Implementing Agency:
Department For International Development (ESRMU)

Managing Institute:
NRIL (Natural Resources International)

Project Code: R5523 889-620-020	Start Date: Apr. 1, 1993	End Date: Mar. 31, 1995
Commitment: £23,199	Status: Completed	Type of Funding: Bilateral- TDR

Project Objectives:
Environmental resource conservation initiatives in developing countries face a common paradox. The cost-bearers or implicit financiers of conservation measures (usually adjacent households or the managing government institution) characteristically receive a disproportionately small share of the benefits of conservation. This diminishes the incentives and ability to maintain conservation initiatives over the long-term, subsequently jeopardising financial and institutional sustainability. The research will use the case of Kenya's indigenous forests to address this problem, particularly focussing on forest adjacent households as principal forest users, and as key players in the conservation process. On-going, participatory, pilot forest conservation projects will be used as case studies. The research will also use case studies of forests, currently operating under a range of different management systems, that have been identified as priorities for future conservation. These will provide a context for research findings to be incorporated into practical forests management. Research will define and access the determinants and values of forest utilisation for different groups, and identify and quantify the costs and benefits of forest conservation. Findings will be incorporated into proposals regarding possible mechanisms for financial and institutional sustainability, through the cost-recovery, redistribution and reallocation of the socio-economic values of conservation. Research will take place within the DFID-sponsored Kenya Indigenous Forest Conservation Programme (KIFCON). As well as being adaptable and replicable within the context of all Kenya's indigenous forests, research findings will have a wide applicability for planning and implementation of environmental resource conservation strategies within developing countries generally, as well as providing insights related to processes of appraisal, monitoring and evaluation of environmental projects.