Community-Based Approaches for Endangered Species Management in the South Pacific: Takitumu Conservation Area, Cook Islands

Abstract

The potential for local communities to achieve just and ecologically effective conservation is often contested. Proponents of community-based conservation (CBC) frame community institutions as the ideal management unit for achieving socially and ecologically effective outcomes. Conversely, political ecology inspired critiques of common property theory, and concepts of multi-scale complexity and discourse, highlight the role of power differentials and wider-scale processes in influencing the perception, use and control of natural resources. Political ecologists indicate that community heterogeneity hinders equitable decision-making and power-sharing, and they emphasise the necessity for going beyond single-scale explanations of resource change, to fully consider the regional, national and global dimensions of human-environment interactions. In this thesis I investigate the efficacy of CBC paradigms in reconciling socio-cultural and ecological concerns in endangered species management. By reviewing pertinent literature and analysing local discourses regarding the Takitumu Conservation Area (TCA) in the Cook Islands, I explore the competing notions presented by proponents of CBC and by political ecologists. While I provide evidence for both community heterogeneity and wider-scale influences, the effect of these on the potential for local communities to achieve improved justice and environmental outcomes may not be as dire as political ecologists predict. Highlighting the role of customary systems of resource tenure on endangered species management in the Pacific context, I argue that the inherent socioecological complexities relating to environmental management mean that the ability for CBC initiatives to reconcile ecological and societal objectives cannot be assumed without further elucidation of the socio-political landscape in which the initiative is embedded. Instead of perceiving biodiversity conservation as solely the mandate of national governments or of community institutions, I indicate that it is important to examine the scale at which ecological processes intersect with the dynamics of governance practices. Acknowledging this reality further strengthens claims that value judgments should not be made in advance about the implications of community and multi-scale complexities for CBC, and highlights the need to consider characteristics unique to place, which may counter the impacts of socio-ecological complexity.