The Development of Community-based Conservation in Taiwan--A Review of Three Recent Cases

Classical Paradigms of natural resource management and/or conservation have been characterized by the use of scientific knowledge under the strong influence of the national government. In the last three decades, an alternative paradigm has emerged that embraces a community-based approach. Characterized by small scale projects, this paradigm’s theoretical foundation is rooted in community participation, local knowledge, and common-pool resource management, with communities/tribes as the main management bodies. This study describes and reviews the debates of community –based conservation in recent decades. It also analyzes three case studies in Taiwan, namely the Wu-wei-kang Wildlife Refuge, the Hu-ben ecological village project and the Danayiku natural ecological park. On the whole, this study aims at contributing to the building up theoretical framework for community-based conservation in Taiwan. The result shows that grassroots-level organizations can play a key role in conservation. It also reveals several factors that influence the outcome of community-based conservation projects: conservation ideas and strategies, management objectives and approaches, ecological environment, support and empowerment by the government, the demand of local communities, institutional arrangement and operation of grassroots-level organizations themselves, economic incentives and institutionalization. Due to the heterogeneous components in any community and the difficulties for the sustainable management of NGOs, there are some uncertainties for participatory natural resource management in community-based conservation. Finally, this study suggests that as no general model can fit all cases, the adoption of a community-based approach needs to focus on the community’s own condition and context.