INSTITUTIONS

Developing workable approaches

Interview With Dr. Lee Talbot.

Dr. Lee Talbot is a man of many parts. Ecologist and geographer, he was environmental adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, the first staff ecologist of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (now known as the World Conservation Union), and later an IUCN Councillor and Vice-President. In 1980, he was appointed Secretary-General of the IUCN.

SANJEEV KANCHAN

Dr. Lee Talbot at the centenary celebrations.

In 1954, Talbot came to India in his capacity as the staff ecologist of the IUCN. Afterwards he wrote an article entitled "A look at threatened species", which was published in Oryx, the magazine of the Fauna Preservation Society of the United Kingdom. The article was the first to draw attention to the precarious state of the Indian rhinoceros and other endangered species of South-East Asia, a region that Talbot and his biologist wife were in charge of for IUCN projects. In Mumbai to attend and deliver the keynote address on the topic of his famed essay at the centenary celebrations of the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, Dr. Talbot spoke to Lyla Bavadam. Excerpts from the interview:

There is a tendency to promote conservation by making nature a commodity. What is your view of nature and conservation?

I believe that there is an intrinsic worth to nature that should not have to justify itself in market economy terms. People value nature and biodiversity for utilitarian, aesthetic, moral and religious reasons. These are the real reasons to conserve biodiversity. It is important to respect all of them. I think it is a mistake to focus purely on the utilitarian value.

Traditional conservationists feel that the IUCN, which you once headed, now speaks more for corporations than for nature. Do you see a drastic shift in the organisation's priorities?

Part of what the IUCN is doing is recognising that much of the power in the world that determines what happens to land use and resource use is motivated by market economics and politics. The IUCN is seeking to develop approaches that will be understandable, acceptable and convincing to these powers.

But is it a sellout, as many people believe it is?

There is an artistic compromise here. If we recognise that all species play some role in maintaining a balance, then we rely on a functioning ecosystem and therefore, from the standpoint of self-interest and respect, it is important to maintain the integrity of the environment. The IUCN does not want to be seen as totally unrealistic. All organisations are seeking links with corporations for monetary reasons and also so that they can lead them towards being more environmentally responsible. Environmentalists don't have to be opposed to all industry. It makes more sense to enlist corporations in the cause of the environment instead of fighting them.

I would rather see the IUCN use its prestige and moral authority to emphasise the other values of nature. It is possible to put too much emphasis on purely utilitarian values. By doing that, you are devaluing the intrinsic, aesthetic values of nature.

The last World Parks Congress emphasised the need for community conservation. Is it a good idea in danger of becoming a fashionable buzzword as it is poorly implemented?

Very few community projects have really worked. By that I mean, been of benefit to the local people. There was a study on the effectiveness of 84 Protected Areas in 22 tropical countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The study showed that the most important determinant of success was the density of guards. That is counter intuitive to the modern fashion of community conservation. It tells one that you need a carrot-and-stick approach. I feel you need to bring benefits to the people but in the form of direct payment or direct development. Implement a policy that says `Not development if you support the protected area but rather, development after you have shown support for the protected area.'

You have said that direct approaches like payment are more effective than indirect rewards like development. Could you elaborate?

Let us begin with the assumption that it is poverty that forces people to live off the protected area. This assumption is carried further to believe that if you raise their income they will stop living off the area. This is where the assumption is wrong. If you raise standards of living, the natural reaction of people is to want more and this, in turn, increases the threat to the protected area. This doesn't mean that people's standards of living should be kept low but it must be understood that raising standards is not the way to conserve those areas. Whereas if you have some means of measuring the conservation achievement and tie that to direct cash, then you have a solution because the people will see a benefit in preserving the area.

Any example of this?

The Masai Mara project in Kenya. It was the first community conservation project - it was started in 1959, long before the idea became a catchword. We started it along with the game department. That might sound unusual but the reason we did not make it a national park was that we thought that would not work with the Masai tribesmen. It was the best conservation option for that time and it worked very well. Sixty to 80 per cent of the money that came in went directly to the Masai people and this encouraged them to maintain the wildlife status of the Mara. Medical and educational facilities were provided to the Masai. It was a wonderful system and it worked for decades. It is only recently that more and more of the income has gone off to politicians.

It is often the case that people of an era tend to see the past as a sort of Golden Age. Could you relate that to conservation? Has concern for the environment been decreasing?

About 60 years ago, when I was getting started, there was a far smaller percentage of the population interested in the environment. It is not that they were solidly focussed on economic concerns. It was that non-economic values were not on their radar screens. Over the years a vastly greater percentage of the population has become aware of and concerned about the environment. So things are better in that sense. But now we have also people in power who make conscious decisions about what they do and how it affects the environment. And that, in a sense, is much more dangerous. And the best example of that is in the United States, where one political party has been acting in an explicitly anti-environment manner.

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