managed to achieve biological sustainabili-
ty, and the possibility that use can provide
incentives to conserve biodiversity. After
much debate, IUCN launched the
Sustainable Use Initiative in 1995, imple-
mented through a series of regional
groups.^48 IUCN members adopted a policy
on the sustainable use of wild living
resources at the 2nd World Conservation
Congress in Amman, Jordan, in 2000. This
recognised that, if sustainable, the use of
wild living resources was an important
conservation tool. Such an approach would
allow conservationists to try to align their
efforts with the economic, social and cul-
tural pressures that drive human consump-
tion, working with people to use and
derive benefits from species and ecosys-
tems while sustaining biodiversity.^49The community approach to conservation
is part of what David Hulme and Marshall
Murphree describe as “the new conserva-
tion”^50 , reflecting the new development
orthodoxy of the 1980s about the market
as a driver of economic betterment, the
need to slim down bloated state bureau-
cracies, and the place of ‘communities’ in
development. Such
thinking offered a sig-
nificant challenge to
much existing top-
down conservation pol-
icy, and particularly to
the arbitrary establish-
ment of protected
areas, the eviction of
weak and politically
marginal rural peo-
ple.^51Such shifts in dominant
policy narratives are
not unusual.^52 Policy
narratives become cul-
turally, institutionally
and politically embed-
ded in the thinking ofpolicy actors at all scales from politicians,
through aid and government bureaucrats,
scientists and technical consultants
through to communities, for all of whom
they come to frame understandings of
problems and possible solutions. Such nar-
ratives can only be overturned by plausible
counter-narratives, as tightly focused and
well-argued as those they replace.It has been suggested that the late 1990s
saw a new counter-narrative, with argu-
ments against the community approach,
amounting to a “back to parks” movement,
led by those committed to the survival of
species above all other goals.^53 There is
evidence that the “protectionist paradigm”
is simply being reinvented.^54 Many conser-
vationists are sceptical that human use of
living resources will ever be sustainable.^55
Arguably, only a preservationist strategy
offers any chance for species biodiversity
in the twenty-first century. Rather than
pursuing a community-based approach,
conservation needs a U-turn, back to
parks, for nature’s “last stand”.^56Those who argue that conservation must
focus on strict protection are making argu-
ments very similar to those made by their
colonial predecessors early in the twentieth
century. However, those who advocate a
community-based approach, and who point
to the implications of strict protection
strategies on the livelihoods of the poor
also have precursors in the early colonial
days of conservation. The merits of these
different strategies need to be argued on
their own terms, and no single solution is
likely to be applicable in all circumstances
and acceptable to all stakeholders.
Beneath contemporary ideas in conserva-
tion lie complex streams of thought about
the right relations between people and
nature. Understanding the evolution of
those ideas in the past may help us under-
stand their power, and their utility, in the
future.History, cculture aand cconservation
“Policy nnarratives
become cculturally,
institutionally, aand
politically, eembedded
in tthe tthinking oof ppoli-
cy aactors aat aall
scales—from ppoliti-
cians, tthrough aaid aand
government bbureau-
crats, sscientists aand
technical cconsultants
through tto ccommuni-
ties— ffor aall oof wwhom
they ccome tto fframe
understandings oof
problems aand ppossible
solutions.