- Dr. Andy Mack speaks out: “BIG rarely works. Big international conservation organizations have Big budgets supporting Big offices and staff with Big salaries in the US and Europe. Per dollar, such organizations accomplish much less than smaller national organizations in rainforest countries.”
- “Dedicated, well-trained and competent people are pretty much the lowest common denominator to all our conservation successes; the opposite is a common denominator for many conservation failures.”
- “How much of the global conservation budget is invested in people?… How large is the slice of the pie going for training people in tropical rainforest countries?“
- “Sadly, the answer to these questions shows why I think conservation is failing. Anyone in the business knows how common it is for conservation donors to stipulate ‘no salaries.’ We undervalue conservationists in the tropical nations.”
Dr. Andrew Mack studies the close living relatives of the dinosaur, the cassowaries, giant flightless birds that can knock you out with a single kick. Though, as Dr. Mack will tell you, they are relatively harmless. He should know: Mack has worked in the remote rainforests of Papua New Guinea for over 20 years, radio-tracking the droppings (yes, the droppings) of cassowaries and tracing the movement of seeds.
Beyond his work as a world renowned poo-chaser, Andy Mack has worked on local conservation issues for decades, and his 20+ years in Papua New Guinea (PNG) provided the foundation for his book, Searching for Pekpek: Cassowaries and Conservation in the New Guinea Rainforest. He has also formed a conservation training program for the nation’s students — a program that has evolved into the PNG Institute of Biological Research.
What Mack has learned after 20 years of working on the ground in PNG is that conservation comes from people.
“Dedicated, well-trained and competent people are pretty much the lowest common denominator to all our conservation successes; the opposite is a common denominator for many conservation failures,” he told mongabay.com. “I am cautious with the idea of innovation in conservation. Innovation can provide tools for conservation. Great new remote sensing technology and GIS models are extraordinary tools. But they do not result in conservation… Conservation results when some person, or usually group of people, changes their behavior… Many conservation leaders, organizations, and donors forget this.”
Dr. Mack has held senior positions in two of the largest international conservation organizations — Conservation International, and the Wildlife Conservation Society — and two of the largest US natural history museums — the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, and the Academy of Natural Sciences.
“BIG,” he says, “rarely works. Big international conservation organizations have Big budgets supporting Big offices and staff with Big salaries in the United States and Europe. Per dollar, such organizations accomplish much less than smaller national organizations in rainforest countries,” he contends. “Many field conservationists say the best way to kill a good project is to give it a Big grant. Better to have smaller budgets that are actually secure over longer terms.”
Mack is now an independent conservationist and author. He lives in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania and is active in local conservation efforts there. He has had a species of tree, a frog and a louse named in his honor.
“For me, the next big thing would be if conservation donors and the Big Conservation organizations made conservationists in tropical rainforest countries their top priority. Train and give real support to national conservationists in places like Papua New Guinea, then you will start to see more outcomes. I am not sure how many decision makers and donors get that message, but that would be my hope for the next big breakthrough. Anything else will not produce lasting results.”
An exclusive Mongabay interview with Dr. Andrew Mack:
MONGABAY: What is your background? How long have you worked in tropical forest conservation and in what geographies? What is your area of focus?
MACK: I started as a keen birdwatcher as a kid, and by the time I was 15 was planning my first trip to Mexico, which I paid for by busing tables, and made when I was sixteen. Since then I’ve been hooked on rainforests.
I landed a job at the Academy of Natural Sciences that enabled [me to spend] more time in the Neotropics. During those years I had two pivotal visits to Sabah [Malaysia] — both in the early 80s. Each trip was for about 3 months that I spent in amazing dipterocarp forest; arguably the most magnificent tropical forest anywhere. They were cutting it down while I was there. I watched all sorts of wildlife being displaced in front of the moving front of clear cutting. It became oil palm plantation. I developed my commitment to rainforest conservation then and planned to go back when I started graduate school in 1985.
But that plan changed with an opportunity to go to Papua New Guinea. When I got there, I knew I was going to stay. The forest spoke to me. The region has been my area of focus ever since, but I don’t reject the opportunity when presented to go elsewhere!
MONGABAY: Are you personally involved in any projects or research that you feel represents emerging innovation in tropical forest conservation?
MACK: I am cautious with the idea of innovation in conservation. Innovation can provide tools for conservation. Great new remote sensing technology and GIS models are extraordinary tools. But they do not result in conservation.
Conservation results when some person, or usually group of people, changes their behavior. Innovations and tools can help catalyze those changes. But the real nexus boils down to the conservationists working for change and their interface with the people changing their behavior. Often these conservationists are in the field talking with their neighbors, lobbying their leaders, urging and coaxing change.
Conservation outcomes are constrained by the number of such people and the resources and skills they can bring to bear for change. Many conservation leaders, organizations and donors forget this. They invest foremost in the tools, glitz and flavor-of-the-month.
So I confess that most of my involvement in conservation is not with any emerging innovations or sexy technology. I’m trying to train young conservationists in New Guinea and back them up with the support they need for significant accomplishments.
MONGABAY: What’s the next big thing in forest conservation? What approaches or ideas are emerging or have recently emerged? What will be the catalyst for the next big breakthrough?
MACK: Unfortunately, I do not think we have ever had many big breakthroughs. I have been in conservation long enough to see all sorts of promising ideas, like debt-for-nature swaps, ICDPs [Integrated Conservation and Development Projects], bio-pharmaceuticals and ecotourism, and other NTFPs [Non-Timber Forest Products], REDD [Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation] and every imaginable incarnation of “priority-setting.” None of these have really proven tremendously transformational.
Where such ideas DO work, is where you have the right people in the field executing them. And often, where they fail, it boils down to the human element as well. Dedicated, well-trained and competent people are pretty much the lowest common denominator to all our conservation successes; the opposite is a common denominator for many conservation failures.
But how much of the global conservation budget is invested in people? Of all the hundreds of priority setting studies in the journals, how many identified people as the priority? How large is the slice of the pie going for training people in tropical rainforest countries and backing them up for the long-term battle that every significant conservation success requires?
Sadly, the answer to these questions shows why I think conservation is failing. Anyone in the business knows how common it is for conservation donors to stipulate “no salaries.” We undervalue conservationists in the tropical nations.
For me, the next big thing would be if conservation donors and the Big Conservation organizations made conservationists in tropical rainforest countries their top priority. Train and give real support to national conservationists in places like Papua New Guinea, then you will start to see more outcomes. I am not sure how many decision-makers and donors get that message, but that would be my hope for the next big breakthrough. Anything else will not produce lasting results.
MONGABAY: What do you see as the biggest development or developments over the past decade in tropical forest conservation?
MACK: The biggest developments are the incremental things we don’t see so readily. When I witnessed the clearing of the tall dipterocarp forest of Sabah, 35 years ago, almost no one was concerned. There were a handful of people ringing the alarm bells, but few were listening. Oil palm seems to be big new issue lately.… [but] the problem is old.
A couple years ago I went back to Sabah and met a lot of smart young Malaysians really concerned about conservation and struggling to accomplish things with very little support. In many rainforest nation,s there are emerging cohorts of conservation-minded citizens. They are the most promising development. They might be able to so something. They need support.
Certainly, technology is giving conservation all sorts of new tools. But if such tools are not in the right hands, the tools are worse than useless. The most promising developments, in my humble opinion, are not electronic gadgets or sophisticated simulation models, or genetic engineering. The most promising developments are young Indonesians, Papua New Guineans, Bolivians, etc.… dedicated to conservation in their homeland’s tropical forests.
MONGABAY: What isn’t working in conservation but is still receiving unwarranted levels of support?
BIG rarely works. Big international conservation organizations have Big budgets supporting Big offices and staff with Big salaries in the United States and Europe. Per dollar, such organizations accomplish much less than smaller national organizations in rainforest countries. Big projects with Big budgets often fail.
The largest conservation project ever in PNG, which had a budget of over six million dollars — making it one of the largest single projects anywhere — collapsed early and accomplished nothing. Many field conservationists say the best way to kill a good project is to give it a Big grant. Better to have smaller budgets that are actually secure over longer terms.
The big conservation organizations chase big ticket projects because those provide more overhead to support those staff and offices. The smaller organizations getting results cannot get those big grants, and they often don’t have the staff to handle onerous reporting requirements when they are eligible. They must rely on smaller sources of funds, many of which explicitly stipulate “no salaries or overheads.” Most are for less than three years. So the most effective people and organizations cannot support themselves, or only barely manage through incessant fundraising. The system is stacked against small and efficient national conservationists in favor of large and inefficient international organizations.
Sitting in the US or Europe, it is hard to see. The donors there get most of their information from their recipients. We give our $35 [annual] membership to the big organizations and get our calendar, magazine or mug and feel we are helping. But there is very little real scrutiny of how well that 35 bucks is spent.
To the people sitting in places like Papua New Guinea, the problem is obvious. There is often an underlying current of frustration and sometimes resentment as the small national players feel pushed aside by rich internationals.