residents’ perceptions of royal bardia national park, nepa (use depth interview)

7/28/2019 Residents perceptions of Royal Bardia National Park, Nepa (Use depth interview)

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Landscape and Urban Planning 82 (2007) 3340

Residents perceptions of Royal Bardia National Park, Nepal

Teri D. Allendorfa,, James L.D. Smith a, Dorothy H. Anderson b

a Conservation Biology Program, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USAb Forest Resources, University of Minnesota. St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

Received 8 April 2006; received in revised form 25 January 2007; accepted 31 January 2007

Available online 8 March 2007

Abstract

The complex relationship between residents and protected areas continues to be an obstacle to successful conservation of protected areas. One ofthe key components of this relationship is local residents perceptions of protected areas. This study explores key issues in the relationship between

residents and Royal Bardia National Park in western Nepal. We discuss residents conflicting perceptions of benefits and problems of the area,

their perceptions of entities such as park management that affect their relationship with the park, and their perceptions of NGOs and associated

conservation and development projects.

2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Attitudes; Protected areas; Parkpeople relationships; Perceptions; Conservation; Protected area management; Nepal

1. Introduction

Protected areas, such as national parks and reserves, are criti-

cal components of national biodiversity conservation programs.However, a host of problems have hindered their effective-

ness in protecting biodiversity (Newmark, 1996; Woodroffe

and Ginsberg, 1998). One of these problems is the relation-

ship between protected areas and local residents. Many have

argued that conservation strategies must address local residents

concerns in order to conserve protected areas over the long-

term (Fiallo and Jacobson, 1995; Furze et al., 1996; Hough

and Sherpa, 1989; McNeely and Miller, 1984; Newmark et al.,

1993; Zube, 1986). However, this relationship continues to be

an obstacle to successful conservation, in part, because the com-

plex relationships between people and protected areas are still

poorly understood and the connections to broader issues often

remain unacknowledged (Berkes, 2004; Brosius and Russell,

2003; Brown, 2002; Wilshusen et al., 2002).

Many approaches have been taken to understand the

Parkpeople relationship. These approaches include, for exam-

ple, describing residents resource use of protected areas

Correspondingauthor. Present address: 110Elm St., Mazomanie, WI 53560,

USA. Tel.: +1 608 795 4225.

E-mail address: [email protected] (T.D. Allendorf).

(Brown, 1997; Dearden et al., 1996; De Boer and Baquete, 1998;

Maikhuri et al., 2000; Nepal and Weber, 1995; Sharma and

Shaw, 1993; Straede and Helles, 2000) and crop damage and

livestock depredation by wildlife (Gadd, 2005; Heinen, 1993;Hill, 1998; Kharel, 1997; Nepal and Weber, 1995; Newmark et

al., 1993; Oli et al., 1994; Parry and Campbell, 1992; Sekhar,

1998;Sharma, 1990;Studsrd and Wegge, 1995). More recently,

residents perceptions of conservation and development projects

associated with protected areas (Bauer, 2003; Ite, 1996; Jim

and Xu, 2002; Mehta and Kellert, 1998; Mkanda and Munthali,

1994; Sekhar, 2003; Straede and Helles, 2000; Wainwright and

Wehrmeyer, 1998; Walpole and Goodwin, 2001) and the effect

of projects on attitudestoward protected areas (Boonzaier, 1996;

Gillingham and Lee, 1999; Infield and Namara, 2001; Sekhar,

2003; Songorwa, 1999) have been considered. Some research

has also considered the social context of residents living adja-

cent to protected areas (Abel and Blaikie, 1986; Brown, 1997;

Daniels and Bassett, 2002; Fortin and Gagnon, 1999; Maikhuri

et al., 2000; Slater, 2002).

Resource use, wildlife damage, and the effect of conservation

and development projects are all important ways of understand-

ing the relationship that residents have with protected areas.

However, underlying all of these aspects of the relationship, and

fundamental to finding waysto improve the relationship, are peo-

ples perceptions of the protected areas. Peoples perceptions are

critical in designing appropriate strategies and policies in order

0169-2046/$ see front matter 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2007.01.015
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34 T.D. Allendorf et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 82 (2007) 3340

to address local residents needs and expectations (Akama et al.,

1995; Fiallo and Jacobson, 1995; Heinen, 1993; Infield, 1988;

Ite, 1996; Mehta and Heinen, 2001; Mukherjeeand Borad,2004;

Sah and Heinen, 2001; Weladji et al., 2003).

Using a qualitative approach to understand the relationship

that residents have with protected areas in this study, we define

the relationship between people and Royal Bardia National Park

in residents terms and explore key issues in the relationship

from their perspectives. Qualitative methods are better suited

to reveal the nature of protected area issues from the perspec-

tives of residents and are more appropriate in an exploratory

study, such as this, for revealing a range of issues and perspec-

tives (Raval, 1994). In this paper, our objectives are to describe

and clarify residents attitudes regarding the costs and benefits

of RBNP, explore the effects of peoples perceptions of park

management and the government on their relationship with the

park, and examine peoples perceptions of non-governmental

organizations (NGOs) conservation projects. These objectives

arise from the results of a preliminary open-ended survey con-

ducted by the first author to determine residents perceptions ofthe benefits and problems of the Royal Bardia National in Nepal

(Allendorf,2006), which raisedthese three areasof further study.

First, respondents held conflicting perceptions of the pro-

tected area in that they reported both liking and disliking

that park management did not allow people to extract natural

resources, such as fuelwood and fodder, from the park. Other

studies have shown that while people do generally support

conservation of protected areas (De Boer and Baquete, 1998;

Mehta and Heinen, 2001; Mukherjee and Borad, 2004; Picard,

2003; Weladji et al., 2003), they resent management policies

that restrict their livelihood activities within the protected areas

(Bauer, 2003; Infield, 1988).Second, although the survey asked people their perceptions of

the benefits andproblems that thepark caused, people responded

by describing their perceptions of other entities, such as park

management, the military that guards the park, and the govern-

ment. Previous research has shown that one of the most critical

determinants of peoples attitudes toward protected areas is their

relationships with and perceptions of management (Holmes,

2003). For example, a poor relationship with park staff is often

associated with negative attitudes toward the protected area

(Fiallo and Jacobson, 1995).

Third, respondents did not mention entities that they might

have been expected to link to the park. Although non-

governmental organizations (NGOs) had been implementing

conservation and development projects in the area, no one

mentioned these NGOs or their projects either as benefits or

problems. Given that these projects are implemented in order to

improve peoples attitudes toward the park and decrease their

illegal extraction, it was notable that people were not directly

linking these projects to the park.

2. Royal Bardia National Park

Royal Bardia National Park (RBNP), located in the south-

western lowlands, or terai, of Nepal (Fig. 1), was established in

1969 as a hunting reserve. It became a national park in 1989. The

968km2 area is managed by the Department of National Parks

and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC). The park authority con-

sists of a chief warden, three assistant wardens, and a senior

warden in charge of the eastern park sub-quarters. Rangers,

senior game scouts, and game scouts rotate duty at posts located

throughout the park. Like most national parks and reserves in

Nepal, the Royal Nepalese Army is responsible for guarding

the park and enforcing its rules and regulations, including con-

trolling poachers, stopping illegal fishing, checking boundaries,preventing encroachment into the park, and preventing livestock

grazing and extraction of resources by area residents. The army

Fig. 1. Map of Royal Bardia National Park in western Nepal.


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T.D. Allendorf et al. / Landscape and Urban Planning 82 (2007) 3340 35

operates independently from theDNPWCat each protectedarea,

and the extent of coordination and cooperation between the two

is at the discretion of the commanding officer at the army post.

At the time of the study, two army companies (320 individu-

als) were posted at 16 guard posts and in the park headquarters

for assignments of two years. Furthermore, the army battal-

ions and their commanders that rotate through RBNP every two

years have little incentive to build long-term relationships with

local communities. A common perception in the military is that

an assignment at RBNP is a lucrative posting because of the

potential income from bribes from local people and outsiders

who want access to subsistence resources and more valuable

resources, such as timber.

Extraction of natural resources from RBNP is illegal except

for the cutting of thatch and other grasses, which is allowed for

a 1014 day period once a year, and for which residents must

pay a modest fee. Extraction of thatch is an important economic

park benefit to people. In 1992, the worth of the thatch and other

grasses extracted was substantial (565.50 NR per household)

compared to the average monthly income for rural households(1192NR)(Stre, 1993). Fishing, for which a permitis required,

is also allowed. A number of canals inside RBNP connect the

Geruwa and Babai Rivers to adjacent agriculture fields. These

canals were built by local residents before the establishment of

the park. People are allowed to enter RBNP to control the flow

of water and to maintain the canals (Upreti, 1994). It should

be noted, however, that residents do commonly illegally gather

fuelwoodand timber, as well as other non-timber forestproducts.

When the initial survey was conducted in 1995, only one non-

governmental organization (NGO), the King Mahendra Trust for

Nature Conservation (KMTNC), was conducting development

and conservation projects, including health, community forestry,animal husbandry, and nature guide and lodge management

training, with residents living around the park. It maintained

its headquarters adjacent to one of the villages where interviews

were conducted. One other organization, Women in Environ-

ment, was implementing education and daycare programs in one

of the communities. At the time of follow-up interviews in 1997,

so many projects existed in the area that a management struc-

ture called the Bardia Integrated Conservation Project (BICP)

and administered by the Department of National Parks and

Wildlife Conservation, had been created to coordinate project

activities. Organizations active in the area included KMTNC,

the UNDP Parks and People Project, WWF-Nepal, and CARE-

Nepal, whichwere all conductingconservationand developmentactivities.

3. Methods

Thirty-five in-depth interviews were conducted in three com-

munities adjacent to RBNP. Since the overall objectives of this

exploratory study were to describe perceptions rather than pre-

dict phenomena, residents were not randomly sampled (Miles

and Huberman, 1994). Initial interviews were conducted with

people who had participated in the previous survey. A snow-

ball method, where people were asked to suggest other people

whomight be willing to be interviewed, was used (Patton, 1990).

In this way, the chances of finding interviewees who would yield

richand informative interviewswere increased. Some interviews

were also opportunistic in that some individualsasked to be inter-

viewed. Interviews were conducted with 18 men and 17 women,

ranging in age from 18 to 70 years, including seven Tharu, in

three communities. Tharu are the indigenous group of the terai

and inner terai and pahadi, or hill people, migrated from the

hills during the 1950s and 1960s after eradication of malaria

in the terai. Tharu have traditionally been more reliant on the

resources of the forest and on a wider variety of species than

pahadi (Muller-Boker, 1991).

The communities were chosen based on their distance from

park headquarters and government forests in order to capture the

range of relationships that people have with the protected area in

terms of their access to natural resources and their relationship

with park management (Fig. 1). The distance from park head-

quarters also correlates with the number of NGO projects in the

community, with the closest community have the largest number.

All of the communities had been visited during the preliminary

survey. The first community, Madhela, is located about one kilo-meter from park headquarters along the southern border of the

park.Residentshave legal access to degraded government forest.

The second, Karmala, is located about five kilometers from park

headquarters at the southern edge of the park; residents here also

have legal access to degraded government forest. Residents of

Madhela and Karmala include both tharu and pahadi. The third

community, Chepang, is on the eastern edge of RBNP; residents

have easy legal access to healthy government forests on both the

north and south sides of the village. Residents of Chepang are

pahadi.

Interviews were based on an interview guide,an outline of the

set of issues to be explored with each respondent (Patton, 1990).The guide coverednumeroustopics, of which three arediscussed

in this paper. Topics included the individuals history in the area,

their reasons for moving there if they were a migrant, and their

feelings about thearea as a place to live; their useand perceptions

of RBNP and their perceptions of changes over time in their

relationship with the park; their impressions of how others in

their community felt about the park; their perceptions of park

management, the NGOs working in the area, and tourists and

researchers such as myself; their understanding of relationship

between thegovernmentand thepark; andtheir understanding of

the purpose and goals of the NGO projects in the area. General

questions were asked about each topic, followed by probing

questions to clarify or gain more understanding.Interviews were transcribed and translated into English by

the first author with help from native Nepali speakers. Text

was analyzed using a content analysis approach (Patton, 1990)

and the program QSR NUD*IST (Non-numerical Unstructured

Data Indexing Searching and Theorizing) 3.0.4. First, interviews

were coded according to the interview topics described above.

Additional coding was conducted to identify themes within the

research objectives. For example, to fulfill the first objective

of this study, to explore the beliefs that people have concern-

ing Royal Bardia NP, analysis began with coding perceived

attributes of the park. After coding attributes, statements that

linked different attributes together or that talked about the same


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attribute in both negative and positive ways were coded. Simi-

lar procedures were used to code the other research questions.

Coding was cross-checked by a colleague familiar with coding

procedures who had no direct experience with this research.

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Perceptions of RBNP

Peoples perceptions of RBNP are diverse, complex, and

often contradictory. Often, people are neither completely in

favor of nor opposed to the park. For example, on one hand,

wildlife eats residents crops and residents access to resources

is restricted because of the park. On the other hand, the area pro-

vides resources (legally and illegally), environmental services,

and aesthetic benefits (Table 1). One resident said,

The only problem is that [wildlife] eat fields here. Other-

wise, the park is good. It is good to take care of the wildlife.

Different types of animals are here, which we can see them. Itis good. The park has done nothing to us and jungle is every-

where. We have firewood, we have everything. For bathing,

there is the river. The park is not difficult for us, except that

the rhinos are nearby and come to eat the fields.

The inability to extract legally both enhances and diminishes

the economic value of RBNP for residents. Although people

resentaspects of management that limit their accessto resources,

theyrecognizethat management doesconservethe resourcesthat

might otherwise be consumed by them or others. People dislike

not having free access to resources in the park, such as fuelwood

and fodder, but theyalsoknow that if it were an open access area,

people would be extracting a greater quantity of resources andpeople from greater distances away would be extracting. As one

man said: Open forest would be finished in one day. Now it is

closed. People steal, but, at the same time, they are afraid [to

steal].

Although residents may dislike the cost of the park to them-

selves, they recognize the parks conservation value at the

individual and local, as well as national and global, scales. A

Table 1

Positive and negative attributes of the forest and wildlife of RBNP

Value Positive attributes Negative attributes

ForestEconomic Extraction No legal extraction

No legal grazing

Recreational Breezes/shade Walk Restricted entry

Aesthetic To see Beauty

Environmental Clean air

Clean water

Healthy

No pollution

Wildlife

Economic Crop damage

Livestock depredation

Recreational To see Entertaining Fear

Information Educational

Bequest For future generations

common saying in Nepal is Nepalko dhan hariyo ban, which

means, Nepals wealth is green forest. Wildlife is appreci-

ated not only for personal enjoyment, but also because it is the

countrys wealth. As one resident explained,

Tomorrows generation will not be able to see wildlife that

we can see now. How many animals are already finished?

Let us talk about rhinos. We know how rhinos look, we haveseen them, but in our childrens time, how will they know

how rhinos are? They will not know except from books.

4.2. Relationship with RBNP management and attitude

toward government

People appreciate that management protects the park, includ-

ing resources and wildlife, and even wish that management

did a better job: Even with the guards, the jungle is being

degraded. People also feel that the military presence provides

some security to residents and communities and they recognize

that guards and park staff sometimes provide help to local resi-dents, for example by using their vehicles to take a sick person

to the hospital. However, people do not like being fined and

punished for entering the park, although they may feel that rea-

sonable punishment is justified. Punishments people described

for illegally extracting include fines, imprisonment, beatings,

and rape. Guards are more lenient with people they know or

with whom they feel an affiliation, such as ethnicity. As one

Tharu woman explained: The tharu police consider the tharu.

The pahadi try to snatch whatever we have, the tharu try to

let us go. People they know they try to let go, otherwise they

take them [to the guard station]. It is important to note that

residents do not clearly distinguish between the game scouts

and the military guards and some people believe that the parkis the armys, referring to it as the forest of the barracks

(Table 2).

Local people know thatcorruptionexists within parkmanage-

ment. Residents resent that they are not even allowed to extract

Table 2

Positive and negative perceptions of RBNP management, the government, and

NGOs

Positive Negative

Management/guards

Protects park Not protecting well enough

Provides help/security to residents Reputation for corruptionFine, arrest, abuse residents

Government

Conserves RBNP Corrupt

Patron of people Self-interested

Ineffectual

NGOs

Promote community development

and empowerment

Unevenly distributed benefits within

community

Bring money into community Socio-economic disparity between

project staff and communities

Lack of coordination with local

institutions

Short-term solutions


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dead and fallen wood for household use while officials sell large

amounts for personal gain (Ghimire, 1994). According to resi-

dents, the game scouts have been known to cut trees in the park

to sell as lumber to wealthy people in other areas of Nepal and

in India. One resident made the comment that: They taught us

to steal.

Despite this, people support the government and its creation

of the park because there is an understanding of the benefits of

forest in Nepal: The government has tried a lot for the animals.

There is benefit for the government because Nepals wealth is

green forest. However, people still have a traditional belief that

the government should play the role of patron to its citizens.

In the case of RBNP, residents feel that the government has an

obligation to mitigate the negative effects of the park. As one

man said about park-related problems, such as crop damage by

wildlife: We should not run away, we should ask, we have

to get promise from government. One woman explained that

the government has a responsibility to care for both people and

wildlife:

The park is the governments, people cant kill wildlife.

Animals and people are equal. The government must take

care of wildlife, and it must also take care of us people. I

love the animals. . .. However, there is damage to fields [from

wildlife]. We should be far away so that we do not disturb

the animals.

The feeling that the government is the patron of the people

arises out of the relationship that people have traditionally had

with the monarchy, whose role is perceived as taking care of the

people. In return, people feel they must support the government

and its decisions. When people were asked how they felt about

the park, some people responded that if the government thinksthe park is good, so must they. For some people, the feeling

that the government decisions must be respected is sincere in

a positive, respectful way. For others, it arises out a feeling of

powerlessness to help themselves andresentment at a reliance on

the government that is viewed as corrupt. Massive foreign aid at

the national level contrasted with a lack of facilities in the com-

munities, such as electricity, roads, and health posts, has created

a negative attitude toward the government. People consider the

government corrupt, weak, self-interested, and ineffectual. As

one resident said, Everyone watches his or her own stomachs.

The leaders only look out for themselves; they dont look out for

the villages. They believe that the government only listens to

those who are wealthy and have power. As one man said, Thegovernment doesnt look after the poor, it has bad eyes.

An individuals perceptions of the government can affect the

expression of her/his perceptions toward RBNP. In areas where

land has not been officially measured and registered by the gov-

ernment, people fear that their land could be taken away from

them to increase the park size. Thus, in Chepang, one woman,

when asked if she believed that wildlife needed some place to

live, said: This happens. If we say animals need a place, we

think the government will move us from here. This demon-

strates that people may be cautious about emphasizing benefits

of the park if they perceive that those comments could be used

to their disadvantage. Other people would like to be resettled

because they recognize the value of the park, at least for the

government, but feel like it is only fair for the government to

take care of them also. Some individuals perceive that those who

were resettled from the area when the park was extended in 1989

received a good deal. Some want to be resettled out of anger and

resentment at the government for not being a responsible patron.

4.3. Perceptions of non-governmental organizations

As noted earlier, in a previous survey, people living adjacent

toRBNPdonotmakeaconnectionbetweentheparkandtheben-

efits that the associated projects have provided, such as a health

post, lumber for schools and bridges, and community commit-

tees. The reasons for this disconnect between NGO activities

and the park is due partly to the fact that people do not under-

stand the relationshipbetween the NGOs andconservation of the

park, nor can people necessarily distinguish differences among

the park authority, the NGOs, and the hotels, much less among

the NGOs themselves. The number of different NGOs working

around and in the park makes it difficult for people to differ-entiate between them. One woman commented: All [NGOs]

are the same. Part of the confusion about the NGOs and hotels

may be because they both get preferential treatment from park

management. For example, both are allowed to cut thatch before

local residents, and they are allowed to use wood from the park

for their buildings. One hotel has a license from the government,

which allows it to run a camp within the park.

An additional problem in a developing country such as Nepal,

where foreign aid has played such an important role, is that

people have a feeling of entitlement. They know they are per-

ceived as poor by other nations who give large amounts of

funding, so they feel they deserve development activities. Peo-ples awareness of therole that foreign aidplaysin their countrys

development is illustrated by one residents response to a ques-

tion about the role NGOs play in the community. He responded

not with a general response about the type of projects or the ben-

efits, but with the exact amount of money that a project had given

to make a nursery plantation. This sense of entitlement hasgrown

out of Nepals long history of foreign aid. In the forestry sec-

tor alone, by 1987, 38 international agencies and organizations,

compared to three Nepali groups, were conducting projects and

research in Nepal (Tinker, 1994).

Although the link between the park and projects is weak, res-

idents who have participated in the community groups formed

by the NGOs recognize that the groups have benefited the com-munities in meaningful ways. One wealthy and educated man

explained that he learned from the NGO that communities need

to be self-dependent, not relying on outside organizations or

governmentto help them solve problems.Womenactive on com-

mittees feel that they arelearningto work together andto be more

independent through NGO projects (Table 2).

In contrast, the perspectives of one resident and her husband

reveal a number of ways that residents can view NGO activities

negatively. They resented unevenly distributed benefits within

the community and the high socio-economic status of project

workers. They felt more local people should be hired within

the projects and hotels. They disliked that NGOs do not always


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workcooperativelywith already-existing institutions. They were

referring to a health post that an NGO had built that was just

down the road from a government health post. The NGO health

post was relatively well-stocked, while the government health

post was not. They doubted the usefulness of NGO projects,

which they perceived as short-term solutions. They also felt that

often the NGOs looked out for their own benefit first. For exam-

ple, the couple said they chose tiles to roof their home because

there was not enough thatch available from the park because

hotels and NGOs are allowed to cut first before local residents

can enter. Despite these negative comments, this couple did not

rule out that the NGOs might prove to be beneficial in the future.

5. Discussion

Residents hold a diversity of values toward RBNP that are

bothpositiveand negative. They appreciatethat the areaprovides

natural resources (legally and illegally), environmental services,

and aesthetic benefits. They appreciate these benefits both for

themselves and their communities, but they also appreciate thatthe PA benefits the country. These perceptions can seem to be

conflicting. For example, residents simultaneously consider the

illegality of extraction to be both a benefit and a problem. While

people resent not being able to extract the resources they wish,

or in the case of thatch, to the extent that they wish, they do

appreciate that extraction is limited and resourcesare conserved.

In RBNP, peoples perceptions of the park are linked closely

with their perceptions of park management and the military that

guard the park. Other studies have also found peoples relation-

ship with park management to be important (Holmes, 2003) and

some studies have found that peoples attitudes toward manage-

ment can be even more negative than their attitudes toward theprotected areas (Infield, 1988; Newmark et al., 1993). In a sum-

mary of factors influencing attitude toward protected areas, a

poor relationship with park staff was the only variable that was

always associated with negative perceptions of protected areas

in all six studies reviewed (Fiallo and Jacobson, 1995).

Our results highlight the complexity of the community-

management relationship and demonstrate that the role the

guards play in protecting the park is not only a negative one.

In fact, residents have conflicted perceptions of park manage-

ment and the military that guard it. For example, although they

dislike it, many accept that punishments for illegal extraction

are justified. However, not surprisingly, they resent that the

park management, military, and hotels are allowed to extractresources from the park that they themselves are not. If res-

idents perceive that other entities are gaining more extractive

benefits from the park than they are, it weakens peoples rela-

tionship with management and makes it difficult for people to

understand and support conservation of the park. It is impor-

tant that residents perceive park managements primary duty as

protecting the park and not legally or illegally gaining benefits

themselves.

This study also highlights that it is not only peoples percep-

tions of park management that affect their attitude, it is also their

perceptions of the government. People can and do understand

the reasons that the government has set aside strictly protected

areas and they understand the bigger picture that conservation

plays in the protecting Nepals national heritage. However, this

can be good or bad depending on how they perceive the gov-

ernment and whether they respect it or view it as corrupt. In the

case of RBNP, peoples memories of the king and his support

of protected areas is important to their positive perceptions of

RBNP, while their perceptions of the current government, par-

ticularly local officials, as corrupt have a negative effect on their

attitude toward RBNP.

The fact that residents rarely discussed NGOs or their work

as a benefit of RBNP has disturbing implications for the idea

that people will support conservation of protected areas if they

gain tangible benefits from it. In the case of RBNP, it is clear that

park management andNGOs shouldbe clearer about thepurpose

and goals of the projects. However, while it is recognized that

conservation and development projects have generally done an

inadequatejob of linking conservation and development (Heinen

and Mehta, 2000), one aspect that has not been discussed much

is that often NGOs deliberately do not link them, at least in the

initial stages of the project, as was the case with some projects inthe area. Often NGOs are trying to build support for themselves

by supporting development activities that are not directly linked

to conservation of the park (Brandon and Wells, 1992). Their

logic is that if they provide programs for residents that meet

residents needs then residents will be more willing to work

with NGOs on projects that meet the parks needs. However

logical this may seem to NGOs, if residents are not aware of the

NGOs full agenda, then NGO activities are unlikely to motivate

residents to support conservation farther down the road. In the

worse case scenario, residents may actually feel manipulated

once the NGO agenda becomes clear.

On the other hand, even if the links between conservationand development are made direct and explicit, the ramifica-

tions of linking them should be carefully considered. While

it may improve peoples attitudes toward RBNP if they con-

sidered project development activities to be benefits of the

park, the long-term effects of making this link need to be

carefully considered. If peoples expectations of development

benefits are not fulfilled, their attitude toward the park may

be negatively impacted. In Cross River National Park, Nige-

ria (Ite, 1996), Machalilla National Park, Ecuador (Fiallo

and Jacobson, 1995), and Richtersveld National Park, South

Africa (Boonzaier, 1996) residents perceptions of the park

have been negatively impacted because they feel betrayed and

cheated by promises of community development which have notmaterialized.

Another aspect of the community-NGO relationship that is

often overlooked is peoples relationships with and perceptions

of the NGO staff. In the case of RBNP, inherent tensions exist

in peoples relationships with NGOs because the relationship is

shaped by the power structure inherent within it. NGO personnel

come from outside, descend upon the community, and often take

for granted that local people want them to come and want their

help. These factors cause tensions between residents and NGOs,

which NGO employees may underestimate because of peoples

appreciation of the projects and NGO efforts to help the local

communities.


7/8


Ultimately, it is important that NGOs from the outset help

build support for the park as an institution and its staff, or

they may be undermining their own less explicit long term

goal of making the park a strong conservation institution.

NGO projects should be clearly integrated into park manage-

ment goals. Management, NGOs, and residents should clearly

understand how NGO projects, even if focused on community

development, fulfill conservation objectives. The case of RBNP

highlights the need for good communication between manage-

ment and residents. People should understand NGOs agendas

and be made equal partners in terms of choosing and shaping

projects.

This study predates the creation of the Buffer Zone Manage-

ment Regulations, which among other things, allowed for the

spending of 30-50% of the funds earned by parks and reserves to

be used for community development with mechanisms for com-

munities to participate in deciding how the money gets spent.

While the results of this study are important unto themselves in

the larger context of people-park relationships, a similar study

conducted now after buffer zone management implementationwould be extremely interesting and useful.

6. Conclusion

In RBNP, while people resent that they cannot freely extract

from the park, they also recognize that protection of the park

is good not only for conservation in general, but also because

it serves to conserve the resources upon which they depend.

Peoples perceptions of RBNP are strongly connected to their

perceptions of other entities that they associate with RBNP,

particularly park management, but also including the govern-

ment more broadly. Finally, the role of community developmentprojects, which are meant to improve the relationship between

people and protected areas and ultimately help conserve the area

more effectively, is not necessarily one that people easily rec-

ognize. These three issues explored in the context of RBNP

have important implications for Parkpeople relationships more

generally.

First, the diverse, and possibly conflicting, perceptions that

people hold toward protected areas should be recognized and

understood. Management should not only work to meet peo-

ples extraction needs if possible, but also take advantage of and

strengthen peoples understanding of the need to eliminate or

mitigate extraction from protected areas as well as build on their

understanding of the importance of conservation of the area.Conservation strategies that foster and integrate the diverse val-

ues that people hold will more accurately reflect the reality and

complexity of peoples lives and, therefore, promise the best

hope of sustaining protected areas and communities over the

long-term.

Second, improving peoples attitudes toward management

may be one of the most critical ways to improve the parkpeople

relationship. Management must be perceived by local people

as trying to protect the park while working to have good rela-

tionships with local people. No matter how much residents

understand and support conservation, it will be difficult for them

to support PA management and the PA itself if they feel man-

agement is gaining its own benefits from the park at the expense

of local communities.

Third, NGO projects should be clearly integrated into park

management goals. PA management and NGOs mustbe straight-

forward with communities about their own goals and objectives

from the very beginning of projects. They need to communicate

clearly to communities how projects, even if focused on commu-

nity development, fulfill conservation objectives. Additionally,

NGOs should build support for the park as an institution and for

park staff or they may be undermining their own less explicit

long term goal of making a protected area a strong conservation

institution.

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