Negotiating Agendas in Biodiversity Conservation: the India Ecodevelopment Project, Karnataka

This chapter examines how the interactions shape the evolution of an intervention and its likely outcomes, and the broader implications for conservation programmes. It begins with an overview of the Ecodevelopment Project in the context of the integrated conservation-development project model. The chapter discusses the long history of landscape–people interaction, in which interventions like the Ecodevelopment Project are another event. The Rajiv Gandhi National Park in Karnataka is one of seven parks in India receiving assistance under the India Ecodevelopment Project from the World Bank and Global Environment Facility. Biodiversity conservation have been shaped by discourses on sustainable development and participatory development over recent decades. The term Ecodevelopment Project refers only to project activities in Nagarahole, while India Ecodevelopment Project refers to the national programme. The actor-oriented framework for exploring the Ecodevelopment Project in Nagarahole encompasses an historical overview of the actor–landscape relationship, analysis of the relationships among actors, and the interaction between institutions and actors.