From the Ford Foundation.

• Author: Farias, Pablo J.
• Position: FROM READERS - Letter to the Editor

Mac Chapin's article "A Challenge to Conservationists" (November/December 2004) addresses a number of issues the Ford Foundation has worked on for many years and which we consider key to our efforts to reduce poverty and injustice among indigenous and rural communities around the world. The article raises important questions about the relation of biodiversity conservation and community development. We agree that these matters need to be discussed and analyzed.

However, the article contains factual errors and is generally misleading in the way that it portrays Ford's and other donors' work to generate a constructive dialogue about the development implications of large-scale conservation approaches. First, the article implies that a Foundation-funded inquiry on large-scale conservation and community development is primarily...