Cranes and conflicts: NGO programs to improve people-park relations in China and Russia

This dissertation uses two wetlands for cranes—Muraviovka Park in the Russian Far East and Caohai Nature Reserve in southwestern China—as case studies in order to examine community development and outreach programs that have been designed to reduce conflicts over natural resources and to improve people-park relations. While the establishment of a nature reserve may be considered essential to the conservation of biodiversity, local people may perceive this appropriation of resources as a direct threat to their subsistence. This can lead to intense, sometimes violent, conflicts between reserve managers, whose mandate is the protection of endangered species, and local people, who are struggling to maintain their access to natural resources. In order to mitigate such conflicts, many conservation organizations have sponsored a wide variety of community development and outreach programs, often collectively referred to as “Integrated Conservation and Development Projects” or ICDPs. These ICDPs attempt to address the need for local economic development in order to encourage local support for conservation and to reduce local dependency on protected resources.; This dissertation, based upon more than two years of field research and nearly 500 interviews, provides support for both negative and positive assessments of the ICDP approach, and highlights the importance of local people's “participation” and perceptions of equity to the success of these programs. In both Caohai and Muraviovka, when program participants have felt that benefits have been distributed equitably, relations with protected area managers have improved. For those who feel left out, relations have not improved or have deteriorated. Where the community development and outreach programs have been less successful is in changing the way local people use and manage natural resources.; Another finding of this study concerns the changing role of the park/reserve in the lives of local people. Muraviovka Park's and Caohai Nature Reserve's NGO-sponsored programs have come to provide numerous social services that were formerly the province of the state. These programs have been able to supplement state resources and often deliver resources more effectively to target populations.