Understanding community-based conservation from the bottom: Analysing local perspectives of the establishment process of a campesino-initiated conservation project in Peru

Abstract

Community-Based Conservation (CBC) is a set of conservation approaches that aims to include local communities in the decisions around conservation projects. CBC approaches are broad, often not well defined, and have been criticized for idealizing the community as a homogenous unit. Participation is another key concept for CBC that imported critiques from the development literature. The processes and outcomes of CBC projects around the world have attracted much critical study, but the early (establishment) stages of these projects are often overlooked. The Peruvian government has been encouraging legal creation of Protected Areas in both private and public lands since 1997 and 2000 respectively. Campesino-initiated CBC projects are becoming more common especially in Northeastern Perú (Shanee, Shanee, & Horwich, 2015). This thesis analysed the establishment process of a campesino-initiated CBC project, from the perspectives of the main local actor, as a case study from the Peruvian rainforest. Its establishment was analysed as a social and political process. The findings demonstrated that addressing the socio-political characteristics of the context in the first stage of a CBC project can produce a socially just conservation initiative. The context is complex and dynamic; addressing it successfully requires a continuum of local participation rearrangements and renegotiations, strong local institutions, and multi-level alliances.