Ch. 11— Biological Diversity and Development Assistance • 297 



A study of poor farmers in Costa Rica found 

 that: 



. . . farmers could not comprehend the concept 

 of "untouchable" forest reserves. The values 

 of outdoor recreation, wildlife, and biological 

 diversity may be seen by wealthy policymakers 

 . . . but they are generally alien to poor farmers 

 struggling for survival (45). 



Consequently, efforts to protect habitats may 

 depend on demonstrating to rural populations 

 that they virill benefit from such activities and 

 on soliciting their support in project design and 

 implementation (36). 



Benefits to those in rural areas can be in the 

 form of actual financial compensation, as in 

 the Amboseli game reserve in Kenya. Here, 

 Masai pastoralists participated in designing a 

 conservation program, and they now benefit 

 financially from the arrangement through tour- 

 ist revenues and through employment oppor- 

 tunities (63). Alternatively, local support can 

 be solicited by convincing people of the impor- 

 tance of maintaining diversity. In Malaysia, for 

 example, public support was marshaled to pro- 

 tect the Batu caves from quarrying by pointing 

 out that the durian, a highly valued fruit crop, 

 depends on cave-nesting bats for pollination 

 (36). 



The opening of the Kuna Indian Udirbi Trop- 

 ical Forest Reserve, a 5,000-acre park on Pana- 

 ma's Atlantic coast, resulted from integrating 

 local peoples' desire to protect a forested area 

 of cultural and religious importance with the 

 establishment of income-generating facilities 

 for visiting scientists and naturalists. The 

 project is unusual because it was initiated by 

 the Kuna themselves and had unanimous sup- 

 port. A number of organizations (including the 

 Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigacion 

 y Ensenanze, the Smithsonian Tropical Re- 

 search Institute, AID, the Inter-American Foun- 

 dation, and the World Wildlife Fund-U.S.) have 

 provided technical and financial support, al- 

 though both the benefits and management 

 responsibilities are being directed toward the 

 Kuna (41,69). 



Emphasis on environmental education is 

 another strategy for building public support 



(36). A major constraint at all school levels is 

 the shortage of appropriate teaching materials 

 in local languages (67). Furthermore, most text- 

 books use examples drawn from temperate 

 zone ecosystems, which can be difficult for stu- 

 dents in the tropics to understand. Development 

 of teaching materials could help remedy this. 



In Costa Rica, the World Wildlife Fund's con- 

 servation and education program, working with 

 the Ministry of Education and educators and 

 conservationists from local universities, devel- 

 oped educational material in Spanish for ele- 

 mentary school ecology courses. The material 

 was tested by 70 teachers in 11 schools, reach- 

 ing 2,000 students in 1982. The success of the 

 program led to its adoption by the Ministry of 

 Education and to the distribution of materials 

 to all public elementary schools in the country 

 in 1984. World WildUfe Fund expanded the pro- 

 gram into Colombia and Honduras in 1984 and 

 to Brazil and Guatemala in 1985 (4). 



Mobilizing public support through mass in- 

 formation campaigns has also been successful 

 in developing countries. In Malaysia, for ex- 

 ample, numerous private voluntary and non- 

 governmental organizations, such as the 



Photo credit: 



An education project in Costa Rica funded by tfie World 

 Wildlife Fund allows elementary sctiool students to study 

 ecology witti textbooks in tfieir native language. Above, sixtti 

 graders study relationships between different plant species. 

 The program, begun in 1982, has been expanded to Colombia, 

 Honduras, Guatemala, and Brazil. 



