Environmental stewardship is a term that can be used to describe a range of initiatives and activities. It can be used to describe strict conservation measures that preserve and protect ecosystems, active restoration efforts that are designed to restore damaged or destroyed habitat or sustainable use of resources and management actions. It could also refer to personal choices to Our site live sustainably and reduce the negative effects of human activities (Missouri Botanical Garden, offsite link). Stewardship is possible at many scales, from the local to global in both urban and rural contexts.
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in involving local communities in environmental stewardship programs, policies and practices. This is achieved through initiatives such as community-based conservation (CBC) and Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM), Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs), Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs) and Sustainable livelihoods and other communities-based conservation projects (Cattermoul et. 2008; Bennett 2010).
The success of this campaign will depend on many elements which include:
In communities that rely on the harvesting and exploitation of certain mega-fauna species, it might be impossible to implement strict conservation methods that would eliminate these species from the landscape (Gavin and al. 2015). In these cases, the implementation of conservation measures that do not allow for any take is likely to be viewed by some communities as incompatible with their culture. Similar to that, in certain cultural contexts, implementing conservation measures that are excessively strict or that impose restrictions on harvesting might be viewed as an infringement of private property rights, and can lead to social agitation (Finkbeiner and others. 2017).