Network development: policy-making in a complex milieu

Abstract

The milieu in which international conservation organisations operate is one of considerable complexity. It is unrealistic to focus exclusively on any one organisation as a means of obtaining an adequate picture of the whole. The policies and thinking of any given organisation can usually be found to have drawn at least some of their inspiration from the web of its relations with other actors — even if the relationship concerned is one of mutual distancing and rivalry. The number of actors is large. ‘To each species its pressure group’ has seemed at times to be a main operating slogan in the process of network formation. Diverse organisations co-exist. The present chapter keeps a guiderope firmly attached to IUCN in order to make a necessarily brief excursion into this wider arena.

Remedying the disturbances of government is like unravelling a knotted rope. Don’t hurry, but first examine the knot carefully and then undo it.

Dogen, Shōbōgenzō Zuimonki