Co-management in conservation management: mere tokenism or an effective management technique for local community involvement in conservation management

Abstract

With two pieces of legislation, the Marine Reserves Bill 2002 and the Foreshore and Seabed Bill 2004, currently making their way through Parliament, the issue of conservation management is of immediate relevance, This debate in New Zealand mirrors an international discourse on the conservation crisis and the best way to address the issues of biodiversity loss and conservation management. As of yet, however, there has been no detailed examination of the effectiveness of current co-management projects in New Zealand, nor of the scope for expansion of co-management opportunities in New Zealand's environmental legislation. The New Zealand context is unique in that actively promoting comanagement with iwi is a requirement of the Crown in order to satisfy its obligations under the. principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. Furthermore, comanagement does solve many of the problems facing conservation managers in New Zealand, and offers an effective alternative to traditional exclusionary management. Co-management arrangements should therefore be entered into with local communities, regardless of ethnic background in order to achieve conservation goals, rather than simply as a form of race relations settlement mechanism.