ABSTRACT
Integrating conservation and development at the project scale is a major challenge. Proving success is clearly harder. After decades of growth in funding of ICDPs the jury remains out as to what contributes to, or constitutes, success or failure. Occasionally papers are published that provide insights into the field realities of conservation, accompanied by the odd mea culpa (see Brooks et al., 2011), yet, as we point out in the introductory chapter, the lack of rigorous reporting of both successes and failures by most conservation NGOs and their partners is stopping us from learning. It has been argued that expectations are just too high (Ferraro and Hanauer, 2011). Is it really feasible that a single project working in a complex socio-political environment can contribute to improving rural livelihoods in a sustainable manner while also achieving long-term conservation goals? ICDPs are almost always attempting to achieve these dual goals in environments that are heavily influenced by external threats. In this final chapter we attempt to bring together the evidence for the projects covered in this book and suggest some elements for more integrated and effective conservation and development interventions in the future.
