Scaling Out Community Conservation Initiatives: Experts Identify Economic and Social Benefits, Compatibility With Needs, and External Support as Key.

Community‐based natural resource management is a common strategy for conserving biodiversity, but little is known about how such initiatives can scale appropriately and widely. We interviewed 80 experts across 5 widely adopted community‐based initiatives (in Chile, Nepal, Namibia, Madagascar, and Fiji) to understand their perspectives on the drivers of adoption and spread. We used general elimination methodology and diffusion of innovation theory to identify and rule out possible explanations. Factors consistently considered influential were economic and social benefits, compatibility with needs, support and facilitation by extension agencies, and the presence of international organizations. Initiatives aiming to scale should be designed to be flexible and aligned with adopters' needs, and external organizations should coordinate resources for scaling out. Dependence on external support underscores the need for quality assistance, good practices by external actors, and understanding power relations and fairness, as well as the need to temper donor and policy expectations of scaling beyond supported and appropriate sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Conservation Letters is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)