International Conservation Organizations and the Fate of Local Tropical Forest Conservation Initiatives

Several international conservation organizations (ICOs) created in the developed world to promote conservation in the tropics are now extremely outspoken and powerful, due in large measure to their access to capital. We acknowledge that ICOs have been critical stakeholders in shaping international environmental policies. We also recognize that there have been successful collaborations between ICOs, governments of less-developed countries, and local and regional nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Our principal concern is that, given the asymmetric relationships that characterize most of the partnerships between ICOs and local institutions in less-developed countries, particularly in relation to their differential access to funds, there is a danger of treating societal assets in less-developed countries, more specifically tropical forests, as private assets, and therefore distorting the values of these resources. Furthermore, we believe that the preservationist agenda pushed by some ICOs and the associated processes through which decisions on tropical forests are made will abort local social processes that could contribute to conservation. We make a plea to ICOs to assist less-developed countries in the process of building policies affecting tropical forests that consider the full range of options for forest conservation rather