Local Governance and Environmental Conservation: Gravel Politics and the Preservation of an Endangered Bird Species in Taiwan

Abstract

Despite its many promises, devolved governance may pose great challenges to environmental conservation, especially in the context of newly democratized polities where local communities tend to be dominated by place-bound clientele networks that pursue developmental interests at the expense of conservation. In this paper the authors examine how a conservation movement in Huben Village of Yunlin County in Taiwan has successfully been organized to save the endangered bird species Fairy Pitta (Pitta nuymphia) against gravel extraction activities that were backed by local clientele networks of politicians and business interests. The case illustrates how challenges of devolved governance can be addressed not necessarily by centralized authority but by connecting grassroots victims of environmental degradation with broader conservation movements supported by networks of civic organizations that transcend narrow geographical interests.