Bangor University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Exploring real and hypothetical impacts of community-based conservation interventions Lewis, Amy R. Award date: 2019 Awarding institution: Bangor University Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? 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Sep. 2021 Bangor University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Exploring real and hypothetical impacts of community-based conservation interventions Lewis, Amy Award date: 2019 Awarding institution: Bangor University Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 19. Feb. 2019 Exploring real and hypothetical impacts of community-based conservation interventions By Amy Rose Lewis Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2019 i v Title Exploring real and hypothetical impacts of community-based conservation interventions Principal supervisor Professor Julia P.G. Jones School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography, Bangor University. Co-supervisors Doctor James M. Gibbons School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography, Bangor University. Doctor Richard P. Young Department of Conservation Knowledge, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Saint Helier, Jersey. Assessment Committee Professor Andrew Pullin (chair) School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography, Bangor University. Doctor Aidan Keane (external examiner)School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh. Professor Nils Bunnefeld (external Examiner) Biological and environmental sciences, University of Stirling Financed by This research was funded by the Leverhulme Trust, grant code: RPG-2014-056 (www.leverhulme.ac.uk). The funders had no role in study design, data collection or analysis. Date of registration 01 January 2015 Date of first submission 27 September 2018 Date of final submission 13 February 2019 vi vii Executive Summary Community-based conservation projects have been promoted as a way of achieving both conservation and development goals. There is a growing literature surrounding the challenges of implementing such projects and achieving the outcomes sought, however questions remain including: To what extent do donors value community aspects of conservation projects? Does community conservation effectively build the capacity of participating communities? To what extent might interventions such as Payments for Ecosystem Services and promoting communication improve the ecological outcomes of such projects? In this thesis I attempt to answer these questions focusing on the case of community conservation conducted by Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust in Madagascar. I use a combination of methods which rely on hypothetical scenarios (choice experiments and experimental games), and an evaluation of self- reported impacts measured using a Before-After-Control-Impact design. Firstly, I conducted a discrete choice experiment with visitors to Durrell’s Jersey Zoo to explore the impact of highlighting community involvement in a conservation project (rather than species or habitat aspects) on likely donations. Respondents showed the highest willingness to pay for projects that have local community involvement in management. By simultaneously conducting a revealed preference study through an experimental campaign asking for real donations, I attempted to validate the choice experiment findings. With the level of donation we requested, most respondents made a donation so I was not able to demonstrate an effect of campaign type on real donations. Secondly, I conducted a household survey in Northern-central Madagascar across nine communities around a lake where a community conservation project was planned, and eight around an otherwise similar lake with no planned conservation project. I used this to develop indicators of community capacity and found that the levels and changes in indicators differed, showing a requirement for capacity to be considered in multidimensional space. In the following Chapter I used these measures of community capacity to evaluate the impact of capacity building activities carried out over the first two years of a community-based conservation project aimed at preparing the first lake for the reintroduction of the world’s rarest duck. For this evaluation I used a before-after-control-impact approach allowing a robust estimation of impact. I found no evidence of impact in composite scores of capitals, though I found evidence of the impact of the intervention on some indicators of social capital. My analysis also revealed some evidence of elite capture of training and resources. Finally, I used an experimental game played with community members in both conservation and non- conservation sites to explore the hypothetical impact of potential interventions to improve viii ecosystem service provision by reducing pesticide use amongst farmers. I found that incentives in the form of subsidies increased co-operative behaviour and decreased the rate of non- cooperative behaviour. Enhancing communication did not increase the provision of ecosystem services across the game landscape, however it did increase cooperative behaviours between players. I argue that experimental games such as this have value beyond research and could be used as a tool for communities and conservation projects to explore the potential pros and cons of various interventions collaboratively. Together these chapters provide helpful evidence to improve the marketing, evaluation and future design of community-based conservation projects, in Madagascar and elsewhere, which will ultimately contribute to maximising benefits for both people and wildlife. ix Acknowledgements My thanks go to my supervisors; Julia P.G. Jones and James M. Gibbons at Bangor University and Richard P. Young at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. Over the last three and a half years or so, they have provided amazing, sustained and constructive advice and guidance which helped to shape both my research and my writing. I also am grateful to the financial support provided by the Leverhulme Trust both for my scholarship and field work costs. Our collaboration with Professor Hery-Lisy at Mahajunga University was incredibly useful, and I hope that this paves the way for future collaborations between Bangor, Durrell and Mahajunga. The main case-study within this thesis was a Darwin initiative project in collaboration between multiple organisations; Durrell (Madagascar), Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Asity Madagascar, The Peregrine Fund, Le Ministère de L'Environnement et des Forêts (Government of Madagascar). My thanks go to all of the project partners that supported my work and provided helpful advice. I hope that they find the outcomes of the research useful. This thesis would of course not been possible if not for the hundreds of people, both in the UK and Madagascar, that we have interviewed over the last few years (sometimes twice!) the time and energy they took to answer our surveys were invaluable. I am immensely grateful for the insights they have provided in further understanding the dimensions of community-based conservation projects. In Madagascar, we were given the best welcomes- Misaotra! My thanks go to all of the people that let us camp on their land over the three years of field work, and those that gave the team and food, shelter and water. Original translations of the Malagasy household survey were conducted by Rio Ridhish Heriniaina. The survey was also guided by discussions with Hanitra Rakotojaona, Herizo Andrianandrasana and Felix Razafindrajao. The Durrell team in Madagascar really went above and beyond, from helping with physically getting to the site, to checking in on me and the team when we were camping out in the hills. To name some of that incredible team: Richard Lewis, Aina Ramamonjisoa, Lance Woolaver, Herizo Andrianandrasana, Bary Jean Rasolonjatovo, Floriot Randrianarimangason, Hanitra Rakotojaona as well as many others. Particular thanks to Felix Razafindrajao who I am so grateful for everything while I was in the field. In Jersey the field experiment could not have gone ahead without the