livelihoods

A couple of days ago a reader, Nicholas Cantrell, posted a very interesting comment in my post “Nam Theun 2: Just about ready to start filling in.” The comment poised a number of questions, but if I can paraphrase just one of them, I think the basic premise was this: “how does the World Bank [or any of the financiers] ensure that the new lives of the resettled populations are sustainable in the long run?”  The truth is, I ask myself the same question all the time.

Much is written about the effectiveness of encouraging alternative livelihoods in conservation. One argument runs that if you can find an alternative income for someone who currently exploits a natural resource unsustainably or illegally, then the exploitation will cease and biodiversity will be conserved.  The counter argument is that the alternative is actually used as a supplementary income, making it possible for the miscreant to buy a bigger chainsaw or truck for larger scale resource exploitation. Clearly some sort of alternative is needed, but how can it be used unequivocally for conservation?

These were the problems facing one of my projects focusing on the conservation of the Lambusango forest block, at the southern end of Buton, an island to the southeast of SE Sulawesi in the middle of Indonesia. This forest is home to many of Sulawesi’s many endemic species, especially the small but belligerent wild buffalo or Anoa.