Development and conservation interventions are often sector-based, technically oriented, and devoid of sociocultural consideration. There has been failure to mobilize local community organizations, customary institutions and cultural values and beliefs which still shape indigenous decision-making and management practices.

Failure to recognize the complex relationships of people to their environment has sometimes led to them being treated as an obstacle to development and conservation, resulting in their exclusion or even removal from their traditional lands, for example, to create nature reserves. This disruption of the bond between people and their environment has tended to lead to greater environmental deterioration rather than its amelioration. The erosion of customary institutions often results in the loss of indigenous knowledge, followed by a loss of biodiversity, and vice versa.

Where overly centralized control over communal institutions in socialized economies undermined the ability of the local institutions to respond to environmental changes, new state policies prescribing a shift from communal production to the individual household responsibility system has permitted an increase in small-scale production, But the system also has many shortcomings, including inequitable access to natural resources, weak linkages to market services, poor access to credit loans, and a lack of capacity on the part of service agencies to meet the heterogeneous needs of various households. This shift has generated more stakeholders than ever while often weakening the community institutions and undermining the solidarity needed to deal with the penetration of outside market forces. Conflicts related to tenure security and rights to land are also common.