What is the goal of wildlife conservation
A wide range of reports such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity have attempted to synthesize knowledge of the links between nature and human well-being, while international policy initiatives such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development Rio + 20, the Millennium Development Goals and their successors have emphasized how sustaining natural ecosystems is linked to benefits for human well-being. This attention to the human dimensions of conservation has increased significantly since the turn of the new millennium. As early as 1975, the IUCN General Assembly adopted a Recommendation that indigenous peoples’ rights should be taken into account in national parks and other protected areas and this was reaffirmed at the 1982 World Parks Congress and at subsequent IUCN meetings. The 1980s also witnessed an increased focus on human rights within the conservation movement, particularly on indigenous rights and community displacement from protected areas. These have taken the form of integrated conservation and development projects, community-based natural resource management, community conservation and so on. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, conservation and development organizations promoted and implemented a large number of initiatives aimed at enhancing the benefits of nature conservation for populations at both local and wider scales. The World Conservation Strategy, published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 1980 was the first key international policy program to strengthen the links between nature conservation and human development. Results of the study are intended to help conservation and development practitioners and the academic community to improve research studies and conservation practices in developing countries in order to achieve both conservation and human well-being outcomes. Key trends among the resulting studies will be synthesized and the range of studies organized and presented in a graphical matrix illustrating the relationships between types of interventions and types of outcomes.
In addition, a theory of change approach will be used to identify and characterize the causal linkages between conservation and human well-being, with attention on those studies that examine the role of ecosystem services. The primary objective of this study is to synthesize the state and distribution of the existing evidence base linking conservation and human well-being. This protocol describes the methodology for examining the research question: What are the impacts of nature conservation interventions on different domains of human well-being in developing countries? Using systematic mapping, this study will scope and identify studies that measure the impacts of nature conservation interventions on human well-being at local to regional scales. While many indices have been developed to measure various human well-being domains, the strength of evidence to support the effects, both positive and negative, of conservation interventions on human well-being, is still unclear. Furthermore, international conservation organizations have broadened their objectives beyond nature-based goals to recognize the contribution of conservation interventions in sustaining ecosystem services upon which human populations are dependent. International policy has sought to emphasize and strengthen the link between the conservation of natural ecosystems and human development.