Ecologists and Forest Conservation 475conserving forests and promoting social welfare.
We then focus on how ecologists might sub-
stantially increase their impacts on the fates of
tropical forests. We make these suggestions in full
recognition of our own failures, as ecologists, to
understand conservation challenges fully or to
alter the fates of many tropical forests.
Unfortunately, there is no overarching eco-
logical theory to guide our efforts to conserve
tropical forests. Although ecological insights, the-
ory based and otherwise, are needed to address
the technical impediments to effective conser-
vation, the cumulative experience of successful
conservation practitioners suggests that conser-
vation solutions are more than ecological and
need to be negotiated locally with the assistance
of interdisciplinary teams of very patient and cul-
turally sensitive individuals (Putz 2000, Sayer and
Campbell 2004, Colfer 2005). While the authori-
tarian, simplistic, and “expertocratic” approaches
generally associated with the demarcation and
defense of protected areas against incursions by
local people can succeed over the short term (Rice
etal. 1997,Terborgh 2000, 2004), and may actu-
ally serve their ecological purpose under some
conditions (e.g., Peres 2005), long-term conser-
vation solutions will usually need to reflect and
respond to the complex local realities (Hutton
and Leader-Williams 2003, Bray 2004, Andrade
2005, Kaimowitz and Sheil 2007). Many ecolo-
gists find collaborating or even communicating
with social scientists challenging, and working
collaboratively with local people during project
design, implementation, and dissemination nearly
impossible given their personal proclivities and
time constraints (but see Sheil and Lawrence
2004). Often we fail to recognize the differences in
our worldviews from those of other tropical forest
stakeholders (Kaimowitz and Sheil 2007), a chal-
lenge made greater when local people adopt polit-
ically expedient language and concepts learned
from earlier generations of visiting environmen-
talists (e.g., Brosius 1997, Doveet al. 2003).
More fundamentally, few ecologists are willing to
make the transition from being problem describers
(e.g., the effects of logging on x, y, or z) to prob-
lem solvers (e.g., financially feasible methods for
minimizing the effects of logging on x, y, or z).
For many people living outside of the trop-
ics, part of the allure of tropical forests is
that they are far away, exotic, and inhabited by
strange and wonderful organisms but few peo-
ple (Slater 2003). Many perceive tropical forests
as aseasonal, primeval, and extremely sensitive
to human interventions. Even ecologists often
distinguish themselves astropicalecologists, sug-
gesting that they recognize distinctive attributes
of tropical ecosystems. But what is it that ren-
ders tropical ecology and conservation different
from ecology and conservation anywhere else?
Perhaps it is the phenomenal species diversity
of tropical forest ecosystems that makes them
distinctive, but many other hyper-diverse ecosys-
tems in temperate regions do not draw so much
global attention (e.g., the “fynbos” woodlands
of South Africa or the scrublands of Western
Australia). Perhaps it is the alarming rates at
which tropical ecosystems are being destroyed
(e.g., Laurance Chapter 27, this volume, Corlett
and Primack Chapter 26, this volume), but many
ecosystems in temperate and boreal regions are
suffering similar fates at similar rates (Millen-
nium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). For example,
the hyper-diverse pine savannas of the south-
eastern coastal plain in the USA were reduced
to less than 3% of their historical range dur-
ing the past century but are still being destroyed
at an alarming rate (e.g., Croker 1987). What-
ever the reasons for separating out tropical forests
for special consideration, the social, political, and
economic contexts of conservation are certainly
very different from those in developed countries.
It is the failure to consider these contexts dur-
ing project selection, design, implementation, and
publication that limits the conservation value of
many well-intended conservation-motivated eco-
logical research efforts (Robbins 2004, Sayer and
Campbell 2004).THE ECOLOGICAL FOUNDATION
FOR TROPICAL FOREST
CONSERVATION
Conservation is not solely an ecological or techni-
cal issue, especially where most local stakeholders
are poor, plagued by violence, and unsure of
their continued access to the resources they need
to survive. Nevertheless, ecologists dominate the
field of tropical forest conservation and most