Green colonialism?

I picked up a leaflet about a scientific symposium being organised by the Zoological Society of London. The Title was Biodiversity Monitoring and Conservation:Bridging the Gaps Between Global Commitment and Local Action. A very worthy concept. But interestingly the list of contributors seems to be composed completely of representatives of the Big NGOs (BINGOs) and university and other institutions from the developed world. The views of those actually doing the action, implementing conservation, carrying out the monitoring do not seem to be involved. I recognise that this is not a symposium that will have any real executive functions, but it does seem a bit odd that so few (none?) of those at the sharp end are involved. The WLT is involved in a lot of programmes that involve monitoring -- to ensure the actions we are taking are effective, and most of this involves biodiversity in some way or other (or at least species diversity monitoring), but one thing we are certain of, is that unless the local conservationists are actively involved in all initiatives, there is a good chance that the conservation actions will not be sustainable. The ZSL has a reputation for being a bit reactionary, but one might have hoped that with over 20 speakers giving presentations, one or two might have been from organisations based in the less developed parts of the world, actually involved in the monitoring long-term; there are quite a lot of them.