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Science and Society at the World Parks Congress

As a conservation biologist with extensive experience in Andean and Amazonian countries, I strongly disagree with John Terborgh’s views on the fifth World Parks Congress (Terborgh 2004). I went to Durban to represent the protected-areas program of the South American office of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), to challenge some established views on protected-area management, and to focus attention on the evolution of ideas and practices since the previous 1992 Parks Congress (Andrade 2003). There was plenty of room at the Durban meeting for presenting case studies, especially the ones Terborgh dislikes for having presumably distorted the focus on biodiversity conservation. There was also important room for conservation science as the foundation for conservation practice. Terborgh’s view is a good example of the asymmetry that privileges “northern views” of conservation science, which disdains the social sciences. This asymmetry results in local actors perceiving scientific paradigms of conservation biology as constructs imposed from developed countries, which affects our conservation work. If local practitioners were to accept Terborgh’s idea that social discourses are merely rhetoric, there would be devastating consequences for conservation processes. What is irrelevant to conservation is the kind of science that does not address the social issues that are key to species and ecosystem conservation. Although the Durban Congress was a privileged scenario for sharing the diversity of views about global conservation, it was not so for conservation science. A major effort in democratizing scientific institutions and advisory bodies is obviously needed. Terborgh claims that the congress drowned biodiversity conservation with political agendas. Park congresses are conservation fora, not scientific meetings. The proliferation of social agendas does not mean that conservation science is being discounted, but that the conservation community is recognizing the complexity of conservation endeavors. Nowhere in the world, including the United States, is management of protected areas based solely, or even mainly, on biophysical science. The Spotted Owl controversy in the United States illustrates the complex interplay of scientific views and other social expressions. Conversely, as a Colombian, I found the social agendas discussed in Durban compelling but incomplete. Although there were sessions addressing armed conflict and protected areas, only marginal comments were made on the relationships between international illegal markets (e.g., weapons, cocaine) and protected areas. The only comments I heard on the issue of the questionable roles of some northern-based international conservation organizations were being made in the hallways ( Romero & Andrade 2004), not in the formal sessions. I also question the assumption that national parks are always the best option for biodiversity conservation in South America. The importance to conservation of the numerous and sometimes enormous community conservation areas should not be downplayed simply because they are not national parks. Certainly the millions of hectares of Indian wild lands in Colombia (formally equivalent to IUCN categories V or VI) could have larger conservation impacts on global biodiversity than the few and smaller parks, especially in the current atmosphere of disputed governance and limited governmental legitimacy (Andrade 2003). There is still room for building larger landscapes in which people are integrated with wild lands. The establishment and operation of large protected areas in South America does not always necessitate fencing out people and disregarding what Terborgh referred to as tangential issues. Smaller parks in fragmented landscapes also need public support. Neither parks nor protected Indian landscapes, however, are secured. Consequently, we came to Durban to talk about social issues. The protected-area crisis in South America has less to do with science being relegated to a footnote at a conservation forum than it does with a legitimacy crisis affecting all our conservation endeavors ( Wilshusen et al. 2001). Terborgh’s views about conservation and society (especially Terborgh 1999) threaten to intensify that crisis. Arguing, as Terborgh (2004) does, that poverty alleviation, social injustice, and community management of protected areas are at best tangential to biodiversity conservation will not help conservation practitioners gain legitimacy and will make conservation impractical, at least in the part of the world where I work. Even Terborgh admits that “Much of that work must necessarily be in the political realm, for that is where the important decisions are made.” But, to what kind of decision-making scenarios does Terborgh refer? Equity is the core of the entire issue. I hope that at the 2014 World Parks Congress there will still be room to talk about biodiversity, that the social agendas will not be overwhelmed with issues such as poverty