The debate concerning the conservation-related displacement of people in Central Africa remains strongly polarised. In an earlier paper (Curran et al. 2009), we made a clear plea for in-depth, multi-disciplinary research to provide factual assessments of the extent of physical and economic displacements which Kai Schmidt-Soltau and colleagues have referred to in a series of papers (Schmidt-Soltau 2003, 2004, 2005a, b, Brockington 2004, Brockington and Igoe 2006, Brockington et al. 2006, Cernea and Schmidt-Soltau 2003a, b, 2006, Schmidt-Soltau and Brockington 2004, 2007). We also stressed the need to find some 'common ground' that would allow all of us concerned with this issue to work together in the interests of both biodiversity conservation and human development.

The accusation by Schmidt-Soltau (2009) that conservation organisations willfully continue to commit 'human rights violations' in Central Africa is, in our view, not true. We do not dispute that there are examples from around the world where conservation projects have not respected peoples' rights in the past, and we believe that lessons have been learned and that the conservation approach has shifted accordingly. But citing isolated incidents between government agents and members of local communities as proof of ongoing, systematic abuse of human rights falls well short of contributing to finding acceptable solutions to these conflicts. Furthermore, we disagree with Schmidt-Soltau's (2009) suggestion that it does not really matter how many people are affected, as long as some negative impact can be demonstrated somewhere, while at the same time continuing to cite inflated figures. In short, he provides no compelling evidence to support his claims that hundreds of thousands of rural poor are being displaced by conservation in Central Africa (Schmidt-Soltau 2003, Cernea and Schmidt-Soltau 2006).