Biodiversity conservation in Melanesia: addressing risk and uncertainty among stakeholders

Abstract

[Introduction]: The biodiversity values of these lowland rainforest areas are regarded as very high by a wide range of interested parties ranging from ecologists and biologists to people holding general conservationist and preservationist attitudes. Other values pertaining to economics, potential genetic knowledge, water resources, cultural and sociological issues for local forest dwellers, subsistence food supplies etc., are held at various levels of commitment by a variety of other groups. Attempts to manage the forest resource has resulted in a variety of schemes one of which involves Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICADPs). This paper briefly examines the ways in which the players/stakeholders in one of these ICADPs in Papua New Guinea perceive and act upon risk and uncertainty . While the author’s observation and research is the source of the information in the case of this ICADP, other ICADPs are mentioned in a comparative sense with the information based on some personal observations but mostly on the writings of people intimately involved in their facilitation.