounty of donors could rapidly get out ofhand, creating chaos. This occasionally happens, andthe outcome is invariably disastrous for all unluckyenough to be involved.

On the other hand, cooperation is rare even whenthe groups share common goals. According to McShane,“Biodiversity conservation’s devil is the competition fordonor funding. We all know that successful biodiver-sity conservation requires money. Unfortunately, inthe pursuit of funds, conservation organizations findthemselves making claims based on little more than the-ory. This marketing of conservation approaches hasresulted in a dogmatic debate, outwardly over howbest to conserve the world’s biodiversity, which is a nec-essary question, but behind the scenes over how to getthe funds before someone else does, which is not.”21

Another consequence of the recent bulking up ofconservationist NGOs stems from the sources of theirfunding, and the conditions attached to it. The move-ment from dependence on private money to an incomestream from bilateral and multilateral donors and cor-porations has meant that new interests—and restric-tions—come into play. USAID, the World Bank, andthe Global Environment Facility, for example, are diplo-matic agencies that work closely with national govern-ments. The conservationist NGOs are no longer ableto openly oppose government corruption or inaction,which is often the primary cause of environmental

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degradation in countries of the Third World; govern-ment backing of extractive industries in fragile forestareas is one of the most common outcomes.22

Yet another consequence of increased funding frombilateral and multilateral donors is that the NGOs havebecome “gatekeepers” of external resources. The strat-egy of passing money through NGOs gives the donorsconsiderable influence over the programs of the largeNGOs, and this in turn gives the large NGOs influenceover local NGOs, who must rely on re-granting throughthe large international NGOs. This results in two lay-ers of controls: first those from the bilateral and mul-tilateral donors, and second those from the internationalNGOs that do the re-granting. When funds finallytrickle down to the local NGOs, they are often so tan-gled in strings that the locals have little room to carryout their own programs. In any case, these funds tendto be minimal; most stay with the large NGOs, nevermaking it past the gate.*

The situation is far worse for indigenous peoples,who are frequently in an adversarial relationship withtheir national governments over their lands and natu-ral resources. National governments—and the U.S. gov-ernment—have supported oil companies, miners,loggers, and pharmaceutical companies on indigenouslands, and in many of those countries (Bolivia, Peru,Ecuador, Guyana, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea,among others) private concessions sanctioned by gov-ernments have provoked considerable violence. Eachof the large conservation NGOs has close financialand political ties to the governments, bilateral andmultilateral agencies, and multinational corporationsoperating throughout the Third World, and is reluc-tant to oppose them. This has given rise to the ironicobservation that the large international NGOs are ally-ing themselves with forces that are destroying theworld’s remaining ecosystems, while ignoring or evenopposing those forces that are attempting to save themfrom destruction. Isn’t it a bit odd that in 2003 OxfamAmerica supported an indigenous group in the Ama-zon Basin in its battle against the depredations ofChevron Texaco, while the large conservationist NGOswere providing this same company with a green fig leafin exchange for financial aid? In last year’s highly pub-licized series of articles about The Nature Conser-vancy, for example, Washington Post reporters JoeStephens and David Ottaway note:

The Conservancy’s mission makes it reluctant to takepositions on some leading environmental issues,including global warming and drilling in Alaska’sArctic National Wildlife Refuge. Corporationsrepresented on the Conservancy’s board and advi-sory council have lobbied nationally on the corpo-rate side of the issues. A Conservancy official saidthe group avoids criticizing the environmentalrecords of its corporate board members.23

Reluctance to oppose harmful practices in foreigncountries is even greater where the NGOs are largelyout of sight of First World eyes and under the protec-tion of governments that are unconcerned with pro-tection of the environment. And here we have acontradiction. Since the mid- and late 1980s, indige-nous peoples have received a good deal of support fora variety of causes, primarily from private foundationsand a variety of European agencies. The Inter-Ameri-can Foundation, a U.S. government agency, gave hun-dreds of grants to indigenous organizations during thisperiod and gave a significant boost to the indigenousmovement in Latin America. Conservation organiza-tions and foundations with conservationist agendassupported indigenous peoples all through the 1990s forwork on conservation and sustainable economic devel-opment. One result was that indigenous organizationsbecame more empowered. But when they began usingtheir newfound strength to defend their lands andresources, they ran head-on into private companies, gov-ernments, bilateral and multilateral agencies, and con-servationists all standing shoulder to shoulder. Notonly did the conservationist NGOs turn away fromindigenous peoples; so did many of the private foun-dations, to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.

As the major conservationist NGOs have distancedthemselves from indigenous and traditional peoples inrecent years, the causes of this separation can be trackedto two particularly sticky problems. First, there is theproblem of indigenous resistance, which sometimestakes a violent turn, to the activities of many of theNGOs’ funding partners. For the NGOs, siding withindigenous peoples in their struggles or uprisings againstthose partners might seem financially unwise.

Second, there is the presumption that biological sci-ence should be the sole guiding principle for biodiver-sity conservation in protected natural areas. This notionhas produced a running debate between those who donot see human inhabitants as a part of the ecologicalequation,24 and those who argue for partnerships andthe inclusion of indigenous and traditional peoples inprotected area plans, both on human rights grounds andfor pragmatic ecological reasons.25

The Big Three NGOs are currently dominated, atleast in their upper circles, by the second view. Accord-ing to their critics, they have increasingly come to “view

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* Perhaps the most blatant example of this is with CI’s Critical Ecosys-tems Partnership Fund (CEPF), which was set up to reach local NGOs.According to program guidelines, “only” 50 percent of CEPF’s moneyis supposed to be granted directly to CI. Yet during the first two years ofits Latin American program, CEPF granted $6,915,865 out of a total of$$8,919,221—78 percent—to CI. Other groups, several of them CIclones, received a total of $2,003,356, or 22 percent of the availablemoney. (CEPF Annual Reports)


rural people as the enemies of nature, rather than as polit-ical actors who can form an environmental con-stituency…. By identifying indigenous and traditionalpeoples as obstacles to effective conservation, or by con-cluding that indigenous and other inhabited reservesare incompatible with ‘real’ conservation, the people-free park school impugns the critical conservation valueof inhabited forest areas and ignores the role of forestpeoples as constituencies for forest conservation.”26

A suspicion often voiced by the conservationists isthat once indigenous peoples are given tenure to theirlands, there is no assurance that they will work to con-serve their biodiversity. “What if, after we have helpedthem out, they suddenly decide to log their forests?”is a standard question.

Just as the once widely recognized possibilities fornative stewardship have been largely dismissed, theterms “indigenous” and “traditional” have largelydropped out of the discourse of the large conservationistNGOs—replaced mainly by “marginalized” or“poor.”27 (The more neutral terms “rural” and “local”have also spread more widely in the literature and arecommonly used by both sides.) This linguistic shiftrobs the dignity of indigenous peoples. Who is inter-ested in saving the culture of marginalized people?What is the value of the traditional ecological knowl-edge of the poor? People who are viewed as having nodistinctive culture, assets, or historic claims to the land

they occupy end up being, in a very real sense, a peo-ple with no value.

In the last year or so, the large conservation NGOshave come to claim that what they do is conservation,not “poverty alleviation,” which they seem to equatewith any sort of work with indigenous or traditional peo-ples. Ever since their work with grassroots conservationand integrated conservation and development projectsfell on the rocks, they have avoided involvements alongthese lines, including talk of co-management of pro-tected areas and sustainable development or alternativelivelihoods with indigenous peoples. In part, the NGOshave felt pressured by the bi- and multilateral donorsto include poverty alleviation in their conservation pro-grams, and some have tried to accommodate the donorswith re-tooled language in their mission statements; yetthe tendency among the large NGOs has been to setup a false dichotomy between poverty alleviation andconservation and say that they are not in the businessof “social welfare.”28

To be sure, the views of the large NGOs are notmonolithic. While some of those at the top may dis-miss work at the community level as scattershot andinconsequential, or even contrary to the goal of large-scale biodiversity conservation, the picture at the fieldlevel is often quite different. WWF, for example, has avigorous community forestry program that works onforest management, certification, and marketing in

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“This one’s habitat was completely taken over by conservationists.”


Mexico, the Guatemalan Petén, the HonduranMosquitia, the Atlantic Coast region of Nicaragua, andMadre de Dios in Peru. TNC field offices work withcommunities in Mexico, Guatemala, and indigenousregions of Brazil. CI is less engaged at this level, althoughit does have a small project with organic coffee farm-ers in Chiapas, Mexico. WCS’s South American pro-gram is perhaps the best of the lot, with a strong focuson community-level conservation, co-management ofprotected areas with indigenous peoples, and sustain-able community development. Its work with the Izo-ceño Guaraní in the Gran Chaco region of Bolivia isan exemplary example of mutual respect and smoothco-management of a protected area.

Unlike the brain trusts in the main offices, repre-sentatives in the field are not dealing with abstractions.Some have realized that they can accomplish little ofvalue if they don’t work in partnership with local peo-ple. Some have commented that they see their com-munity work as their focus of attention and pay littleheed to the global pronouncements coming from onhigh. Unfortunately, these field efforts are given littlesupport in the home office, and as the drift from high-level support for indigenous peoples continues, futurefinancial backing may prove hard to find.

More particularly, we are seeing an evident splitbetween the U.S. branch of WWF and the internationalbranch in Switzerland. While talk of partnerships withindigenous and traditional peoples has dropped out ofWWF U.S.’s policy statements regarding ecoregionalconservation, it has not dropped out in the Europeanoffice.29 An assessment of the field programs of the U.S.and International branches of WWF might yield aninteresting comparison.

What can be said about the “increasing number ofserious complaints” from the field reported in the FordFoundation’s internal investigation? Complaints againstthe activities of the Big Three conservation NGOs havenow been heard from Mexico, Guatemala, Peru,Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, Papua NewGuinea, and the Congo Basin, among others. In onecase, CI has been accused of bullying and ridingroughshod over local NGOs and indigenous organiza-tions in the Vilcabamba region of Peru. In another, itswork in the Laguna del Tigre area of the GuatemalanPetén ended in a bitter fight over resources with the localNGO it had created—and with angry villagers settingthe CI research station on fire. Yet, relatively little is yetknown about whether such abuses are pervasive or aber-rations. No thorough, independent evaluation of these

situations has as yet been carried out, and it is often dif-ficult to distinguish fact from fiction. But in any case,perhaps the most central investigation should focus notso much on particular failures in the field as on thelarge NGOs’ recent inclination to withdraw from work-ing with indigenous and traditional peoples at all.

WHERE IS ALL THIS HEADED?Shortly after the Ford Foundation’s “Study on Criti-cal New Conservation Issues in the Global South” gotunder way, two board members—Yolanda Kakabadse,president of the IUCN, and Kathryn Fuller, presidentof WWF—reviewed the study’s work plan. They con-cluded that the studies of the two consultants, whichno one at Ford had yet seen, should not become pub-lic—and, in fact, should not even be officially turnedin to the Ford Foundation. They recommended thatthe studies be embargoed, and this indeed happened,at least for a time. Ford officials received a verbal brief-ing, and finally saw the full studies, but the studieswere never made public. News of this chain of eventsrapidly leaked out and was widely disseminated amongfoundations and NGOs—causing a furor about whichthe larger public heard very little.

On April 20, 2004, WWF convened a meeting ofrepresentatives from the big international NGOs—WWF, TNC, CI, IUCN, and WCS—for a full-day ses-sion with the foundation representatives who hadbrought the issue to the fore in South Dakota, 10months earlier. The Big Three presidents—KathrynFuller of WWF, Peter Seligman of CI, and StevenMcCormick of TNC—all came, together with some oftheir technical people. No indigenous representativeswere present.*

Beyond a bland summary document, nothing hasbeen shared publicly from this gathering, but it is pos-sible to piece together impressions from several accounts.Initially, the NGO people were somewhat defensive, butwere unapologetic. The foundation representativesspent the morning voicing their concerns, and theNGOs responded that their primary mission was con-servation, not “poverty alleviation”—which in manyminds is equated with working with local communities.They denied insensitivity to traditional or indigenouspeoples and cited their programs in “capacity building.”But for the most part, the NGOs gave little ground.

One foundation representative brought up the factthat multinational companies were extracting naturalresources and destroying ecosystems in fragile forestareas, and that indigenous peoples were fighting thesecompanies while the conservationists who were work-ing there stood by in silence. This representative notedthat the NGOs usually sided with the companies, espe-cially when the companies were corporate sponsors tothe NGOs. The NGOs responded that they didn’t

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* Several people explained that this was simply meant to be an “inter-nal” meeting between donors and NGOs, a first cut to chart futuredirections. Beyond this, several people noted that they had no idea ofwhich “representative” indigenous people who could.


want to intervene—that they wanted to remain apo-litical. In any case, they said, these were matters fornational governments to handle.

In the afternoon session of the meeting, the NGOsagain defended their work and one of the officials eventurned a bit testy, as if to say “Who do you think youare, to question us? Perhaps you should examine your-selves.” As one participant put it, some NGO repre-sentatives “pushed back,” accusing the foundationpeople of having their ears bent by “activist NGOs” andnot getting their facts straight. On the whole, theywere aggressive within the bounds of politeness—theydidn’t want to bite down too hard on one of the handsthat feeds them, suggested one participant, althoughthe foundation hand has shrunk in size as new and largerhands have appeared.

In the end, it was decided that some studies of thesituation in the field had to be done. The details ofwhich sites would be chosen, who would do them, howthey would be carried out, and under whose supervi-sion, were to be worked out later. Another meetingwould follow, perhaps with a larger group includingsome indigenous and traditional representatives. Acouple of participants on the foundation side came outof the meeting saying that the NGOs “simply don’tget it. They don’t understand.” Several said that theNGOs see the whole matter as an image problem, notanything involving substance.

In June 2004, a year after the issue was first raisedin an after-dinner gathering, the Consultative Groupon Biodiversity convened again—this time in Min-nesota, on the shore of Lake Superior. More discussionsensued, among the same representatives who had raisedthe issue in 2003 and several new interested people, butthe conference agenda involved other topics and dis-cussion of the conservation NGO problem was frag-mented and inconclusive. As one participant put it,they went around and around and around, withoutresolving anything.

Overriding the conversation has been a sense thatthis is a delicate issue in very uncertain and difficult times.Some of the actions taken by indigenous groups to resistthe depredations of extractive industries, for example,have been likened to the actions of terrorists. The del-icacy of the issue has resulted in a reluctance to moveforward with anything. Moreover, the foundationsthemselves have recently had their operations put undera spotlight. Some foundations are being criticized forlavish spending on their upper management staff andtrustees, for support of partisan political agendas (andeven allegedly terrorist organizations), and for crony-ism and conflicts of interest.30 The Ford Foundation,specifically, is being investigated by a congressionalcommittee for some of its funding with groups in theNear East, and is maintaining a low profile. And the

large conservation NGOs have been the subjects ofscrutiny on other fronts, quite aside from their aban-donment of indigenous partnerships. In 2002, TNCwas attacked and seriously wounded in a series of arti-cles in the Washington Post that exposed questionablepractices in the organization’s management. The groupis currently being probed by Congress and audited bythe IRS. This has caused TNC’s colleagues to hunkerdown and avoid controversy (and the media). At thispoint, nobody wants any new embarrassments dredgedup for public inspection. How, then, can the issue beraised and honestly addressed without turning theprocess into a spectacle?

CONCLUSION

The challenges of biodiversity conservation are amongthe world’s most difficult, especially in the southernlatitudes. Alien languages and cultures, impenetrablepolitical systems, and high-stakes greed and corrup-tion converge with the rising pressures of populationgrowth and development to create situations thatoften seem insurmountable. Project work in the fieldis arduous—marked by progress one day and setbacksthe next. Misunderstandings and conflicts of interest—and long periods of stagnation—seem to be the rule.Often, it is difficult to know whether one is makingreal progress or not.

Take the case of Chiapas, Mexico. Here, CI has astrong presence and has been accused in the local pressof trying to enlist the Mexican military to expel peasantfamilies from the Lacandon Forest, of bioprospecting forinternational corporations, and of flying planes over theMayan Forest region with USAID support and givingthe information thus obtained to the U.S. and Mexicangovernments. Pieces of this picture—such as the fact thatCI has corporate ties—are well substantiated. Others—such as CI buying up land for bioprospecting—appearto be greatly exaggerated. Still others—such as the over-flights, which are indeed taking place—would be accept-able in most areas of the world other than Chiapas,where an active guerrilla movement is ensconced and theMexican military has a strong presence. David Bray, oneof the people originally enlisted by the Ford Foundationto investigate the alleged abuses, notes that this region“is probably the most politicized and difficult workingenvironment for conservation and development in Mex-ico.”31 Precisely what is going on in Chiapas is difficultto sort out, and CI’s role in the drama, whether posi-tive, negative, or otherwise, is far from clear.

None of this is easy, but one thing that seems clearto many of us who have worked in the field is that ifwe are to make any headway, cooperation amonggroups and sectors is crucial. There are still someamong us who strongly believe that conservation can-not be effective unless the residents of the area to be

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conserved are thoroughly involved. This is not solelya matter of social justice, which must in any case be astrong component of all conservation work. It is alsoa matter of pragmatism. Indigenous peoples live in mostof the ecosystems that conservationists are so anxiousto preserve. Often they are responsible for the relativelyintact state of those ecosystems, and they are withoutdoubt preferable to the most common alternatives—logging, oil drilling, cattle ranching, and large-scaleindustrial agriculture—that are destroying ever largertracts of forest throughout the tropical latitudes. Form-ing partnerships and collaborative alliances betweenindigenous and traditional peoples and conservation-ists is no easy task, but it would seem to be one of themost effective ways to save the increasingly threadbareecosystems that still exist.

Yet, cooperation by the large conservationistNGOs, both among themselves and with other, smallergroups, including indigenous and traditional peoples,has lost ground over the past decade, only to bereplaced by often intense competition, largely overmoney. NGOs entrusted with the enormous respon-sibility of defending the planet’s natural ecosystemsagainst the encroachment of the modern world in itsmost destructive manifestations have increasingly part-nered with—and become dependent on—many ofthe corporations and governments that are mostaggressively making this encroachment.

Within weeks after the Minnesota meeting at whichthe foundation people went “around and around,” theFord Foundation received two proposals that wouldostensibly move the debate forward. One came fromthe IUCN, the other from WWF. The IUCN projectwould facilitate a series of meetings culminating in an“open dialogue session” at the World ConservationCongress to be held this November in Bangkok. TheWWF project would evaluate existing WWF commu-nity-based natural resource projects via interviews overa three-month period, then produce new manuals andtraining programs. Ford had been negotiating withWWF on its proposal for some months, and the finalversion was presented in August 2004. The IUCNproposal, likewise, was submitted in August. Both wereapproved that same month.

For those who have been concerned about the driftof the conservation NGOs, this rapid response wassimultaneously encouraging and dismaying. On onehand, Ford was showing positive interest in continu-ing its examination of the relations between indigenousand traditional peoples and the large NGOs, and in rec-onciling conservation with human communities. Butthe haste of the Ford response was disconcerting, as wasthe direction it took. Both of the grants went to largeconservation NGOs, which meant they’d be adminis-tered by some of the very people whose practices were

being questioned. No similar grant to indigenous organ-izations, or organizations that work closely with indige-nous peoples, was in the works. It was argued, quiterightly, that no indigenous group had come forward witha proposal; but then, no indigenous people had beeninvited to any of the discussions.

There were also concerns about the fact that bothof the contracted NGOs are run by Ford Foundationboard members—Yolanda Kakabadse, IUCN’s presi-dent, and Kathryn Fuller, WWF’s president (Fuller isthe board chairperson). It was common knowledge(confirmed for me by people who were closely involved)that these were the two people who had kept the ini-tial Ford studies from public view. The IUCN proposalnotes that Kakabadse will be “personally presiding overthe dialogue sessions.” The WWF project is limited tostudies of WWF’s programs and will be carried out byWWF personnel, for use by WWF.

I fully agree that more study of conservation pro-grams in the field is needed. It has been the case for sometime that the large conservationists are not accountableto anyone, and that far too little is known about whatis really happening in the field. In particular, we don’tknow whether the large-scale, science-based programsthat appeal so much to funders are really achieving con-servation goals. We also have little sense of what worksand what doesn’t work in what circumstances. And wedon’t know what to make of the charges and counter-charges—the claims of success and rumors of abuse—that emanate from the backlands on a regular basis.One reason for the lack of clear information is the roleof the Big Three’s marketing and fundraising arms in“packaging” field reports and data, a tactic that encour-ages the exaggeration of successes and downplaying ornonrecognition of questionable results. The suggestionthat the IUCN and WWF—or any of the other largeconservation NGOs, for that matter—should now leada search for reliable new information strikes some as afox-guarding-the-henhouse solution.

What’s needed now is a series of independent,non-partisan, thorough, and fairly objective evaluationsthat answer key questions the NGOs can’t crediblyanswer. These evaluations should be undertaken bynonhierarchical teams representing the various sec-tors—indigenous peoples, local communities, nationalNGOs, government agencies, and donors, includingbilateral and multilateral donors (whose influence isenormous) and private corporations (which have beenlargely silent)—and should be prosecuted in the spiritof seeking information and insights, not justifyingexisting programs. Together, these stakeholders needto pursue the kind of open, public discussion that canlead towards the creation of conservation programs thatare responsive to the needs of both biological andhuman diversity worldwide.

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ENDNOTES1. Coordinadora de Organizaciones Indígenas de la CuencaAmazónica (COICA), 1989, “Two Agendas for AmazonianDevelopment,” Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 4,pp. 75–78. 2. Ibid.3. Coordinadora de Organizaciones Indígenas de la CuencaAmazónica (COICA), 1990, “Primer Encuentro CumbreAmazónico entre Pueblos Indígenas y Ambientalistas:Declaración de Iquitos.”4. International Union for the Conservation of Nature andWorld Wildlife Fund, 1996. “Principles and Guidelines onIndigenous and Traditional Peoples and Protected Area: JointPolicy Statement.”5. Ibid.6. See: McNeely, Jeff, 1989, “Protected Areas and HumanEcology: How National Parks Can Contribute to SustainingSocieties to the Twenty-first Century,” in Conservation for theTwenty-first Century, eds. David Western and M. Pearl.Oxford University Press, Oxford; Western, David and MichaelWright (eds.), 1994, Natural Connections: Perspectives inCommunity-Based Conservation, Island Press, Washington,D.C.; Western, David and M. Pearl (eds.), 1989, Conservationfor the Twenty-first Century, Oxford University Press, Oxford;Wells, Michael and Katrina Brandon, 1992, People and Parks:Linking Protected Area Management with Local Communities,The World Bank, Washington, D.C.; and Barzetti, V. (ed.),1993, Parks and Progress: Protected Areas and Economic Devel-opment in Latin America and the Caribbean, InternationalUnion for the Conservation of Nature, Washington, D.C.7. McShane, Thomas O., 2003, “The Devil in the Detail ofBiodiversity Conservation,” Conservation Biology, Vol. 17, No.1, pp. 1–3.8. Brandon, Katrina, Kent H. Redford, and Steven E. Sander-son (eds.), 1998, Parks in Peril: People, Politics, and ProtectedAreas, The Nature Conservancy and Island Press, Washington,D.C.9. Redford, Kent H., 1991, “The Ecologically Noble Savage,”Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 46–48.10. Redford, Kent H. and Steven E. Sanderson, 2000,“Extracting Humans from Nature,” Conservation Biology, Vol.14, No. 5, pp. 1362–64; and Redford, Kent H. and Allyn M.Stearman, 1993, “Forest-Dwelling Native Amazonians andthe Conservation of Biodiversity: Interests in Common or inCollision?” Conservation Biology, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 248–55.11. Chapeski, Andrew, 1995, “Land, Landscape, Culture-scape: Aboriginal Relationships to Land and the Co–Manage-ment of Natural Resources, Ottawa: Report to the RoyalCommission on Aboriginal Peoples,” p. 46. 12. Khare, Arvind and David Barton Bray, 2004, “Study ofCritical New Forest Conservation Issues in the Global South:Final Report Submitted to the Ford Foundation, June 2004.”13. Ibid.14. Myers, Norman, Russell A. Mittermeier, Cristina G. Mit-termeier, Gustavo A.B. da Fonseca, and Jennifer Kent, “Biodi-versity Hotspots for Conservation Priorities,” Nature, Vol.403, 24 Feb 2000, pp. 853–58.15. Ibid.16. World Wildlife Fund, 2004, “How We Work: Using 200Priority Ecoregions,” Washington, D.C.17. Chicchón, Avecita, 2000, “Conservation Theory MeetsPractice,” Conservation Biology, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 1368–69.18. Councill, Simon, 2004, “Conservation Funding: Helpingor Hurting Indigenous Peoples?” First Nations DevelopmentInstitute and The Rainforest Foundation UK.

19. Stephens, Joe and David Ottaway, 2003, “Nonprofit LandBank Amasses Billions,” Washington Post, May 4. 20. World Wildlife Fund, 2004, “WWF and Aid Agencies,”Washington, D.C.21. McShane, op. cit. note 7.22. Chiccon, op. cit. note 17. 23. Stephens and Ottaway, op. cit. note 19.24. Stevens, Stan (ed.), 1997, Conservation Through CulturalSurvival: Indigenous Peoples and Protected Areas, Island Press,Washington, D.C.; Nietschmann, Bernard, 1997, “ProtectingIndigenous Coral Reefs and Sea Territories, Miskito Coast,RAAN, Nicaragua,” in Stan Stevens (ed.), ConservationThrough Cultural Survival: Indigenous Peoples and ProtectedAreas, Island Press, Washington, D.C., pp. 193–224; Gray,Andrew, Alejandro Parellada, and H. Newing (eds.), 1998,From Principles to Practice: Indigenous Peoples and BiodiversityConservation in Latin America, Document 87, Forest PeoplesProgramme, the Interethnic Association for the Developmentof the Peruvian Amazon, and the International Work Groupfor Indigenous Affairs, Copenhagen; Schwartzman, Stephan,Adriana Moreira, and Daniel Nepstad, 2000, “RethinkingTropical Forest Conservation: Perils in Parks,” ConservationBiology. Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 1351–57; MacKay, Fergus andEmily Caruso, 2004, “Indigenous Lands or National Parks?”Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 28, Issue 1, pp. 14–16;Colchester, Marcus, 2000, “Self-Determination or Environ-mental Determinism for Indigenous Peoples in Tropical For-est Conservation,” Conservation Biology, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp.1365–67; Carino, Joji, 2004, “Indigenous Voices at the Table:Restoring Local Decision-Making on Protected Areas,” Cul-tural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 28, Issue I, pp. 23–27; LaRose,Jean, 2004, “In Guyana, Indigenous Peoples Fight to JoinConservation Efforts,” Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 28,Issue 1, pp. 34–37; Newing, Helen and Lissie Wahl, 2004,“Benefiting Local Populations?” Cultural Survival Quarterly,Vol. 28, Issue 1, pp. 38–42; and Western and Pearl, op. cit.note 6.25. Brandon, Katrina, Kent H. Redford, and Steven E.Sanderson, 1998, “Introduction,” in Parks in Peril: People,Politics, and Protected Areas, The Nature Conservancy andIsland Press, Washington, D.C., pp. 1–23; Redford, Kent H.,and Steven E. Sanderson, 2000, “Extracting Humans FromNature,” Conservation Biology, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp. 1362–64;Terborgh, John, 2000, “The Fate of Tropical Forests: A Mat-ter of Stewardship,” Conservation Biology, Vol. 14, No. 5, pp.1358–61.26. Schwartzman et al., op. cit. note 24.27. World Wildlife Fund, 2000, “A Guide to SocioeconomicAssessments for Ecoregion Conservation,” Ecoregional Con-servation Strategies Unit, Washington, D.C.; World WildlifeFund, 2004, “Communities and Large-Scale Conservation—Challenges and Opportunities,” Background Note for Discus-sion (Draft); Carr, Archi, 2004, “Utopian Bubbles: What AreCentral America’s Parks For?” Wild Earth, Spring/Summer,pp. 34–39; and op. cit. notes 16 and 20.28. Carr, ibid.29. World Wildlife Fund, 2003, “Protected Areas,” Gland,Switzerland.30. Dowie, Mark, 2002, American Foundations: An Inves-tigative History, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.31. Bray, David Barton, 2004, Personal communication.32. Oviedo, Gonzalo and Luisa Maffi, 2000, Indigenous andTraditional Peoples of the World and Ecoregional Conservation:An Integrated Approach to Conserving the World’s Biologicaland Cultural Diversity, WWF International and Terralingua,Gland, Switzerland.

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