Pro-poor conservation: The elusive win-win for conservation and poverty reduction?

Biodiversity plays a major role in the livelihoods of a high proportion of the world’s population. And yet, development agencies have often undervalued the potential role that biodiversity conservation can play in poverty reduction,
while conservation organisations have generally viewed poverty concerns as outside their core business. The UK Department for International Development (DFID) recently conducted an examination of the linkages between wildlife and poverty and
reviewed the scope for reducing poverty through wildlife-based interventions. Four themes are addressed: community based wildlife management, pro-poor wildlife tourism, ustainable ‘bushmeat’1 management and pro-poor conservation. This paper summarises the key fi ndings of that study and then explores in depth one of the ways forward identified by the study - “pro-poor conservation” - and the issues and challenges it
raises.