The concern for biodiversity conservation in recent years has spawned a wide-ranging debate for a return to "fortress" conservation highlighting the inadequacy of community-based conservation. This article examines the nature of the ongoing debate from four key perspectives: incompatibility of conservation and development, viability of strict protection in the current circumstances, moral and economic arguments for conservation and the prevalent orthodoxy of conservation-friendly communities. Despite these limitations, community-based conservation is here to stay. The real issue is not whether communities should be involved, but rather how such involvement can be made effective. Protection of biodiversity must be based on a wide range of approaches to develop a shared understanding of compatible conservation and development goals at various levels.
