Is international conservation aid enough?

Abstract

Bare et al (2015 Environ. Res. Lett. 10 125010) ask an important question: is international conservation enough? Since the 1990's international conservation donors have spent over $3.4 billion on biodiversity conservation related projects in sub-Saharan Africa. Both donors and recipients have a right to know if this is effective. Surprisingly, this question is rarely asked. It is a difficult question - involving many rival social, environmental, and economic explanations. Bare, Kauffman and Miller uncover some interesting associations, supporting existing hypotheses and proposing their own: that conservation aid alone is insufficient to mitigate drivers of deforestation (and in some cases may even exacerbate forest loss). This controversial result warrants further investigation - but what is needed now is nuance and robustness in further analyses, to have more confidence in the critique and it's implications for international conservation aid.