markdowie

conversations / Mark Dowie
Conservation Refugees -- @http://tinyurl.com/conservationrefugees -- is the latest book by Mark Dowie, an investigative journalist specializing in environmental issues. This book reviews episodes around the world in which conflicts have been created that pit conservationists against indigenous peoples. Mark has agreed to participate in this online Q&A.

Starting off ...

Mark, thank you for joining us in this slow conversation. You've written some of my favorite books that describe the current state of the environment and the challenges facing the global conservation movement. One of the treads that connect Losing Ground, American Foundations and Conservation Refugees is that there is a severe disconnect between those working at the grassroots and those in charge of finance. Has the situation changed at all in the past decade? It seems like nothing has been learned.

MD: The funders of transnational conservation still appear to favor five very large, global organizations headquartered in Washington (aka. The BINGOs ..... Big International NGOs). I attribute this largely to an institutional laziness inside foundations and other funding agencies that encourages grant makers to make one large multi-million dollar grant to a BINGO rather than ten smaller grants to as many grassroots, local groups. It's a matter of convenience, it being much easier to monitor one big grant than ten small ones. But it is not efficient from the standpoint of conservation, and has resulted in the creation of five, institutionally bloated organizations pretty much controlling the global conservation agenda, and not very effectively, when the measurements of biological diversity and species survive al are taken into account.

RM: I'd love to see a public rating of organization x's active engagement of the local population, timely communication, participation in local events and overall success rate, though I'd give higher marks to public consultation than immediate success because it's more important to win people over to your side than to figure out how to succeed (or hide a failure).

Are there any systems by which the organizations themselves are evaluated? Brainstorming, what are the criteria you'd suggest by which NGO efforts could be measured or ranked?

MD: Not a bad idea. There is, as you may know, several organizations that rate eco-tourism outfitters, guides and lodges along some of those very lines. But rating services works better when actual consumers are involved, people who want to know that they are paying to travel with an organization or to a lodge that really takes all of those factors into account. Large international, donor-dependent NGO's with their massive PR offices and media reach would, I believe, be able to override whatever negative ratings they received.

But I'm sure if someone wanted to try a rating service, one or more foundations would fund it.

RM: In the chapter on Bingo, you write: "Even well-paid researchers and their assistants hate to see their work buried to protect the powerful. Therefore copies were leaked and I was a fortunate recipient." (p. 59)

These reports are nowhere online as can only be referenced as 'unpublished manuscript' in a footnote. Here's my nagging question: to what degree does 'leaking' reports contribute to the failure of working effectively?

MD: It doesn't.

RM: It seems to me that this policy does nothing to encourage transparency and openness from foundations and the powers that be.