IUCN projects

IUCN, as a neutral forum for objectively-based consensus seeking, is facing an ever-increasing demand to conduct independent scientific reviews of controversial development projects. As IUCN gains experience in conducting such processes, it is important to document which approaches lead to success and which ones cause problems, and to draw all these lessons into a more established methodology.

This book describes the 12 years of Kibale and Semliki Conservation and Development Project, and how in the project’s early days conservation and development activities tended to be separate and discrete activities. With lesson learning the project gradually became more integrated in terms of linking livelihood activities such as tree planting, bee keeping, improved agricultural practice, with conservation interventions (protected area management, and problem animal management).

This book tells the story of times past, when wetlands were considered as wastelands and decision makers and managers were unaware of their benefits, a time when the adverse impacts of hydropower and irrigation schemes on ecosystems and people downstream seemed unimportant. Today wetland ecosystems are viewed as essential elements in integrated river basin planning, which draws upon the most appropriate modern science and traditional knowledge.