Book synopsis:
Getting Biodiversity Projects to Work: Towards More Effective Conservation and Development

The sixteen included articles by various authors recount the short history of integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) and illuminate many of the problems that have beset them. In a concluding chapter, the editors (with three others) remark that "many ICDPs were based on naive assumptions" and that "too much was being expected in too short a time with inadequate tools". Summarizing their conclusions as to "what went wrong":

1. Weak assumptions, such as that significant benefits could be generated from protected areas (PAs) to provide alternate livelihoods for local people that would reduce pressure on the PA.
2. "[The] extent of genuine local participation in ICDPs has varied considerably", as many projects have a simplistic notion of "local community" rather than understanding the "more complex grou of stakeholders with interests in Pas and their surrounding lands". Defining the question of who gets to participate and how and basing those decisions on more and better information would help.
3. Targeting the wrong threats: The small-scale hunting and farming activities of local people, which many ICDPs focus on, are often a lesser threat to protected areas than activities such as "mining, road building, dam construction, irrigation schemes, resettlement programs, plantations, logging, and [commercial] hunting". Because these latter activities tend to be backed by rich, powerful, and often poltically connected interests, they are often beyond the sphere of small-scale ICDPs. It is urged therefore that conservation practitioners become more informed and active in regional development and land use planning, "where many of the decisions potentially harmful to Pas are made".
4. Financial sustainability of projects is often desired but hard to achieve, although environmental trust funds work well as an alternative. The authors recommend that: projects with little prospect of financial sustainability not be undertaken or be scaled down; "every effort" be made for PAs supported by ICDPs to generate sustainable economic benefits without compromising conservation objectives, though the potential may be limited; and richer countries cover more of the cost of conservation in developing countries than they have been doing.
5. Benefits arising from ICDPs do not usually provide an adequate disincentive for activities that threaten the PA, such as hunting, logging and agricultural expansion. Particularly unsuccessful were "prepackaged solutions" for economic development, which focussed on production rather than financial viability and marketing.
6. A "culture of success" exists among NGOs such that project objectives are pleasing to donors but unachievable and failures and even partial successes are not reported to funding sources. This can happen because accountability is limited and it can take years for disappointing results to "filter back to the organizations responsible". This twarts learning from one's experience and those of others. All of these problems do not negate the rationale for ICDPs: