I have to confess that I'm a sucker for a good acronym as long as it's not too contrived. So I was immediately attracted to the title of this book, which uses PARTNERS to describe eight principles for working with communities in conservation. The principles are framed as Presence, Aptness, Respect, Transparency, Negotiation, Empathy, Responsiveness and Strategic Support. As the author writes, the acronym is more than a buzzword; it illustrates a conviction that local communities must be respected as equal partners in any conservation initiative.
The book begins with a chatty preface describing the process by which it came to be. This sets the tone for the following chapters, in which the author uses smoothly flowing prose to explore key issues. He combines this with examples, reflections and insights based on several decades' experience working with communities in central Asia on snow leopard conservation.
The book comprises three main sections. Part 1 introduces the principles, with each chapter starting with a useful summary. Part 2 describes specific community-based initiatives, such as conservation-linked enterprise development, livestock insurance, and community-based livestock vaccination services. These chapters detail the steps taken to set up the initiative, specific points of good practice that help avoid common problems, and explanation of how each of the principles applied to the examples given. Appendices at the end of each chapter provide templates and key points for inclusion in conservation agreements, including the respective roles and responsibilities of the communities and other stakeholders.
In the final part, Concluding Thoughts, the author recognizes a key omission in the book, that of the private sector. This exclusion is explained as deliberate, a result of the Snow Leopard Trust's limited engagement with this sector to date but something they are hoping to address in the future. It is also recognized that both governments and governance have important roles to play in enabling communities to fulfil their rights and responsibilities with regards to biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.
I was pleasantly surprised at the thoughtful and considered content of this book, recognizing as it does the complexities of both ecosystems and social systems and their interactions. My surprise comes from my preconceptions that a publication by a species conservation organization was likely to be less than nuanced in its understanding of Homo sapiens. I am happy to be proved wrong. The intended audience for this book is readers ‘for whom it's important that conservation is achieved in a just and equitable way’. I will be recommending it to colleagues who subscribe to this ethos, and more importantly to anyone who does not, in the hope that the grounded experience, openness and accessibility of the narrative may change some minds. As the book itself concludes: ‘The main determinant of our ability to save the planet's biodiversity…will not be the size or other metrics of protected areas, but our fundamental approach towards people in conservation’.
