Are divergent preferences between benefactors and beneficiaries an obstacle to community-based conservation? A case study of the Palas Valley, northern Pakistan

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This paper examines the problems of nature conservation in the Third World. A Pakistani community-based conservation project, the Palas Conservation and Development Project (PCDP), acts as a reference point. A field study was conducted to elicit the preferences of the benefactors and of the beneficiaries, i e the PCDP staff and the locals of the Palas Valley in which the project operates. Four preference-eliciting techniques were used: qualitative questions, a ranking question on environmental goods in the Palas Valley, a contingent valuation question on the threatened pheasant Western Tragopan, and a choice experiment on possible scenarios in the Palas Valley. The results show that the preferences of the PCDP staff and the Palasi locals diverge. In particular, locals stress physical infrastructure as being the most important PCDP objective, while the PCDP staff considers attitude changes among locals most important. Also, the locals endorse the notion of existence-values, from which First World nature conservation draws heavily, to a lesser extent than does the PCDP staff. Divergent preferences are problematic as they can result in misunderstandings and suspicion concerning the project among its beneficiaries. Also, basing project actions on preferences that are not shared with the beneficiaries is a sensitive issue. While a deepened participatory approach can overcome these difficulties, it could also compromise the original project objectives. Some steps to prevent these dilemmas are identified. Improvi...