Integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) are biodiversity conservation projects with rural development components. This is an approach that aspires to combine social development with conservation goals.
These projects look to deal with biodiversity conservation objectives through the use of socio-economic investment tools. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) first introduced ICDPs in the mid 1980s. They wanted to attend to some of the problems associated with the “fines and fences” (nonparticipatory) approach to conservation.(Herrold, 2006) Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Caohai Lake has been the site of sweeping anthropogenic changes that have dramatically transformed the lives of local people. In the 1950s, Caohai Lake was a shallow lake with a surface area of approximately 45km2.
During Mao's Great Leap Forward in 1958–1959, campaigns to reclaim 'wastelands' were initiated, and the wetlands and lake area of Caohai were partially drained. In a follow-up drainage effort in the early 1970s, the lake was almost completely drained.Local collective farms turned the lake bottom into agricultural fields of corn and potatoes. In the early 1980s, however, in order to reverse microclimate changes resulting from the drainage of Caohai Lake, the provincial government decided to restore Caohai Lake to half of its pre-1958 size.
( Herold,2006) Following the restoration of the lake, rare birds, including the endangered black-necked crane, started to winter at the lake after many years of absence.To protect these birds, a provincial-level nature reserve including Caohai Lake was established in 1985. With the establishment of the nature reserve, however, farmers' livelihood activities of fishing, hunting and land reclamation were criminalized. While farmers were allowed to continue to live in the reserve, the hunting or trapping of waterfowl, the draining of wetlands, the clearing of wooded hillsides and fishing during the spawning season were banned. In spite of these prohibitions, land-poor farmers have continued to engage in these activities.
Violent conflicts, primarily between nature reserve officials and male farmers, formerly erupted whenever reserve officials enforced a ban on the netting of fish during the spawning season. ( http://www. crdi. ca/un_focus_piest/ev-126265-201-1-DO_TOPIC.
html) In the monitoring and evaluation process it was realized that biodiversity conservation is the primary goal, but ICDPs also like to deal with the social and economic requirements of communities who might threaten biodiversity.They wish to improve the relationships between state-managed protected areas and their neighbors, but do not inevitably seek to delegate ownership of protected area resources to local communities. They usually receive funding from external sources and are externally motivated and initiated by conservation organizations and development agencies. ICDPs are normally linked to a protected area, usually national parks. (Brendon and Wells,1992) ICDPs, through benefit sharing, are believed to discourage poaching and promote economic development.
ICDPs try to benefit indigenous populations in several ways: through the transfer of money from tourism, the creation of jobs, and the stimulation of productivity in agriculture( Brendon and Wells, 1992) Integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) are increasingly being critiqued for having failed to meet their objectives. Designed with the goal of combining biodiversity conservation with the promotion of local economic development to create a win-win situation for both endangered species and marginalized peoples, numerous recent studies have questioned the effectiveness of the ICDP approach.This research, based on more than 200 interviews at Caohai Nature Reserve in China provides support both positive and negative assessments of ICDPs. The community development and conservation programs at Caohai, cosponsored by the Guizhou Environmental Protection Bureau, Caohai Nature Reserve, the International Crane Foundation, and the Trickle Up Program, were developed in response to violent confrontations between local people and nature reserve managers when managers attempted to enforce reserve regulations.Although the programs at Caohai have met with both failures and successes, these programs have been successful in transforming what was once a violent relationship between local people and nature reserve managers into a much more cooperative one.
It has also been realized that the main critique of this project is that Conservation organizations do not necessarily understand the social and economic arenas they are trying to work in. They are the ones to start the ICDPs, rather than the rural people, and have little experience working with communities.They are also unwilling to bear or support legal battles over land and are not willing to strengthen rural organizations because they find it to be “too political” (Brendon and Wells,1992)). However, WWF claims that ICDPs strengthen local organizations and "broker new land-use agreements between governments and communities, and helping communities challenge encroachment upon their natural resources, ICDPs involve local communities to improve livelihoods and conservation" (6-WWF).Agro forestry and organic gardening projects do not work as well because it is difficult for indigenous people to market what is grown.
Minority ethnic groups and women are many times not accounted for in the redistribution of costs and benefits. There are many limitations on participation by women, so many feel there are not equal opportunities for all people within the community. External effects like a growing market demand for forest and wildlife products, demographic pressures and vested interests like illegal logging, mineral extraction and ranching often go disregarded by ICDPs. (Herrold,2006)In addition, community-based conservation projects are often found to be divergent to the goals of biodiversity conservation, and should be based more on biological sciences. As stated by Katrina Brandonwith, “Not all things can be preserved through use” (Herrold, 2006).
Another problem is that some of the ICDPs that are funded internationally may not be financially or economically sustainable once their external funding has been exhausted. The most significant change following the implementation of the programs has been the reduction of violence between male farmers/fishers and nature reserve staff.During the late 1980s and early 1990s, before the programs were implemented, there was approximately one violent confrontation a year between farmers and reserve staff. When reserve staff would confiscate and burn fishers' nets during the spawning-season ban, farmers would angrily confront reserve officials, make death threats and come to blows.
Since the programs started, nature reserve officials are no longer threatened when they visit fishing hamlets, even though officials still intermittently confiscate and destroy fishing equipment during the spawning season (Herrold, 2006)
