Both fortress and community-based approaches to conservation have shown poor (sometimes negative) results in terms of environmental protection and poverty reduction. Either approach can also trigger grassroots resistance. This article is centered on an allegedly 'community-based' conservation and development project (and its successive follow-ups) intended to create a national park in Guinea-Bissau.

Despite the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) defining 20 targets across 5 strategic goals, Target 11, which relates to protected areas, has received the most emphasis from donors, non-government organisations, and governments, as a performance standard for conservation in Melanesia. Protected area targets, however, may not be culturally or technically appropriate for Melanesian countries, such as Papua New Guinea (PNG), where resource extraction is central to development. In PNG, most protected areas are ineffective and generally lack government support.

This article demonstrates the central role of ambiguity in the (re)production process of conservation practice. It argues that some current political economy as well as environmentality approaches to research conservation practice fail to capture the complexity of the lived experience of local conservationists. The article focuses on the multiple identities of rangers in interaction with other residents at the periphery of the W Park in Burkina Faso, as rangers are local conservationists who simultaneously submit to and produce conservation practices.

Integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) is a complex undertaking that draws on a range of biophysical and social science disciplines, and involves a wide range of stakeholders operating through multiple processes, and crossing various levels. Conceptually, this means that ICZM represents a significant challenge in terms of improving the way in which different disciplinary 'knowledges' and different forms of knowledge (scientific, managerial, lay, and indigenous) inform decision making.

With the Convention on Biological Diversity's 11th Conference of the Parties to take place in Hyderabad, this article points out that the treaty's implementation the world over has lacked resolve. India is no exception, with a great gap between the impression given by reports and the reality on the ground.

Tourism must be seen in the context of the rights of all stakeholders. More and reliable data is needed to understand whether tourism is harmful to tigers or that people living in the forests have caused the decline in the tigers' population. The more central issue of the implementation of the Forest Rights Act and the rights of adivasis and forest dwellers is being lost in the battle about tourism.