What does conservation really mean? And, perhaps more importantly, how do we achieve it?

Living Alongside Wildlife has a fascinating four-part story by Jon Hakim about the Bangladesh Python Project, which is an organization devoted to conserving herps in Bangladesh.

Working primarily in the Lawachara National Park, the Bangladesh Python Project tracks, monitors, and studies snakes, frogs, tortoises, and all manner of herps found in and around the park. The Project and its founder, Shahriar Caesar Rahman, also work with the over 30,000 people who live in the park.

It's this relationship with the local villagers that brings questions about conservation into sharp relief:

If the tortoises, pythons, monkeys, pigs, and other wildlife that call the park home are to have any chance at a future, it'll have to be one where humans and wildlife learn how to accept each other's presence, despite the damage and take that will occur on both sides. Over the course of my nine days in Lawachara, I found that the Bangladesh Python Project had made impressive strides in moving towards coexistence, and that it had a long, long ways to go.

A python that enters a village and kills a villager's ducks has damaged the livelihood of a person who is already living in poverty and depends on all the resources he has to survive.

Yet the pythons aren't invaders; they were here first. How can conservationists find the right balance between protecting endangered reptiles and amphibians and understanding human concerns? How can they best forge relationships with locals and educate them about herps' importance to the ecosystem?

Hakim's series raises these questions and more.

Part one.
Part two.
Part three.
Part four.