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An ongoing debate over the impacts of protected areas on rural communities in central Africa has become increasingly polarized in recent years, even as definitions of displacement have shifted from outright expulsion to economic dislocation precipitated by lost access to natural resources. Although forcible removal of communities to make way for the creation of National Parks has certainly occurred in the past in some parts of the world, we contend that not a single individual has been physically removed from any of the protected areas created in central Africa over the past decade, despite claims to the contrary of hundreds of thousands of "conservation refugees." Furthermore, we recognize that a scarcity of data precludes impartial evaluation of the potential impacts of economic displacement of local communities living adjacent to protected areas, and we call for a concerted effort by conservationists and the social scientists who criticize conservation efforts, in order to measure the effects of protected areas on livelihoods, and to work towards a more socially responsible conservation paradigm.

The article presents a study on the status of rattan sector in the economy of the Philippines. The article implies that due to rattan industry's growth, it has become a major enterprise with many underlying achievements such as numerous workers involved in the production and consumption system, utilization of over 200 million linear meters of rattan yearly, accurate market links throughout the world and export revenues worth $241 million. But through depletion of resources, shortage in raw material supply, increased rattan imports, decline in world market because of competition, and aggressive marketing actions of other countries, Philippine rattan sector has been passing in a critical phase, a situation which the researchers investigate.

Theodore Trefon and Louis Defo argue that rattan harvesting and the commercialization of wildlife are complementary and mutually supportive activities for villagers in the Cameroon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]