This year I decided to challenge myself and take part in a conference on development research instead of the usual conferences on conservation biology. Working on conservation issues in developing countries I sometimes feel that I fall right in between the disciplines of natural sciences and social sciences. I am a multidisciplinary outsider criticized from both sides. But it is no secret that my basic training in ecology has influenced me a lot. So here come the reflections of a conservation biologist on the 2^nd Nordic conference for development research held in Espoo, Helsinki (link).

The theme of the conference was “Knowing development – developing knowledge?” and Ritva Reinikka, director of the Human Development Group in the Africa Region of the World Bank, started with a keynote speech on youth employment in sub-Saharan Africa. Reinikka showed some pretty amazing statistics on how level of education determines opportunities for young people. This she followed up by a study on how students performed and then, more interestingly, how well teachers knew the curriculum they were supposed to teach. Absence of teachers during classes also seemed to be a major problem in many sub-Saharan countries. The numbers were stunning and sad, unfortunately I did not make notes of it all so you will have to stay tuned until the WB publishes the formal report in the beginning of next year.

After this I attended a session on community based forest management/ participatory natural resource management. Some interesting issues were raised, like elite capture by a few prominent persons in the communities. What mostly caught my attention though was the social scientist’s way of measuring the success of participatory projects. This was interesting for me as I am thinking a lot of how to quantify conservation effectiveness or success. It was apparent that they employed a very local lens to inspecting the whole thing. The success of a participatory approach lay for them in the level of participation, and how it was perceived by the local community, not the effects on how the forest was managed. To me it would have been extremely interesting to look at the links between this level of participation and more quantifiable measures of success in terms of managing forests sustainably (such as changes in deforestation rates etc.). Are there win-win narratives and how common are they? And when there aren’t, how should we deal with local participation vs. achievements in terms of environmental goals (i.e. why do all top-down approaches have to be seen as of evil?).

After a rather turbulent afternoon (where I realized that I do not know Foucault enough to even vaguely follow how they are trying to structure the world) I was very happy with having a nice conference buffet, drinks and stimulating discussions.

I spent all of next day in Paola Minoia’s working group: Empowering social and political perspectives in research on environmental changes. There were many talks on water management at Taita Hills in Kenya. What mostly caught my attention was a talk by an anthropologist studying a local community in India, it was really interesting to learn and understand the way anthropologists work.

Overall the conference was a good and useful experience. I find myself struggling with some ideas, not knowing whether I am judging myself or social scientists harder – I really hope I came out a bit more open minded and willing to challenge my own ideas and approaches on how to do science. Oh, and my tip for saving the world (including biodiversity): knowledge and education.