The power of people: community
Present-day conservation infrastructures in Negril cannot cope with coastal restoration, calling for alternative management models such as community-based conservation. Accessing the knowledge required to make informed decisions in environmental management entails investigating the environment, understood as the natural world and how it is affected by human activity.
Guided by the central precept of humanity’s inherent place in nature, community-based conservation combines social and ecological environmental managements to establish the protection of biodiversity by, for, and with the local community.
Participatory action research conforms the precepts of scientific inquiry, following a methodology that includes observing, finding a research question, deducing a hypothesis and prediction, collecting data and testing the prediction, as well as forming and sharing theory based on findings. Combining education, research and action, PAR places community members in charge of investigating and acting upon their environment.
An ecosystem can be defined as a functional and dynamic unit formed by interdependent living organisms and their non-living environment. Ecosystem management was proposed at the turn of the century to implement sustainable development.
Image credits:
Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/why-communities-must-be-at-the-heart-of-conserving-wildlife-plants-and-ecosystems-132416. Creative commons attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license
Jacques M. Chevalier and Daniel J. Buckles, SAS² Dialogue, http://www.participatoryactionresearch.net