A community member makes a handmade litter bin for the forest
Building Communities for Conservation in Myanmar
I have been working with the Smithsonian Institution on issues of biodiversity conservation in Myanmar since 1999. While SI worked to build the capacity for biodiversity conservation in many ways (see this report to learn more), my contribution was to help build the capacity of government staff and non-governmental organizations to work with local communities to protect Myanmar’s biodiversity.
In 1999, Dr. Chris Wemmer, the director of what is currently called the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI), invited me to visit Chatthin Wildlife Sanctuary to work with staff to understand local people’s attitudes toward the sanctuary. This initial project evolved into a community forestry program that was not only protecting, but also restoring, forests in and around the sanctuary, before the current conflict in Myanmar, which has hit the area very hard. Our government staff partners at the time included the warden of the sanctuary, Myint Aung, who later formed the NGO Friends of Wildlife. Friends of Wildlife is now CC’s partner in Myanmar.
A capacity-building training session
The Power of Diverse Values
A basic premise of our work is that people, even within a small village, hold a diversity of values toward the environment and protected areas. If we recognize this diversity, we can help communities to organize around those values to conserve biodiversity.
This premise is borne out by research I and my colleagues have conducted in different national parks and wildlife reserves in Myanmar, as well as in Nepal and China. We consistently find that most people living near protected areas value them in multiple ways:
- For the conservation of wildlife and forests
- For the essential ecosystem services like clean air and water
- For their aesthetic and recreational benefits
And this isn’t an isolated experience; we find the same rich tapestry of values in communities around the world.
Placing the handmade litter bins in the forest
Avoiding “Crowding Out”
Often, conservationists try to build support for conservation by focusing on economic benefits as the most relevant value for local people. However, if that’s your primary focus, you’ll naturally attract people whose main motivation is economic. Those who prioritize intrinsic values like conservation, ecosystem services, or simply the beauty of nature might step back.
Focusing too heavily on economic values can also unintentionally diminish other important motivations. This phenomenon, known as “crowding out,” occurs when external, monetary incentives overshadow or replace people’s genuine, internal motivations for conservation.
A few years ago, we conducted training for staff from fourteen protected areas. Our main goal was to help them build positive and constructive relationships with local communities. They, however, were eager to learn proposal writing, seeing it as a direct path to funding for their protected areas. I admit, I was hesitant at first, thinking at the time, shouldn’t we be focusing on direct management?
But it turned out that proposal writing was a surprisingly constructive way for them to analyze threats to their protected areas and brainstorm how to work with communities to mitigate those threats. We had each team write a proposal, and we even funded three of them with $1,000 each.
Training participants
Local Ideas in Action
One proposal was a collaboration between park staff, a local nursery owner, and communities near Pidaung Wildlife Sanctuary. The nursery owner shared his expertise in cultivating valuable tree species. The park staff then supported communities in building their own nurseries, which sold saplings to local residents. These saplings were then used to restore their swidden agricultural areas, both inside and outside the park boundaries.
Another project was at Keiktiyo Wildlife Sanctuary. This site is more renowned as a religious pilgrimage destination than a traditional protected area, with thousands visiting its iconic balancing rock each year. The warden, inspired by the training, proposed working with the local businesses lining the road to the rock. Their mission: collect and properly discard tourist garbage. This project was a revelation for the warden, who confessed he had never truly interacted with local people before. It opened his eyes to the power of community engagement.
Though small in scale, these projects underscore crucial lessons about raising awareness around potential community involvement in conservation, the incorporation of local ideas into conservation goals, and how to offer expertise only when it’s genuinely needed.
Both of these projects show that by working from the ground up on ideas that come from the people who know the place and situation, we can create lasting projects that people will support. We can collaborate with communities to act on the values they already hold and deepen their knowledge about their natural surroundings. We can build their capacity to manage their resources through local institutions and processes, and we can share our scientific understanding of biodiversity and ecosystems to broaden their appreciation.
Community members placing awareness-raising signboards around the lake
At a Larger Scale
We have taken the same approach with other larger and more complex projects, such as creating buffer zones around Chatthin Wildlife Sanctuary and mitigating elephant conflicts around Shwe-U-Daung Wildlife Sanctuary. In both places, we have worked directly with sanctuary staff and communities to help communities coordinate mitigation techniques and share their knowledge with each other. Another project Friends of Wildlife has tackled is protecting the fisheries in Indawgyi Lake through bringing communities together to collaborate on protecting the fish breeding areas.
More recently, Community Conservation has been supporting Friends of Wildlife and its current director, Khine Khine Swe, to conduct “Biodiversity Heroes” training. You can read more about that here.
For a period of time, there was a true window of opportunity for community conservation in Myanmar. Now, it’s unclear what the future holds following the military coup in 2021, which has plunged the country into a complex and brutal civil conflict. It’s incredibly difficult for Friends of Wildlife to support communities due to the challenges of accessing the field. Nevertheless, they persist, working tirelessly under very trying circumstances. One new initiative we’re supporting involves helping Naga communities in the northwest protect vital wetlands. Read more about the wetlands here.
The sign reads “Don’t extract the wood and bamboo.”
The Enduring Spirit of Local Conservation
No matter what the future holds for Myanmar, one truth remains: there will always be communities, natural environments, and biodiversity that they want to protect. We must continue to support communities in conserving biodiversity from the ground up. Our approach to conservation should always recognize and build upon the existing conservation values that communities already hold.
Nepal offers a powerful lesson in how community conservation can make a national impact, even during a country’s most challenging times. In Nepal, local community forestry groups do far more than simply protect trees. Beyond managing a third of the nation’s forests and involving over half of all households, these groups have also been crucial in supporting their communities through civil conflicts and devastating earthquakes. Read more about their remarkable experiences here.
We must advocate for projects and policies that empower the citizens of Myanmar to value and manage their own resources, rather than supporting large, top-down initiatives. By recognizing local values and nurturing local capacity for conservation, we can foster strong, resilient constituencies right on the front lines of conservation.
Teri D. Allendorf, PhD, is the Executive Director of Community Conservation and a conservation biologist affiliated with the Dept of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in the US. She has worked on issues of communities and biodiversity conservation in Nepal and globally for three decades.