Losing less and winning more : Building capacity to go beyond the trade-offs between conservation and development in the Lower Mekong l i ve l ihood

The best practices in design and implementation were identified through a broad review of the literature and an inventory of the multivariate techniques on a large set of variables. This research explored patterns among sites, project design, project activities and management. A complementary in-depth case study using qualitative methods was carried out in Cat Tien National Park, Vietnam, to understand which factors were likely to lead people to adopt and adhere to a Payment for Environmental Services (PES) scheme. The in-depth study will also inform the development of a locally appropriate PES for Cat Tien.


Losing less and winning more:
Building capacity to go beyond the trade-offs between conservation and development in the Lower Mekong livelihood Conservation and development trade-offs: losing less and winning more Conservationists and development advocates are usually thought to work in opposition when it comes to forest management.Win-win situations, in which both conservation and development objectives are met, are the exception to the rule.People will continue to clear forests because they reap clear, immediate, material benefits, while those who want to safeguard the natural balance and planetary health see any encroachment as an undesirable compromise.Win-win scenarios continue to elude the many stakeholders in forestry, and therefore managing forests is best described as the negotiation of trade-offs between the forces of conservation and development.
To examine conservation and development trade-offs, as well as to explore the approaches and tools that could be applied to make these trade-offs more explicit and to plan for them, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) is implementing a three-year project  in the lower Mekong River countries of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.Our goal is to develop tools to better integrate conservation and development interventions that will help agencies to design and implement more efficient landscape-level projects.The research will be grounded in the successes and failures of past initiatives and will examine the trade-offs and synergies between livelihoods and conservation.

Our sites
The research takes place in three countries in the lower Mekong region: Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam (Figure 1).We are working in 15 conserved landscapes, five in each of the three countries.The site selection criteria included, a) at least a partial conservation focus on forests; b) the conserved area had to be larger than 10,000 hectares; c) one or more projects had to be managing the conserved area and associated buffer zones; and d) those projects had to have been active within the past five years .Cases were selected based on the accessibility and feasibility of conducting fieldwork, the willingness of the project organizations to collaborate, and the availability of data.
One of the 15 sites, Cat Tien National Park in Vietnam was chosen to be part of a more in-depth study on what considerations to bring to bear when applying participatory approaches to the design of an effective PES scheme; such approaches are among the tools for integrating conservation and development.
Simulation models, using the software program STELLA, will also be used to explore possible future scenarios for conservation in two sites: Cat Tien National Park in Vietnam and Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area in Cambodia.These scenarios will explore what benefits ICDP provides along with other approaches, including community-based conservation, protectionist strategies and PES.Acknowledging trade-offs 4.
Clear sustainable economic or public 5.
health benefits to be gained External threats 6.
Working at multiple levels 7.
Local threats and solution 8.
Policy to support intervention 10.
Greater level of community involvement 11.
Capacity building with local organizations 12.
and institutions Recognize community heterogeneity 13.
Clear understanding of local livelihoods 14.
Permitted use of natural resources 15.
Length of project 19.
Monitoring and evaluation 20.
Our study showed that, overall, projects in the region were integrating best practices into project design quite well.Projects were successful in defining their ultimate goal, allowing for natural resource use by local communities, acknowledging external threats, and ensuring policies were in place to support project intervention.Yet, projects infrequently acknowledged trade-offs or provided evidence that sustainable health and economic benefits to local communities had been adequately considered, Figure 2. Mean variable score and the use of adaptive management was rarely described.Landscape-scale projects that acknowledged external threats had a tendency to employ efficient monitoring and evaluation systems, yet fell behind in certain livelihood aspects of ICDP design.Trade-offs between conservation and development were primarily only discussed by the most recently implemented conservation projects (Figure 2).

Message:
It is important that these "best practices" are acknowledged before initiating a new project, so as to better succeed in integrating conservation and development.

Project implementation: strategies to negotiate between conservation and development in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam
The primary goal of conservation organizations is to conserve biodiversity by reducing threats (Box 2).However, they must operate within a network of multiple stakeholders with diverse expectations.Hence, it is necessary to conduct integrated development programs that improve local livelihoods while also achieving conservation objectives and successfully negotiate with the relevant interest groups.

Main activities of organizations
Organizations were found to be active in three main areas: Conservation (law enforcement, boundary demarcation and so forth); Local development (livelihoods, education, infrastructure development); and, Institution building (laws, regulations, land-use planning and technical capacity building) (Box 3).

Project focus
Our preliminary results suggest projects focused specifically on conservation or development tend to have greater success in achieving their outcomes than integrated projects (Figure 4).Focusing on one activity is shown to improve progress (a strategy of specialization).As some partially integrated projects focus less on conservation, progress toward conservation goals decreases; similarly, as these projects focus more on conservation, progress toward development goals decreases.Development progress, however, is the same for development-oriented projects and ICDPs.The activities of specialized conservation or development projects are less varied than those conducting both conservation and development.Such integrated projects tend to conduct many activities at once and hence focus on a wider spectrum of project outcomes.

Box 2. Main threats to biodiversity across 15 research sites
Hunting was ranked as the highest threat across the 15 research sites, followed by logging, agricultural encroachment, infrastructure development and fire.Mining and dams were less important but ranked high in some areas, especially some sites in Cambodia and Laos.Country-specific threats ranked lowest: pollution and invasive species were an issue in Vietnam, and land grabbing was mainly an issue only in Cambodia (Figure 3).

Project progress to achieving outcomes
The progress of the major projects included in our research depends on issues relating to management and negotiation.Government agencies are the main management authorities at the 15 sites, often in partnership with international organizations who often provide technical and Message: Conservation and development organizations are doing relatively well in achieving their respective missions, but less progress is made when they have to combine the conservation and development objectives, as organizations must spread themselves much wider and conduct many activities concurrently.In order to successfully integrate conservation and development at the landscape scale, processes need to include a negotiation mechanism that uses participation, collaboration and consultation to draw on the relative expertise, or specialty, of the relevant stakeholders.
Listening to locals on prospects for PES: a case study in Vietnam on how and what local aspects should be considered when designing a pro-poor PES scheme PES is considered to be a potential tool that could help to provide incentives for conservation.In recent years, the PES concept has generated much enthusiasm and has been presented as an alternative to 'command and control' approaches to natural resource management.While considered a possible alternative to indirect approaches such where the implementation of PES schemes is being considered.The research focused on a buffer zone village and a core zone village (Figure 5), to answer the question of how and what local community aspects should be considered when designing a pro-poor PES scheme.Views and information gathered from potential ES providers in the villages could be valuable to agencies considering PES schemes in Cat Tien National Park, and perhaps also other protected areas.
The collection and analysis of the Cat Tien study results were guided by a combination of three frameworks: (i) the local people's ability to participate in PES (including community capacity and resources); (ii) their willingness to participate in a PES scheme; and, (iii) their likelihood of adhering to a PES scheme 1 (Box 4).

Willingness to participate in a PES scheme
Various underlying perceptions relating to a community's needs, desires and values may affect individuals' willingness to participate in a PES scheme.These perceptions can include the capacity and resources needed, the potential benefits, and participants' awareness of PES.Perceptions and awareness can, in turn, shape people's preferences and expectations -and thus their willingness to participate.

Adherence to a PES scheme
The likelihood of adherence is determined partly by the capacity and resources available in a community.However, adherence also depends heavily on the participants' perceptions, as described above.After being involved in a scheme, people's willingness to participate could wane or rise if the experience altered their initial perceptions.
Adherence to a PES scheme can also depend heavily on whether the design incorporates assistance to enhance community capacity or resources in areas identified as requiring support before the scheme commences.
Nam Et-Phou Louey National Protected Area, Laos -Photo by: Luke Preece

Way forward
A new generation of integrated conservation and development projects, using approaches variously termed as the 'landscape approach' and the 'ecosystem approach' , are being implemented to address problems related to biodiversity conservation and livelihood improvement.However, considerable thought needs to go into project design and implementation, to be sure of achieving successful conservation and development outcomes.The evidence suggests that such projects should: be implemented at multiple scales; 1.
stakeholder negotiations and use instruments such as payments for environmental services to create incentives for conservation; pay greater attention to organizational and 3.
institutional aspects during implementation; give greater weight to extra-sectoral and non-4.
local drivers of change; use adaptive management (=social learning 5. approaches); and, use mainstream participatory action 6. approaches.
Bach Ma National Park, Vietnam -Photo by: Luke Preece The combination, sequence, timing, form and quality of interventions at the various scales will be important in influencing outcomes.
CIFOR and our partners working on this theme are interested in exploring the circumstances in which conservation and development objectives in forested landscapes can be reconciled, particularly at the ecosystem or landscape level.Our research aims to identify win-win situations, the enabling circumstances around these situations, and how these might be replicated.

Figure 3 .
Average score for ranked threats to biodiversity at the 15 sites, with standard deviation.Score based on a 1-10 scale: 1 = lowest priority; 10 = highest priority

Figure 4 .Figure 5 .1
Figure 4. Perceived progress of the biodiversity conservation and livelihood development objectives in projects focused on conservation or development, or a combination of the two The design of an effective PES Framework to understand the voice of the poor in PES