The conservation vs. Development debate has been going on for long now. With the incorporation of system of Protected Areas (PAs) in India, this debate added fuel to fire as wildlife conservation got priority over human subsistence in these areas, traditionally used and preserved by the forest-dwelling communities. The ground reality of these PAs point towards the fact that there are still millions of people living in and around protected areas. On the one hand, exclusive management policy of protected areas is not working very effectively in achieving its goals of wildlife preservation and on the other, the exclusion of the stakes of the people from PAs is affecting their development adversely. Considering this issue, a thought process was initiated to develop a theoretical framework to understand how conservation of forest for protection of wildlife and meeting local forest-based needs could be two compatible goals. Can the socially preferred optimal trade-off between conservation (represented by tiger) and development (represented by local sustenance needs) be obtained? Is it possible to establish Pareto optimality, given the utility functions and production functions of the local community and the conservation? A conceptual mathematical model of adaptive co-management was developed taking into consideration variables forming a part of the Utility and Production functions of local needs (proxy of development) and Tiger (proxy of conservation) along with the social welfare functions that could be drawn from the combinations of development and conservation that a society may choose. The model needs to be empirically tested. 

Study Funding : Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, IFRI Program through its MacArthur grant

Study Output : Working paper no. 4-04, © SHODH