Abstract
The relationships between biodiversity conservation, livelihoods and poverty reduction are a major topic of discussion in contemporary conservation. Discussion revolves around a number of themes including whether conservation can or should try to contribute to poverty reduction and to what extent it can contribute. The increasing presence of poverty on the conservation agenda has partly developed as a result of concerns within the conservation movement about the need to take more account of poverty either for ethical or practical reasons (or both). It is also partly a result of the fact that donor agencies seem to have become less interested in funding conservation unless it can be more clearly linked with poverty reduction, something which is very high on the contemporary international aid agenda.