The search for alternatives has engaged diverging interests and philosophies in many unruly alliances and practices, and differences are often papered over. Conservationists who regard conservation goals as non-negotiable tend to view poverty alleviation as a means to an end. From this perspective, the main objective is conservation, so that a major task is to work out the most efficient strategies to achieve this end. This has led to many income-generating projects, such as promoting the ‘extraction’ of non-timber forest products, and allowing for ‘traditional use’ zones in national parks. Poverty alleviation as a route to conservation is not a satisfactory position for those who regard development as a right in itself, and this perspective is often coupled with the notion that conservation is a ‘neo-colonial’ project aimed at keeping the South poor (Fisher 2000). The problem with the latter view is that ‘development’ here refers to economic development, and provides a convenient platform for supporting the suppression of other kinds of development, especially political or social development. In the hierarchy of development priorities in Indonesia and Malaysia, community development in political and social terms is at best pushed to the background, at worst something to be controlled, manipulated or watched over. The need to control political and social development finds affinity among some donor agencies — especially those who, for decades, have viewed development in terms of ‘techniques’ of economic management, such as export promotion, debt-service management, control of public spending, and market liberalisation. Donor emphasis on techniques was supported by a ‘dominant mindset that gives little consideration to socio-cultural issues’ (Nelson 1995: 162, 171), but with the discovery of ‘civil society’ this mindset might have changed, albeit in directions amenable to bureaucratic routinisation (Nelson 1995; Howell and Pearce 2001). The notion of participatory development is a good example for drawing attention to this process. Participatory development originated as a critique of the ‘top down’ development approach, which had already become routinised, especially in large multilateral aid agencies, but still tended to emphasise community participation in the implementation, rather than the design of projects, instead of formulating alternative development approaches. Smaller bilateral aid agencies may experience fewer constraints and have more options for change (Brohman 1996).

For some NGOs who view past donor efforts at promoting ‘development’ as a factor contributing to environmental degradation, new alliances with donors represent a pragmatic way of making an entry into the policy debate, despite suspicions of ‘neo-colonialism’. Touting the platform of ‘neo-colonialism’ is an easy way for some elements of the state and society to harness nationalist sentiments against activities that may lead to a questioning of existing power relations and dominant ways of ‘doing development’. In many instances, conservation efforts that emphasise ‘empowerment’ or ‘participation’ are not as effective in questioning existing power relations as the neo-colonial rhetoric. Equating conservation with ‘neo-colonialism’ is intrinsic among some NGOs of the South, so that in some instances conservation NGOs are torn between advancing the agenda of global equality and that of conservation (Khor 1993; Shiva 1993). A concern with the former often finds NGOs forming alliances with governments of whom they had previously been critical. However, such alliances are often uneasy ones, confined to specific issues and therefore sporadic. This is because, while some Southern NGOs are annoyed over what they regard as Northern NGOs’ insensitivity towards the historical roots of global inequality and environmental injustice, their own governments use ‘neo-colonialism’ to ward off international criticism regarding their suppression of political and social development. Reminding the nation of ‘neo-colonialism’ enables many regimes to pursue ‘development’ as usual.

Under such conditions, a marriage between international conservation NGOs and donors may be a strategic move for entry into a recipient country, but the marriage is also fraught with the danger of ‘co-optation’ through routinisation (Howell and Pearce 2001: 94–7). For some national NGOs, cooperating with donor agencies is a way of taking the agenda of conservation (which in the South is inseparable from issues of social justice) out of restrictive state control into the international arena (Nelson 1995). In this case, the environment becomes a safe mechanism for advancing issues of citizenship and a mildly disguised critique concerning government accountability and transparency. In general, NGOs currently have more freedom and a higher status in Indonesia than in Malaysia, where the governments tend to be very suspicious of them (Eldridge 1996; Majid Cooke 2003a; Weiss 2003). However, this role for NGOs in Indonesia is very new — during the Suharto regime they were quite restricted in their activities.

In situations where states are not sympathetic to conservation, then creating strategic alliances with state institutions and donors adds additional and much needed clout to NGOs. Casson (Chapter 4) writes about options available to new administrative districts (created as a result of Indonesia’s regional autonomy law) in pursuing ‘development’ objectives (strictly economic) and in preserving ‘old ways’. Acquiring relative independence means new responsibilities: the district treasury has to be filled, poor infrastructure upgraded, and long-term planning for sustainable development put in place. Casson’s chapter is interesting in a number of ways. It describes a Kalimantan local district government’s attempt at more responsible management of resources, and the ways stakeholders — including government officials, community and private sector representatives, adat or customary leaders, as well as donor agencies and NGOs — align themselves with one another. The chapter takes issue with the common-sense view about the enhanced potential for conservation in a more decentralised system of decision making. At least in the initial years of autonomy, the district of Kutai Barat showed little evidence of being more environmentally responsible in its development plans than when administration was more centralised.

Exposed to only one form of development, many rural communities have internalised development in economic terms, negotiating top-down and unequal power relations, producing effects that may be detrimental to social and political development, albeit not always of their own choosing (Li 2001; Majid Cooke 2002). In such a scenario, social and political development appear relatively unimportant, and conservation then finds a difficult terrain. Wadley’s ‘borderlanders’ (Chapter 6) are expert negotiators of state boundaries dividing Sarawak from West Kalimantan, which are made porous through kin, labour and commercial networks. As a result, state borders may not carry the nationalistic meaning they are supposed to have. Because of such networks, ‘illegal logging’ by community cooperatives takes on a different meaning. Working with Malaysian logging concessionaires (tukei) is not an issue for these cooperatives because of their intermediary position as borderlanders.

At the community level, another way of dealing with unequal power relations is to engage in activities which, to outsiders, may appear detrimental to the communities’ own survival in the long term. Vaz’s work (Chapter 7) unravels entrenched views about ‘harmonious’ communities whose identities are inextricably linked to their environment. The weakening of Lundayeh control of land held under Native Title at Long Pasia produced a divided community. Some groups resorted to ways of earning a living that were tantamount to rendering their land vulnerable to exploitation by outsiders. They did so by providing outsiders with access to local hunting areas or fishing spots and by allowing destructive methods to be used. The once open borders between Kalimantan and Sabah, which allowed Lundayeh families to maintain their kinship links, became less porous as relatives returning from Kalimantan and elsewhere were no longer accorded access to ancestral land.