Last November I attended a symposium on human-wildlife conflict in New Hampshire, and noticed that the participants were divided into two camps. On one side were the conservation scientists and biologists who were ardent believers in conservation as a concept and seemed frustrated and perplexed by people who didn't "get it" like they did. On the other side were the more realistic practitioners - people who, after years of working in the trenches, know that all conservation, like politics, is local; that without local communities' active engagement in and ownership of conservation activities, external policy / NGO actions are temporary at best, and completely ineffective at worst.
It still sometimes amazes me that those of us who are passionate about conservation expect everyone else to magically share this passion, when the reality is that people whose livestock is threatened by predation, whose sources of food or firewood are restricted for habitat preservation, or whose economic livelihood is jeopardized by conservation activities need a more compelling reason to care about the species that they're supposed to protect.
Fortunately, the conservation community is becoming increasingly aware of this need to actively engage with local communities. Organizations like Human Wildlife Conflict Collaboration and the African People & Wildlife Fund make this an explicit part of their programmatic activities. But perhaps no organization educates, empowers, and incentivizes people to care about conservation like Rare Conservation. One hopes that this expanding paradigm will one day allow conservation organizations to work with, rather than against, development-focused groups for the betterment of all species.
