Myth and Reality in the Rain Forest: How Conservation Strategies Are Failing in West Africa [Paperback]

If you are at all interested in conservation, then you have to read this book. John Oates shows how the modern concept of community based conservation that looks so good on paper, in reality has been a dismal failure in West Africa. He provieds several examples from his 30 year long career in West Africa. He shows that you have to be realistic when designing conservation programs, and that many people making conservation decisions are more interested in prestige and money than they are in preserving natural ecosystems. It is sad when you read that the World Wildlife Fund conservation planners are not interested to even go see the areas that they are supposed to protect. The intrinsic value of nature is a hard sell, but finally the utilitarian view of nature seems to always lead to exploitation, and increased pressure on the areas that are supposed to be protected. He also very clearly demonstrates that the idea of using zoos for conservation is a bad one. Zoos are probabally the best way to educate the public about conservation, but are very poor ways to protect species, in fact zoos can even do more harm that good. This book really open your eyes, the situation isn't hopeless, but if conservation projects in Africa are going to work, then it has to be done with a realistic approach and the intrinsic value of nature needs to be on the fore front of the effort.

This is a must read for environmentalist, conservationists and everyone who donates money to the cause of saving endangered species. From Oates own experiences in Africa and Asia, Oates tells us how the myth of sustainable development is failing to protect species and parks. He informs us about that what is needed is a return to protecting nature for its own sake. It is a well written book that weaves personal history with the history of the conservation organizations that are telling us they are "saving life on earth." The reality is they are failing and they must change tactics and soon.

This is quite simply the most honest and genuine look at the potentials and failures of modern attempts at conservation in tropical countries I have seen. Oates consciously pits his own experience and analysis against the more politically fashionable approach of "BINGOS" -- Big International NGO's, such as the World Wildlife Fund and many other major environmental organizations. Their story is that so-called "integrated conservation and development" is a win-win situation -- with poverty alleviation, people will naturally reduce pressure on the natural environment and wildlife. The reality, unfortunately, is that is this not what actually happens -- it did not happen in the West where most conservation scientists were educated, and it is not happening in tropical Africa or elsewhere in the tropics. In fact, in many cases we have quite the opposite situation: the more people have, the more they want, and the more they exploit resources -- forest, wildlife, anything -- to get it.

Oates describes a nightmare world where well-paid consultants and foreign pressures actually contribute to increasing pressure on collapsing forests and wildlife in West Africa, and where immigrants invade and destroy forests that until recently had been largely devoid of any people. I have seen this world for myself, both in some of the same places Oates describes and elsewhere in the tropics. Oates' description is as astoundingly eloquent and exhaustive as it is emotionally restrained. The tragic truth he describes applies not only to West Africa but many other places, where "paper parks" are unprotected from poachers and forest destroyers due to corrupt and crippled policies and plain old-fashioned greed. But Oates is not an advocate of despair; he also offers thoughtful, practical suggestions as alternatives for these failed policies based on his experience -- something we should work towards.

Oates is one of a minority of people who actually cares about the fates of West Africa's amazing forests and their wildlife. Most consultants, as he notes in the book, hardly visit these fast disappaearing forests. And no wonder: to see this mass destruction with your own eyes is almost unbearable. As Oates points out, the destroyers are not indigenous people but opportunistic immigrants who will move on once they have exhausted the land or their prey. Those who would cast him, as one reviewer below, as somehow "imperialist" are sadly mistaken. I would say it takes one to know one. Oates has been passionately engaged in collarboration with African colleagues in trying to save wildlife in Africa for decades. He is widely admired in Africa, as he says what is true but what others lack experience to know or the courage to say; precisely these problems frustrate many African conservationists as well. If there were more people with his intelligence, integrity, and courage -- to say what is not politically correct, but true, that the widely adopted strategies of governments and BINGOs are failing nature and wildlife -- this world would be a far better place.

This book is essential reading for anyone who truly cares about tropical forests, wildlife, and their fates in the modern world. Thank you, John Oates, for writing it!