Review Article
Volume 1 Issue 3
Ange Imanishimwe*
November 28, 2022
Abstract
Most of communities depend on natural resources such as forests, land, and water for their livelihoods. Nature is the source of human health due to daily needs from ecosystem goods and services. From the relationship existing in ecological and economic systems, the aspects like improved living standards of people, livelihoods, biodiversity conservation, and human wellbeing require a multi-disciplinary collaboration between communities and stakeholders to find a good approach that integrates biodiversity conservation and human wellbeing. We are interested to know the status of community based conservation projects in the tropical region and bring the scientific contribution referring to the findings. We reviewed existing documentation on community conservation and compiled the similarities of conservation practices that involve local communities. We did a comparative study in some countries that are located in tropical region. The data show that in all mentioned countries, there is a will to integrate biodiversity conservation and community development but there is a need to improve the policies and regulations and increase the investment in community development projects. We also detected the issue of lack of conservation professionals in the decision making and this causes the reluctance in implementing community conservation projects in some countries in the tropical region. The assessment of the contribution of community conservation projects on improved livelihoods, and sustainable biodiversity conservation in and around the protected areas will help to improve community conservation. There is a need to assess the perceptions of local community towards co-management in biodiversity conservation, and ecosystem services in and around the protected areas in tropical regions.
Keywords: Natural Resources; Revenue sharing; Livelihoods; Sustainable Development; Investment