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June 2007 |
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Community Consultations More Effective than Penalties to Enforce Environmental Legislation An important lesson has emerged from the Crocodile Rehabilitation, Observance, and Conservation (CROC) project: community consultations and public awareness campaigns can be more effective tools than penalties and patrols to enforce environmental legislation, say Jan van der Ploeg and Merlijn van Weerd, team leaders. The CROC project aims at changing opinions about crocodiles and bringing the species back from the brink of extinction. As part of the Mabuwaya Foundation in the Philippines’ conservation program, CROC is supported by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, of which the GEF is a partner and the World Bank is the Implementing Agency. Although crocodiles are protected by law in the Philippines, indiscriminate hunting, destructive fishing practices (fishing with dynamite, electricity, or chemicals), and the conversion and pollution of wetlands continue to threaten the animals. Most people, including local government officials and village leaders, simply do not know that crocodiles are officially protected by law. And if they know, they often consider the penalty outrageous and unfair, since most people in the Philippine uplands earn less than $2 a day, whereas killing a crocodile carries a penalty of 100,000 pesos ($2,000). As a result, using dynamite for fishing, killing a crocodile, or clearing crocodile habitat is often tolerated at the local level. At the national level, lack of funds, technical capabilities and political support undermines the enforcing of environmental laws in remote areas. As a consequence, habitats and species continue to be threatened, despite the presence of national laws and policy frameworks designed to protect the country’s endemic biodiversity. With financial support from the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, Mabuwaya has conducted a public awareness campaign in the coastal municipalities of the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park. Lectures were held and posters were distributed in areas where crocodiles still live. Through community consultations to discuss the best possible ways to protect crocodiles, Mabuwaya learned that local communities are supportive of crocodile conservation and people are proud of contributing to the conservation of a threatened species. Mabuwaya also organized a training workshop for village leaders, where local people designed specific action plans to protect crocodiles and wetlands. In the Philippine uplands, there is a strong social basis to act against environmentally destructive practices as communities see their resource base threatened. During the workshop local regulations were drafted to protect the resources on which communities depend. The village of Diana, for example, made an ordinance prohibiting destructive fishing methods, and the village of Didadungan created a crocodile sanctuary. Local people consider these local rules important, legitimate, and fair, and consequently respect them, demonstrating that in the Philippine uplands the word is sometimes mightier than the sword. As a result, the wetlands are effectively protected and crocodiles have become a symbol for local environmental stewardship. This lesson applies to many environmental conservation projects around the globe. A recent review Global Gains through Community-Based Approaches World Bank Sub-Saharan Africa by the World Bank GEF program shows how World Bank–GEF projects in Africa have achieved global benefits while undertaking community-based investments, thus delivering impact at both the global and local levels. To learn more about the African stories click here: Global Gains through Community-Based Approaches: World Bank–GEF Operations in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2006 Photo credit: Christophe Loviny, CORBIS
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