Midterm evaluation of USAID/Ecuador's strategic objective 1 : biodiversity conserved in selected protected areas and their buffer zones -- main report

Midterm evaluation covers the period 1997-2000. Individual sections of the report present findings, lessons learned, and recommendations of the project's three components -- Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve, Bioreserva del Condor, and the Galapagos Island -- from the viewpoint of the field-level integration of activities; the success and failure of specific activities; the pace of implementation; and partner capacity to implement activities. Despite individual achievements, the current orientation of SO1 is not likely to conserve significant amounts of biodiversity in the future. The logic for the strategic approach involving the three intermediate results (IRs) "strengthened capacity of targeted NGOs and civil society organizations active in biodiversity conservation"; "economically viable natural resource management practices adopted"; and "key policies and legal frameworks introduced and/or implemented to conserve biodiversity" -- is based on the premise that raising the economic benefits of populations residing in protected area buffer zones can reduce their incentives to use the resources of those areas. A strengthening of legal, regulatory, and institutional processes was also part of the strategy. Nongovernmental action, from community to national levels, was to complement historically weak government institutions. Such an approach, however, while suitable for resource conservation in the classic sense, needs to change substantially if real progress is to be made toward the Mission's SO. The problem is neither the program's geographical focus nor its three IRs, but rather the serious constraints to translating the IRs into results packages. The results packages' logic holds that if local populations believe that the benefits they can derive from buffer-zone products are greater than those they can get from protected areas, then they will leave the protected areas alone. This may promote better local resource use, but it does not serve the purpose of biodiversity conservation over the longer term. It simply lowers the value of biodiversity to that of sustainable returns to better-managed buffer zones. A better strategy would be to express and capture more of the real value of biodiversity, and to allow local populations to share in its much higher rents. This is not easy, but it is more consistent not only with SO1, but with Ecuador's dire economic reality and even with official policy regarding biodiversity. The nation's natural resources -- oil, wood, agricultural land, and fisheries -- will come under increasing pressure in the next few years. The value of biodiversity in protected areas will not only have to reach levels as high as those of production in buffer zones, but also match returns from the exploitation of oil, timber, lobster, or sea cucumber.