| Abstract: | Abstract The Condor Bioreserve (CBR) project seeks to promote community-based and participatory forms of conservation at four protected areas in Ecuador. This chapter provides a review of the academic and practitioner literature on participatory conservation, and explores the kinds of participation which occur in the CBR. Three assertions are central to the paper. First, the ways communities are represented by project documents and project planners condition the outcomes of participatory projects. Second, the intense focus of participatory approaches on the community level diverts attention from political and economic realities which constrain the ability of community members to actively conserve natural resources. And third, the chronological point at which communities and local people become involved in decision processes affects the kinds of participation in conservation projects; because problem definition is a key moment in which various participants establish basic assumptions about the nature of problems, the exclusion of local communities from the initial phases of program planning conditions the ways in which communities are likely to participate in conservation efforts. The paper addresses these issues by looking at the cases of management planning activities, the water fund (FONAG), extension efforts in the Sinangoé community, and the Local Participation in the Management of Protected Areas (PALOMAP) external review of participation in the CBR initiative. |
