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Protected areas (PA) often adopt buffer zone program to share PA benefit with local people and improve community support for conservation. However, the effectiveness of such policies is still unknown. By utilizing household survey data from six PAs (n = 2,121), we assessed contribution of Nepal's Buffer Zone Program in conservation and sustainable development. While the residents showed limited knowledge about the program's specific details and perceived that the funds were too minimal to have a substantial development impact, those who were aware valued the program. Perceived effect was greater on increasing conservation awareness and improving park-people relationships than reducing human-wildlife conflict or funding development projects. Trust, satisfaction, and perception of the program's contribution varied significantly relative to proximity to PA, history of wildlife damage, PA income, minority status, gender and education. Effectiveness of such programs may be enhanced by investing the fund in mitigating wildlife damage than funding development projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the implementation and sustainability of village conservation agreements and village conservation grants facilitated by an integrated conservation and development project (ICDP) around the Kerinci Seblat National Park, Sumatra, Indonesia, 5 years after the project closed. Forty-three percent of agreement actions (n = 180) and 30% of grant activities (n = 74) were sustained. Informants identified numerous factors influencing success, but statistical tests failed to detect simple explanations. Conservation-livelihood agreements have a greater chance of success when preexisting factors are understood and the purpose of the agreement itself is clearly defined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through alliances with local community-based organizations, including groups of women, conservationists have used integrated conservation and development projects as a strategy to integrate conservation and poverty alleviation goals; yet an antiessentialist critique of ecofeminism suggests little grounds for alliances between women and conservationists. This study questions that premise through a presentation of analysis results from interviews with women in three communities surrounding Mexico's Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. I compare the households of conservation-allied women with other households, on (1) the use of various farming practices on women's group parcels and on other land managed by households (conservation-related outcomes) and (2) women's access to and control of land and project income (women's livelihood-related outcomes). I find that alliances were partially successful in meeting conservation interests, contributed to the production of livelihoods for the women, and increased their relative position within households and communities through changes in the gendered control of resource decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]