Cases abound where there has been win-win or win-lose or even lose-lose outcomes for conservation interventions meant to improve socio- and/or economic conditions. Sadly, even win-win cases tend to reverse over time (e.g. when donor funding disappears). Does anyone know of a case where an intervention has brought about 'net positive' outcomes for social, economic, and environmental health, and which have persisted long-term (>5-10 years)?
The case of biodiversity conservation from Nepal can be considered as a triple win outcomes - ecological, economic and social outcomes. It is achieved through buffer zone approach and conservation area management approach. There are a number of published information available on this.
When I moved to South Carolina in 1983, I became involved with a gully control and land rehabilation effort on the national forest. Although some maintenance of this work was sometimes needed, most treatments functioned for decades, and essentially returned the gullied land to a proper function, growing timber, wildlife habitat, pleasant forest scenery. I have tried to include a few examples of this work in ResearchGate. One brief report about compartment 47 gully, estimated costs, benefits, etc. Several of the papers are related to conservation and restoration efforts, perhaps you may find a few examples that meet your intent, although an economic or social analysis was not part of the papers.
The establishment of (1935; prepared over preceding decades) and investment in the National Park Hoge Veluwe, Netherlands by a private foundation largely on abandoned communal land unsuitable for farming. The park functioned throughout and till today without donor funding. Instead, financial viability is largely based on paying day-visitors. In this case, remaining smallholders were bought out, not evicted without compensation as was the case in some famous and probably financially self-supporting NPs (e.g. Krüger; Estosha). My guess, several NPs elsewhere may show a similar positive balance, depending on definitions as Kenneth already suggested.
The conservation concept of the Bavarian State Forest Enterprise Ebrach, Steigerwald in Germany:
Large scale restoration efforts on ca 16,000 ha of formerly intensively managed forest shows a triple win situation as follows:
a) ecological: consequent retention of habitat trees , accumulation of deadwood (e.g. 40 m3/ha in stands older 180 years) and a dense network of (smaller) old-growth islands and (larger) strict reserves in a matrix of extensively managed forest (single and group tree selection, target diameter harvesting) --> formerly rare and threatened (only to be found in strict reserves) saproxylic species are already reacting positively and have colonized the managed forests.
b) economic: ca 100,000 m3 are harvested annually, of which 85,000 m3 are marketed (rest remains as additional deadwood on site). Timber sales are largely profitable although main species are broadleaves and not conifers which would make the economic side much easier
c) social: ca 60 small to medium-sized sawmills still exist in the region, most of them family-run businesses and specialized in broadleave products from their region. They are largely dependant on short distance timber transport. Quite a significant number of local/regional jobs are directly linked with harvesting, skidding etc for the forest enterprise.
Additionally the forests of the enterprise are an important recreational area with plenty hiking trails etc.
There is an ongoing discussion whether the forests of the enterprise should be designated a National Park. In this case the focus would be very strongly on an ecological win only and less a social or economic win.
Beach Management Units(BMUs) in fishing villages have worked in Uganda for over 5years to help with poor fish harvesting techniques.
Kenneth, I only used the word 'conservation' in my question. For that my definition is loose, but approximates the following:
“…the management of human use of the biosphere so that it may yield the greatest sustainable benefit to present generations while
maintaining its potential to meet the needs and
aspirations of future generations.”
World Conservation Strategy (1980)
Resources: not sure where this fits in here but I generally would mean wild natural resources (this is also admittedly laden with ambiguity, but hopefully you get my drift).
Population: again, this could either mean human or non-human. What is the basis for your question?
Kenneth,
the harvesing of trees is not necessarily counter to combat global warming, in my view. Independantly from the question if forests are always carbon sinks, I think the harvest of 2% of the biomass annually (i.e. 100,000 m3 of a total of ca 5,000,000 m3 growing stock and and annual growth rate of 3% or 140,000 m3) can well be considered as an acceptable compromise given the question of the other benefits (resources, income and social aspects) of harvesting trees. This type of management aims at optimizing several important aspects (or ecosystem services), not at maximizing one, and therefore it can be considered as a triple-win situation as was asked for by Brandon. And I argue that it is also conservation not just forest management because of its integrated elements of biodiversity-oriented measures.
The case of biodiversity conservation from Nepal can be considered as a triple win outcomes - ecological, economic and social outcomes. It is achieved through buffer zone approach and conservation area management approach. There are a number of published information available on this.
Hello Brandon, you can get a few examples from a paper we recently published. We cited some of such examples: Read the paper here: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Xoh44y2D1OUdz
HI Brandon,
Restoring land with biofuel species is another example of win-win soln, see here:
https://forestsnews.cifor.org/58233/biofuel-friendly-trees-may-boost-landscape-restoration-efforts-in-indonesia?fnl=en
https://forestsnews.cifor.org/57965/bioenergy-a-solution-to-three-problems?fnl=en
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