Review: There is an argument which suggests that poverty causes environmental degradation. Global biodiversity hotspots are often found alongside large human populations with the linkage being that if we want to conserve we should make sure that the population is controlled in some way. More realistically, poverty is often a lack of options and so degradation (which is rarely seen in absolute poverty) is the result of trying to get out of the problems. More recently, there have been calls for conservation to tackle this as just one more part of the conservation plan. This would seem to create more problems than it solves. Thus we are left with the idea that conservation should have poverty reduction as a goal and yet, as we see here, there is no easy solution (nor is there a universal one).

The book starts with the notion of poverty and how/why people are compelled to turn to wild resources to sustain life. Running parallel to this is the idea of conservation helping to protect vulnerable areas. When these two intersect there is often a series of problems raised for depletion of wild species is contrary to conservation aims. The target, therefore, is to find solid linkages where conservation can be put into place and where poverty can be reduced or eliminated. Chapter two looks in some detail at the way in which conservation has been achieved over the last 50 years. It starts with the 1960s where people were seen as a threat to conservation to the late 1970s where people are a resource to the current idea of community conservation. This, allied with ideas of working with people for conservation has led to a considerable shift in ideas amongst conservationists. Chapter three is the core of the book with a series of case studies showing how people and conservation have been balanced. The 5 cases from Thailand, Tanzania, Laos, Mauritania and Guatemala follow a common pattern of outlining the conservation highlighting key issues and drawing some conclusions for this text. It's a useful set because it shows the diversity of cases and responses and yet they are joined by a common theme. The argument here is that conservation is site (and now community) specific. Chapter four discuses how some of the issues raised by the previous chapter could be resolved. Chapter five focusses upon the organisational elements that need to be addressed. A final chapter shows how we can try to use conservation for both people and the natural environment.

This is a slender volume focussed on one specific area. As such it might find only a niche market but yet there's more to it than that. Those wishing to explore the more social/political/developmental side of conservation would do well to read the material here for it offers both hope and caution about the numerous pitfalls that can arise as one tries to do that which, on the surface, seems so simple.