How effective are conservation and development projects in the Lower Mekong?

A new book has just been launched which looks at the good and bad news behind conservation and poverty alleviation projects along the Lower Mekong.

Evidence-based Conservation: Lessons from the Lower Mekong comprises case studies from the field which demonstrate how effective conservation and poverty alleviation strategies can be better implemented. Among its editors is Minh-Ha Hoang, formerly the World Agroforestry Centre’s Vietnam Coordinator. The book draws on experiences from 15 integrated conservation and development projects in the Lower Mekong region, specifically in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

In CIFOR Forest’s Blog, Maya Thatcher and Michelle Kovacevic explain how in response to escalating commercial development in Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, millions of dollars have been poured into integrated conservation and development projects which aim to promote environmental sustainability of local communities while satisfying their development demands.

They provide a summary from the book of what the authors found to be effective, for example:

  • · Monitoring systems need to be a source of learning and change not just included in a project to keep donors happy
  • · Clear and achievable goals must be set to ensure the overall long-term goals are articulated and attention to implementation and deliverables doesn’t dominate
  • · Incentive mechanisms, such as payments for environmental services (PES) and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), are valuable when complementary to other funding mechanisms not as standalone solutions to link conservation and development
  • · Poverty is not always the main threat to biodiversity and the localized trade-offs between conservation and development should be well understood
  • · Training, education and awareness campaigns can often be the most successful aspects of a project, yet scaling-up such capacity building is a real challenge
  • · The success of conservation and poverty alleviation projects is largely dependent on how policies is implemented.

Read more on CIFOR’s Forests Blog: Are conservation projects succeeding in the Lower Mekong Basin?

Purchase the book from Taylor and Francis