The Justifications and Dilemmas of Indigenous Community-Based Conservation: A Case Study of Sazasa Village in Taiwan

The serious global environmental problems have drawn much attention on conservation paradigms under the name of ‘sustainable development’. Among various conservation paradigms, indigenous community-based conservation (ICBC) is discussed in this research paper, due to its assumed justifications and dilemmas. In this specific case in Sazasa village in Taiwan, the ICBC experiment presents indigenous ways of using resources, which suggests an alternative and more environmentally friendly resource use regime. However, this case is also analyzed as being controversial, due to the transformation of indigenous institutions since 100 years ago and its tight connection with the market economy and the modern society. The controversy of this case provide an example of the ‘process’ of conservation learning—to modify social and political institutions which influence resource use regimes and to develop local institutions for conservation objective.