The Future of Sustainability: Have Your Say!

Week Two - “Human Wellbeing and Sustainability”
Comment / Comentario / Commentaire

Bhubaneswor Dhakal, Nepal

Moderating team: Bhubaneswor Dhakal criticizes IUCN and other conservation and development agencies for aggravating poverty. He argues that their strategic interventions have spoiled rural economies and livelihoods by wasting resources. He supports his ideas with an example on Nepal.

Bhubaneswor Dhakal critica a la UICN y a otras organizaciones y agencies de conservación y desarrollo por agravar la pobreza. Argumenta que sus intervenciones estratégicas han minado las economías rurales y los medios sostenibles de vida de las poblaciones pobres. Apoya su idea con un ejemplo en Nepal.

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Poverty alleviation by conservation: 'Naked Emperor's New Clothes'

In my understanding absolute poverty is the most challenging which is a material scarcity. The poverty is associated with poor people's limited access (insufficient to make sustainable living) to environment resources. This problem cannot be alleviated by increasing effort on physical environment conservation except the problem created by resources degradation. Rather conservation demands, inputs and institutions in developing countries induced by external agencies like IUCN and UNEA have further escalated the poverty. Resource scarcity has promoted inequity and social injustice. The 'Naked Emperor's New Clothes' metaphor appropriately explains the current practice of poverty alleviation by conservation. I like to explain it taking example of Nepal.

Some of you may have known that geophysical and institutional factors have limited rural Nepalese people's access to resources for making good livings. Unfortunately some conservation agencies (eg World Bank, Asian Bank, FAO, UNDP, UNEP, IUCN, WWF and ODAs) intervened at policy and community levels and diverted the resources excessively in environment conservation by policy advocacy, media influence, technical advices, and financial supports. Powerless people could not counteract the strategic attack of the powerful agencies. Now the natural resources are being wastage (local prospective) in one side and people are facing severe resource scarcities to survive. The conservation activities have increased injustices, and starvation to death particularly in isolated in high altitude areas. The parallel increasing in social problems is one of its indicators. Some of you know that these vested agencies (interested to benefit affluent societies) are still making these strategic interventions taking advantages of bad governance and weak civil societies. Now the interventions have been acting as "SLOW POISION" and spoiling rural economies and livelihoods. Some of you including IUCN management may not agree it because your family have not suffered rather might be better off from the conservation activities. Experts knowledgeable about socioeconomic context of mountains, resource dynamics and reactionary institutional change could explain the vicious circle better.

With these understanding, I believe poverty in societies like rural Nepal cannot be alleviated without reallocating and balancing the natural resources use for conservation and socioeconomic development. There are some traditional practices (not possible to explain here) which are also supportive to balance conservation and social well-being but these are ignored by the one side physical progress motive conservation agencies. In my assessment the conservation working strategies (declared and undeclared) of IUCN are very bad which escalate poverty, inequality and injustice. In my assessment, now IUCN is working against the powerless people (poor households, women and indigenous groups). If the agency is honestly committed to help powerless people its policies including working strategies need to be openly reviewed and changed first.