Community Perspectives on Buffer Zone for Protected Areas: A Preliminary Study

Local community gives impact to the Buffer Zones (BZ) and vice-versa. Their input in terms of criteria for delineation of BZ is important and may reduce the conflict of interest between livelihood of the people and conservation objectives of the Protected Areas (PA). This paper describes the preliminary findings of researchers’ in- formal interviews and observations on the local communities. The findings shows that most of them understand the basic concept of BZ, support its potential delineation and agreed on its benefits and possible uses of support-activities in BZ to the local communities.