TY - JOUR AU1 - Barrett, Christopher B. AU2 - Brandon, Katrina AU3 - Gibson, Clark AU4 - Gjertsen, Heidi AB - Roundtable Conserving Tropical Biodiversity amid Weak Institutions CHRISTOPHER B. BARRETT, KATRINA BRANDON, CLARK GIBSON, AND HEIDI GJERTSEN ropical-biodiversity conservation has changed them will therefore require greater commitments of financial Tradically over the past generation. Until the early 1980s, and technical assistance at both the international and na- conventional wisdom held that central governments should tional levels. manage all conservation efforts in developing countries. Over the past 15 years or so, scholars, conservation practitioners, The appeal of community-based natural and policymakers have advocated an alternative approach resource management based on bottom-up direction by local communities in re- Conventional wisdom holds that the fences-and-fines sponse to real or perceived government malfeasance, mis- approach to protected-area management, which vests au- feasance, or nonfeasance under the previous top-down model. thority over natural resources in the hands of the central Now that some of the pitfalls of community authority over government, has not worked in low-income countries. Un- conservation decisions have become apparent, the question der this approach, the empowered government writes and en- is what, if any, best-bet strategies exist if the institutions of both forces laws prohibiting or severely limiting human use of a re- government agencies and communities are ill equipped TI - Conserving Tropical Biodiversity amid Weak Institutions JF - BioScience DO - 10.1641/0006-3568(2001)051[0497:CTBAWI]2.0.CO;2 DA - 2001-06-01 UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/conserving-tropical-biodiversity-amid-weak-institutions-J0TcdvdHde SP - 497 EP - 502 VL - 51 IS - 6 DP - DeepDyve ER -