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Environmentally induced displacements in the ecotourism–extraction nexus
Abstract
Around the world, we increasingly see the often-deemed incongruent activities of ecotourism, associated environmental conservation and natural resource or fossil fuel extraction happening in the same spaces, often supported by the same institutions. Rather than being incongruent, however, these seemingly uncomfortable bedfellows are transforming spaces, livelihoods and social, political and environmental geographies in tandem through what we call the ‘ecotourism–extraction nexus’. Drawing on case studies from around the world, we show that physical, symbolic and historical aspects of environmentally induced displacements are an integral part of these transformations, though often in less than straightforward ways. The paper concludes that environmentally induced displacements are a key mechanism to understand why these seemingly uncomfortable bedfellows in empirical reality and within a broader context of capitalist modernity go together surprisingly well.
... Some political ecologists have focused their critiques on a particular form of tourismecotourismas a neoliberal, market-based strategy that provides privileged access to biodiverse environments for affluent tourists while doing little to address the structural inequalities that maintain poverty for those residing near tropical biodiversity (e.g. B€ uscher & Davidov, 2016;Duffy, 2008;Fletcher & Neves, 2012;Hunt, 2011). Whether addressing tourism or ecotourism, these studies make it clear that preexisting tensions over structural inequalities in access to resources are frequently exacerbated by international tourism visitation to rural biodiverse areas of the lesser developed world. ...
... While tourism is currently a minor economic development activity for the region, the percentage of the population working in tourism is growing in recent years (Doughty, Lu, & Sorensen, 2010), partly because ecotourism is seen as having the potential for reconciliation between competing agendas of neoliberal development, ecological conservation, and cultural survival (Davidov, 2013). Yet Buscher and Davidov (2016) and Davidov (2013) critique tourism's influence on local culture and environments, drawing important attention to the ways that the very same local institutions and government entities discursively support both conservation-oriented tourism and environmentally destructive extractive activities. ...
... Yasun ı is currently one of three "recommended destinations" in Amazonia promoted on the government's official travel Web site (Ecuador Travel, 2017). Seemingly at odds with the publicity of this Amazonian rainforest as an idyllic destination for adventurous nature travelers is the occurrence of petroleum extraction, which has been the major driver of social and environmental change in the Ecuadorian Amazon since the 1970s when oil speculation swept across the region (Sawyer, 2004;B€ uscher & Davidov, 2016). Driven by large multinational investments and generating massive revenues for the country, oil has subsequently risen to become Ecuador's primary export (Sawyer, 2004;Smith 2014). ...
Tourism in the Anthropocene is a powerful driver of global connections that has direct consequences for social and environmental well-being across the planet. This political ecological analysis of tourism in the Ecuadorian Amazonian presents ethnographic vignettes to account for the ways that interwoven global discourses related to biodiversity conservation and community development are encountered, contested, and leveraged to advance particular approaches to tourism at the local level. We invoke Tsing's theory of friction to frame these discursive encounters in the context of tourism-related decision-making in the community of Misahuall ı, including instances of discursive shifts being leveraged into improved well-being of local residents. This paper makes an important contribution to the scholarship on the political ecology of tourism by bringing the emic perspectives of local residents to the forefront and by demonstrating the value of Tsing's friction metaphor for analyzing the global connections inherent in tourism. Frictions between inequities and imbalances of power, perpetuated by both the structures and discourses associated with the use of tourism to address conservation and development objectives, remain at the vanguard of tourism research as we move through the Anthropocene. ARTICLE HISTORY
... Political ecology studies have extensively considered both resource extraction and biodiversity conservation, but more rarely their interactions (Huff and Orengo 2020). Here, I seek to contribute to the growing literature addressing this gap through a discussion of the political ecologies of extraction and conservation (Adams 2017; Büscher and Davidov 2016;Enns et al. 2019;Norris 2017;Purwins 2020;Symons 2018;). Building on studies from within political ecology and other disciplines (see Sonter et al. 2018), I hope to help map out -both conceptually and literally -some of the main extraction-conservation relations. ...
... Finally, conservation can render land around extractive sites 'investable' (Le Billon and Sommerville 2017), notably through eco-tourism (Büscher and Davidov 2016). Without conservation, local residents may be seen by extractive interests as a threatening 'surplus population' in need of costly pacification. ...
Extraction and conservation seem to be polar opposites, yet they entertain multiple relations as the 'greening' of extractive activities mobilizes conservation efforts to address the 'extinction crisis.' Drawing on a review of the literature and two case studies, this article discusses the politics of affinity and enmity shaping the extraction-conservation nexus, and partnerships. As crisis conservation and green extraction receive increased attention, the article suggests that the convergence of extraction and conservation is not only pragmatic, but also reflects shared discursive imaginaries and valuations of nature, practices materialized through spaces of 'double exception', and common politics of enmity directed at local communities that legitimize exclusionary practices rather than solve capitalism's contradictions.
... Some studies have also focused on the claims of sustainability and contributions to climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation that extractive companies have advanced, notably to counter their negative public image and reduce resistance to their activities ( Boon 2019 ;Dahl & Fløttum 2019 ). Here, I join other studies engaging with the extraction and conservation nexus (see Büscher & Davidov 2016 ;Enns et al. 2019 ;Menton & Paul, this volume). ...
... This neoliberalization, in turn, provided the extractive sector, facing a double crisis of legitimacy and exhaustibility, with a spatial fix opening up new lands and reserves and an ecological fix flipping conservationists from opponents to partners through market solutions ( Enns et al. 2019 ). Conservation can also render land around extractive sites 'investable' ( Le Billon & Sommerville 2017 ), notably through eco-tourism ( Büscher & Davidov 2016 ). Without conservation, local residents may be seen by extraction as a threatening 'surplus population' in need of costly pacification. ...
... Moreover, this focus contributes to the field of environmental sociology as it allows us to better understand how people respond to their changing living environment, perceive their immediate living environment, opportunities 4 therein and adapt their aspirations to the perceived ability to deal with their environment (Dunlap and Marshall 2007;Heinrichs and Gross 2010). In doing so, this study aims to enable future researchers to better map out the vulnerabilities of people that are confronted with environmental changes and contextualize their actions (Zickgraf 2018;Bose, 2016;Büscher & Davidov, 2016;Terminski, 2012). ...
... This is important as these ethnic and social differences are also reflected in the choices people make when opting for Due to the particular ways in which environmental changes affect people living in these areas, a large proportion of environmental migrants are often internally displaced migrants who have limited resources to return to their region of origin (e.g. Bose, 2016;Bose and Lunstrum 2014;Büscher and Davidov 2016;Terminski 2012). Apart from these migrated/displaced groups, the differential impact of environmental changes on populations means that there are large, vulnerable groups affected by environmental changes that are not able to migrate ("immobile climate migrants" or "trapped populations", Zickgraf 2018). ...
Migration has existed in all times and places and people have migrated for a variety of (combined) reasons: environmental, economic, political, humanitarian, social and cultural. While social and political conflicts that have arisen out of environmental changes are not new, environmental changes have placed some living conditions and other reasons for migration under even more pressure. In this paper, we combine insights from two approaches to the study of environmental migration and displacement-namely 'the sustainable livelihoods approach' and 'the new economics of labour migration'-and build further on existing models and theories of migration aspirations and dynamics. Based on these insights, we develop a theoretical framework on the study of migration aspirations and how they take shape within the existing structural constraints or capabilities for people living in areas heavily affected by environmental change using a multilevel perspective. The novelty of this model is that it focuses on migration aspirations when confronted with environmental changes. The multilevel approach, which includes the local social environment, incorporating the culture of migration of the living environment, one's personal local and transnational networks, perceptions on environmental changes and local discourses thereof, is therefore of particular relevance.
... Moreover, this focus contributes to the field of environmental sociology as it allows us to better understand how people respond to their changing living environment, perceive their immediate living environment, opportunities therein and adapt their aspirations to the perceived ability to deal with their environment (Dunlap and Marshall 2007;Heinrichs and Gross 2010). In doing so, this study aims to enable future researchers to better map out the vulnerabilities of people that are confronted with environmental changes and contextualize their actions (Zickgraf 2018;Bose 2016;Büscher and Davidov 2016;Terminski 2012). ...
... Due to the particular ways in which environmental changes affect people living in these areas, a large proportion of environmental migrants are often internally displaced migrants who have limited resources to return to their region of origin (e.g. Bose 2016; Bose and Lunstrum 2014;Büscher and Davidov 2016;Terminski 2012). Apart from these migrated/displaced groups, the differential impact of environmental changes on populations means that there are large, vulnerable groups affected by environmental changes that are not able to migrate ('immobile climate migrants' or 'trapped populations', Zickgraf 2018). ...
Migration has existed in all times and places and people have migrated for a variety of (combined) reasons: environmental, economic, political, humanitarian, social and cultural. While social and political conflicts that have arisen out of environmental changes are not new, environmental changes have placed some living conditions and other reasons for migration under even more pressure. In this paper, we combine insights from two approaches to the study of environmental migration and displacement – namely ‘the sustainable livelihoods approach’ and ‘the new economics of labour migration’ – and build further on existing models and theories of migration aspirations and dynamics. Based on these insights, we develop a theoretical framework on the study of migration aspirations and how they take shape within the existing structural constraints or capabilities for people living in areas heavily affected by environmental change using a multilevel perspective. The novelty of this model is that it focuses on migration aspirations when confronted with environmental changes. The multilevel approach, which includes the local social environment, incorporating the culture of migration of the living environment, one’s personal local and transnational networks, perceptions on environmental changes and local discourses thereof, is therefore of particular relevance.
... Every case, place and environment is unique in its market construction and function. Also important to note is the congruence of ecotourism with resource commodity extraction (Büscher, B. and Davidov, V., 2016), an economic practice which threatens primates and ecological sustainability. ...
... Our current consumer and labor practices are inarguably damaging. (Coriander, J., et.al., 2011;Büscher, B. and Davidov, V., 2016) But, this norm is changing as we recognize that ecology is vital to our survival. Primates are especially easy to adapt to empathy towards, because of their close relation to humans. ...
... To date, the theorization of these co-constituted dynamics has primarily emerged from terrestrial activities that take place within state territory and attended to the implications for state-based development aspirations, local livelihoods and the displacement of local communities (e.g. Büscher & Davidov, 2016;Lunstrum et al., 2016). ...
Recent years have seen a sharp uptick in efforts to expedite resource extraction in, and expand biodiversity conservation to, Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ), the ~70% of oceans outside state space. In this symposium piece, we explore the co‐constitution of the parallel acceleration of biodiversity conservation and economic exploitation that is unfolding in ways unique to the high seas, but consistent with global patterns wherein this coupling encloses space for capitalist value extraction. These coupled tendencies are part of expanded ocean regulation and, in ABNJ, they form part of state‐capital advancement into one of the remaining world frontiers. We explore this extraction‐conservation nexus in two contemporary ABNJ negotiations: 1) the Implementing Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction and 2) the International Seabed Authority's development of an exploitation regime for deep‐seabed mining in the Area. Our findings build on insights from agrarian political economy and political ecology that establish the co‐constitution – rather than incommensurability – of conservation and extractive activities in terrestrial spaces and draw out the arenas of this nexus in the ecologically complex, political‐economic grey zone that is the uninhabited (by humans), non‐state space of the planet. This work contributes to placing the high seas and the emergent blue economy within the critical scholarship that describes and explores the conservation‐extraction nexus and its consequences.
... Conflicts emerging from resource extraction and biodiversity conservation, as well as their interactions, are an ongoing concern in Political Ecology (Adams, 2017;Büscher, 2021;Büscher and Davidov, 2016;Enns et al., 2019;Huff and Orengo, 2020;Norris, 2017;Purwins, 2022;Symons, 2018). Political Ecology is a framework, to assess human-environment interactions, human decisions, and therefore impacts on the environment. ...
In 2018, the Ghanaian government signed the Sinohydro deal, a resource-backed loan using bauxite as collateral, with Ghana's president highlighting the opportunity to develop an integrated bauxite-aluminium industry and boost industrialisation across the country. The deal has led to a number of protests against bauxite mining in Ghana, particularly at one potential site: The Atewa Forest Reserve. This paper analyses the politicisation of the Atewa Forest Reserve through the lens of political ecology. Political ecology recognises that forests are not neutral entities, but are shaped by political processes and dynamics. The Atewa Forest is seen as a political forest, as a particular constellation of power constituted by ideas, practices and institutions. The paper contends that the narrative constructed around the Sinohydro Deal strategically legitimizes mining in the Atewa Forest, positioning the project as a symbol of progress and national development. It also argues that the Sinohydro deal was designed to circumvent national environmental laws, leading to quick (political) success while being embedded in a powerful narrative. Therefore, the contestation over development is increasingly shaped by a discursive closure that limits dissent, influencing public opinion and decision-making. Despite presenting the developments as visions for the future, the narrative ultimately reinforces old development tropes of resource extraction, convincing even counter-movements to focus on the location rather than opposing bauxite mining as a whole. The findings are based on interviews conducted during fieldwork in 2018, 2019 and 2020, as well as analysis of secondary data such as political documents, press statements and speeches.
... This is the main reason why developing countries are now starting to include it in their economic development and conservation strategies (Khaledi Koure et al., 2023;Lasso & Dahles, 2021;Wondirad et al., 2020). Indonesia a developing country in the South East Asia region, has high potencies of ecotourism attractions, including its natural resources, natural biodiversity, and traditional values spreading in various regions of the archipelagos (Büscher & Davidov, 2016;Cheung, 2018;Kia, 2021). As per the 2019 report from the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, ecotourism constitutes roughly 35% of Indonesia's primary nature tourism offerings. ...
Indonesia has high potencies of ecotourism attractions, including its natural biodiversity and traditional values spreading in various regions of the archipelagos. However, the shortcoming remains exhibited by many individuals showing poorly pro-environment behavior in tourism places regarding to environmentally and socially. Therefore, our study aims to observe the effect of regulatory fit manipulation (promotion-focus vs. prevention-focus) on increasing emotional involvement to improve ecotourism awareness and examine the antecedent factors that influence individuals' attitudes towards ecotourism attitudes, which are volunteering experience and consumptive lifestyle. This research is conducted by experimental research to examine two groups of participants under different regulatory fit manipulations (promotion-focus vs. prevention-focus). Data were analyzed by using the multivariate analysis method. Our study revealed that regulatory fit manipulation affects attitudes towards ecotourism, especially under different volunteering experiences and consumptive lifestyles. Thereby, we reveal that embodying regulatory fit for such an environmental campaign effectively enhances consumers' attitudes toward pro-environmental and ecotourism.
... In recent years, new neoliberal forms of conservation-based development (CBD), like private protected areas (PAs) and NBT, seem to better align with SD objectives; yet, these types of development have also been criticized for predatory land grabbing, displacement, and practices that reduce social embeddedness of nature (Blair et al. 2019;Borrie et al. 2020;Büscher and Davidov 2016;De Matheus e Silva et al. 2018;Fletcher 2011;Holmes 2012Holmes , 2014. For example, Borrie et al. (2020) identified, "in order to improve long-term support and integration of PPAs and NBT, greater attention needs to be given to social well-being outcomes (including equity and justice concerns), building of social capital, and the preservation of local identities and histories" (p.1). ...
This chapter explored how Modernization , Transformatio n, and Control Sustainable Development (SD) imaginaries and trajectories interacted, nuanced, and mediated the approaches of neoliberaldevelopment initiatives and the conflicts which surrounded them. A collective case study approach was employed to better understand actors, their strategies, and perceptions about three large-scale development proposals, the Patagonia National Parks network, the HidroAysén hydroelectric project, and the Río Cuervo hydroelectric project. We identified six themes that characterized participants’ preferences related to processes: a desire for greater proactiveness around transparency , a binding participation process of governance, bottom-up decision making, re-empowerment of local groups, decentralization , and improved oversight practices. Further, directed content analysis revealed numerous manifestations of the three SD futures trajectories and several examples of interactions and overlap between the SD imaginaries. Seemingly, some development actors navigated between SD imaginaries and tactics to maneuver between local and national actors, agendas, and decision-making processes. We have termed these tactics as SD agility , which are initially defined as: “the strategic ability to maneuver between SD imaginaries and trajectories to achieve strategic SD outcomes.” SD agility tactics merit additional study as we believe they may represent an important capacity for SD futures trajectories.
... Besides these negative ecological implications, ecotourism may also have long-term negative social implications. For instance, ecotourism development has been reported to displace local indigenous communities from their native lands, thereby preventing them from benefiting economically(Büscher & Davidov, 2016). Furthermore, introducing ecotourism in sacred forests may even disrupt the cultural values of the forests. ...
The need to recognise plural values and integrate these into policy design has long been of interest in nature conservation. However, we also need to understand whether and how different values are prioritised among diverse stakeholders. This is particularly important when indigenous and traditional cultures play a role in how land is managed and protected.
Working in the sacred forests of Nigeria, we applied the principles of biocultural conservation and sociocultural valuation to understand the values that underpin people's relationship with nature and with other users of nature. We operationalised this by employing participatory workshop methods to identify multiple values of sacred forests, and conjoint analysis to elicit local people's value priorities and preferences for conserving sacred forests.
We identified multiple values attributed to sacred forests, but the strongest preferences were for improved provision of medicinal values. However, preference heterogeneity analysis showed that sacred forests are valued differently among clusters of people with distinct sociodemographic profiles.
Our findings also showed that the current management strategy for the conservation of sacred forests is inadequate to galvanise shared and collective responsibility from diverse stakeholders. Using a value-based approach, more robust management strategies that will yield high utility to the public were determined and recommended for implementation.
Policy implications. Overall, our study demonstrates that sacred forests are valued in multiple ways above and beyond their role in a cultural belief system. New strategies are therefore needed to effectively manage and conserve them. We recommend a plural approach to the conservation of sacred forests that will incorporate multiple values. This can be achieved by integrating biocultural conservation and sociocultural valuation.
... Conservation frequently discourages interactions between humans and natural ecosystems and often lead to ecotourism development that impacts traditional ways of life and displaces people (Cerna, n.d). This resettlement is often permanent, offering no opportunity for the displaced to return to their place of origin (Agrawal & Redford, 2009 (Buscher & Davidow, 2016). Loss of traditional livelihoods is an acutely harmful impact of conservation and displacement, as livelihoods are a core component of community and household food security, income-generation, social status, tradition, and means of maintaining social structures including gender roles (Kabra, 2009). ...
National park creation and ecotourism development often cause the internal displacement of local communities and shifts in traditional lifestyles. Loss of the physical and intangible home is frequently accompanied by changes to livelihood strategies that, for generations, supported a critical social order, set of power dynamics, and means of producing life meaning for people. Therefore, communities affected by displacement and confronted by rapid modernization often experience protracted risks and instability. This paper draws on information from thirty interviews in four communities surrounding the Royal Chitwan National Park in Southern Nepal to analyze how resettlement and ecotourism development have affected the way people live in the area, emphasizing the impact of shifting livelihood strategies on the post-displacement homemaking process. Findings suggest that loss of agrarian livelihoods has harmed communities with access to ecotourism jobs less, as financial security enables more time to be spent participating in cultural and family activities. Homestays and cultural museums also offer opportunities for communities to retain past culture, livelihood strategies, and ways of living while embracing modernization. However, the unequal distribution of these positive impacts suggests that the cultural diversity of the area is being underrepresented, harming the wellbeing of people and impeding the success of the area’s cultural tourism industry. Greater emphasis on supporting marginalized communities will benefit both the homemaking process and wellbeing of people, and the success of Nepal’s double sustainability goals.
... Working to resolve preferences for resource extraction and on-going accumulation, ecotourism serves as a strategy to solve the dilemma of ecological limits yet shares a similar base logic. Büscher and Davidov (2016) speak to an 'ecotourism-extraction nexus' that highlights apparent contradictions of ecotourism and extraction activities while providing a more nuanced analysis revealing commonalities between the two processes that are mutually reinforcing. Ecotourism provides the 'greening' necessary for capitalism to continue and transform to new modalities for on-going accumulation. ...
... Finally, Büscher et al.'s (2017a) concerns that dispossession of local communities opens up territories to mineral and other forms of extraction challenges the implicit assumptions of Kopnina's (2016a: 177) defence that 'most displacements in recent history were hardly caused by conservation agencies but by large industrial or agricultural projects and the system of "industrocentrism"'. The thesis of an 'ecotourism-extraction nexus' calls attention to the ways that forced displacement for conservation and extractive undertakings are intrinsically linked (Büscher and Davidov 2016; see also Büscher and Davidov's [2013] collection) as a systemic feature of capitalist society. Similarly, critiques of the World Bank's Mesoamerican Biological Corridor point to the same problematic as the ecotourism-extraction nexus. ...
The deepening biodiversity crisis in the Anthropocene has led to polarised debates within the conservation movement regarding its objectives and guiding principles. Within this intellectual milieu, the Half-Earth project's call to enclose at least half the planet within protected areas has been defended as an ecocentric approach that overrides the concerns of anthropocentric 'critical social scientists'. One group of advocates has even attacked such scientists as 'neo-Marxists' dedicated to the 'mastery' of nature. To steer the debate in a more constructive direction, we offer an ecosocialist response to the ecocentric advocacy of the Half-Earth project, specifically from the perspective of Marx's theory of metabolic rift. While we are sympathetic to the project's motivation and admire its audacity, we note important deficiencies in the ways the moral imperative has been asserted against social justice, and in the problematic comprehension of the underlying drivers of biodiversity loss, which threaten to undermine its objectives. Nonetheless, opposition to capitalist instrumentalism serves as an important point of possible convergence between conservation and anti-capitalist struggle. Further engagement with the ecological-Marxist critique of capitalism could strengthen efforts to address the biodiversity crisis while resolving important shortcomings in the Half-Earth project.
... Although much of the accompanying terminology is 'new, ' the empirical substance of this nascent literature builds upon a previous generation of scholarship on both conservation-induced displacement and its other deleterious socioeconomic consequences for rural populations in colonial and post-colonial contexts (see also Büscher & Davidov, 2016;Lunstrum et al., 2016). Previously, concerns about conservation-induced displacement as such have been put forward in the work of Geisler and De Sousa (2001), Geisler (2003), and Schmidt-Soltau (2003, although seminal politicaleconomic and social critiques of conservation in Africa emerged earlier in geography and anthropology (e.g. ...
Through a review of recent writings in political ecology and agrarian studies, this paper appraises the potential for emerging forms of ‘green economy’ initiatives to catalyze new forms of internal displacement in West Africa, with specific emphasis on the postwar contexts of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Following the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, the primary drivers of forced migration are conventionally thought to include some combination of civil war, ostensibly ‘ethnic’ strife or cleansing, development-induced migration, or allegedly ‘natural’ disasters. However, land acquisitions for both conservation and commercial agriculture seem poised to constitute an important additional driver of internal displacement, threatening to map onto the unresolved legacies of these previous instances of forced migration in both Liberia and Sierra Leone. Drawing lessons from the role of agrarian grievances in each country’s history of civil conflict, in particular, I explore the ways in which such forms of displacement may pose clear and present dangers to the very peacebuilding efforts that proponents of a green economy transition in the Mano River region claim to support.
Within political ecology research, a dominant focus on the hard physicality of the world limits engagement with how events taking place on land mediate and are mediated by other material spaces like the atmosphere. This article engages with burgeoning research on the extraction–conservation nexus to show how the clearly demarcated land-based boundaries on which nexus thinking relies limit an awareness of how processes of conservation and extraction cohere and take shape in and through the aerial atmosphere. The article substantiates this argument with case studies on Guyana and Suriname, two countries that have been working on avoiding deforestation through Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation for over a decade in the aim of mitigating climate change. In each case, we examine three years of news reporting on recent, major oil finds in the Guyana-Suriname Basin. The news reports, set against longer
term research, demonstrate a narrative pivot from “green,” land-based avoided deforestation narratives to “black,” offshore extractive ones. The reports show that reference to the competing atmospheric effects of the mutual pursuit of these activities is scarce, even at a time of rapidly intensifying climate change. Hence, we argue that a voluminous analysis of the extraction-conservation nexus integrating a vertical awareness of the ever-present and unbounded atmosphere harbors potential for orienting a less contradictory politics of climate change—one that recognizes how activities deemed oppositional on land take shape in the shared, unbounded atmosphere. These activities consequently go on to affect other spaces and places in indirect, often unpredictable ways.
Birding for nature conservation becomes violent in war when foreign states and industry use it to extract value from countries like Iraq. In wartime Iraq, birding became a pathway to multinational resource extraction by producing “eco‐value,” a form of economic value for species life and, by extension, the ecosystems they inhabit. Iraqi marshland conservationists, including private contractors, produced eco‐value in the context of extreme violence for the purposes of environmental rehabilitation. This eco‐value was then leveraged to mine natural resources that were embedded in the same geological field. Compounding the violence of extraction was the violence conservation introduced for Iraqi citizens who alone performed the dangerous labor of birding; they were recruited to do this in order to safeguard the lives of foreign experts, who did not travel to the marshes of Iraq. The result was a form of nature conservation that made Iraqi lives uniquely expendable in the project of building the occupation's lifeforce.
In 2004, a new lithium-rich mineral, 'jadarite', was discovered in Serbia. In 2020, the government of Serbia and mining giant Rio Tinto announced a plan to extract lithium, which sparked massive environmental protests across the country. In this paper, we study perceptions of local communities towards Jadar mineral extraction project, which is planned in the zone of the cultural landscape 'Tršić Tronoša'. We employed a household-level face-to-face survey, conceptually following the sustainable livelihood approach. Results shows that local communities anticipate negative changes in environmental quality, lifestyle, and activities such as agriculture and tourism, which are seen as vital for future development compatible with the cultural landscape conservation goals. Local communities perceive a bias towards private companies by the government authorities, driven by economic interests that, as seen by locals, may also be influenced by international political pressures. Other factors, such as lack of participatory approaches and non-transparent communication were also negatively perceived. We argue that mineral extraction planning in high biodiversity and cultural heritage areas is sensitive because local communities are strongly tied through historical activities and traditions to the landscape and are not willing to trade off their environment for the economic benefits that the mineral industry could bring.
Forging sustainable development must explicitly commit to gender issues in the management of enterprises in Africa. However, advancing both gender equality and creating sustainable pathways present pressing problems. This book chapter examines the need to address gender equality and sustainable development jointly and outlines the moral, ethical, and practical justifications. It was found that the sustainability issues in Africa include overusing and non-renewal of our natural resources (depletion of natural resources), environmental degradation, and high-income inequality. Gender inequality in Africa was found in work and industrialisation, demographics and procreation, agriculture and food production, water, sanitation, and energy, among others. The main drivers of gender inequality in Africa were revealed as unequal access to social protection, and economic, and legal power. Other factors that were found to prevent gender equality and sustainability were uneven distribution of the costs of extreme poverty, education, skill disparities, and gender stereotypes. Realistic solutions suggested are fostering the development of women as they formed the majority of a marginalised group and improving equal access to school, and leadership positions, and, abolishing cultural practices that discriminate against women.
This article advances a novel analytical framework for investigating the influence of political-economic processes in human-wildlife interactions (HWI) to support efforts to transform wildlife conservation governance. To date, the majority of research and advocacy addressing HWI focuses on micro-level processes, while even the small body of existing literature exploring social dimensions of such interactions has largely neglected attention to political-economic forces. This is consonant with efforts to transform conservation policy and practice more broadly, which tend to emphasize “circular” change within current political-economic structures rather than “axial” transformation aiming to transcend these structures themselves. Our analysis thus advances understanding of potential for axial transformation in HWI via confrontation with, and “unmaking” of, constraining political-economic structures. It does so through cross-site analysis of conservation policy and practice in relation to three apex predator species (lions, jaguars and wolves) in varied geographic and socio-political contexts, grounded in qualitative ethnographic study within the different sites by members of an international research team. We explore how the relative power of different political-economic interests within each case influences how the animals are perceived and valued, and how this in turn influences conservation interventions and their impact on HWI within these spaces. We term this analysis of the “production-protection nexus” (the interrelation between process of resource extraction and conservation, respectively) in rural landscapes. We emphasize importance of attention to this formative nexus both within and across specific locales in growing global efforts to transform situations of human-wildlife conflict into less contentious coexistence.
For decades, a post-Cold War narrative heralded a 'new Arctic', with melting ice and snow and accessible resources that would build sustainable communities. Today, large parts of the Arctic are still trapped in the path dependencies of past resource extraction. At the same time, the impetus for green transitions and a 'new industrialism' spell opportunities to shift the development model and build new futures for Arctic residents and Indigenous peoples. This book examines the growing Arctic resource dilemma. It explores the 'new extractivist paradigm' that posits transitioning the region's long-standing role of delivering minerals, fossil energy, and marine resources to one providing rare earth elements, renewable power, wilderness tourism, and scientific knowledge about climate change. With chapters from a global, interdisciplinary team of researchers, new opportunities and their implications for Arctic communities and landscapes are discussed, alongside the pressures and uncertainties in a region under geopolitical and environmental stress.
For decades, a post-Cold War narrative heralded a 'new Arctic', with melting ice and snow and accessible resources that would build sustainable communities. Today, large parts of the Arctic are still trapped in the path dependencies of past resource extraction. At the same time, the impetus for green transitions and a 'new industrialism' spell opportunities to shift the development model and build new futures for Arctic residents and Indigenous peoples. This book examines the growing Arctic resource dilemma. It explores the 'new extractivist paradigm' that posits transitioning the region's long-standing role of delivering minerals, fossil energy, and marine resources to one providing rare earth elements, renewable power, wilderness tourism, and scientific knowledge about climate change. With chapters from a global, interdisciplinary team of researchers, new opportunities and their implications for Arctic communities and landscapes are discussed, alongside the pressures and uncertainties in a region under geopolitical and environmental stress.
The Shrimp‐Petroleum Festival is an annual event in Morgan City, Louisiana, that celebrates the history of the two industries in this coastal city. The festival came under media scrutiny and public criticism in the wake of the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, in part because of the seeming incompatibility and incongruence of the two things being celebrated. From a local perspective, however, the convergence of the two industries is far from incompatible and the two resources in question, shrimp and oil, are categorically similar within local discourses of identity, well‐being, and economic prosperity. In that capacity, it offers an insight into how precarious and contingent the seemingly self‐evident dichotomies commonly invoked in normative environmentalism are. It also offers insight and into the range of assumptions and signification practices involved in assigning meaning to particular kinds of resources and particular kinds of human–nature relations.
Investigating the relationship between literature and climate, this Companion offers a genealogy of climate representations in literature while showing how literature can help us make sense of climate change. It argues that any discussion of literature and climate cannot help but be shaped by our current - and inescapable - vantage point from an era of climate change, and uncovers a longer literary history of climate that might inform our contemporary climate crisis. Essays explore the conceptualisation of climate in a range of literary and creative modes; they represent a diversity of cultural and historical perspectives, and a wide spectrum of voices and views across the categories of race, gender, and class. Key issues in climate criticism and literary studies are introduced and explained, while new and emerging concepts are discussed and debated in a final section that puts expert analyses in conversation with each other.
The unequal distribution of tin resources and profits on the Bangka Island coast is a major problem. This is due to the lack of a political settlement which has caused conflict between state-owned and private mining entrepreneurs, fishermen, and local governments. The central government has also failed to distribute power over the tin resources. This has led the parties to defend their rights by opposing, accepting aggression, and having divided attitudes. The local government's interests are in residents’ welfare, profit sharing from mining, and the threat of environmental damage. This study has concluded that unequal access to tin resources in the Bangka coast will continue unless the state and the parties involved building a strong and inclusive political settlement.
A core component of the Paris Agreement is reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). Originally envisioned as a form of payments for ecosystem services, REDD+ has played out in a myriad of ways on the ground. Examining the transition of REDD+ from theory to practice, this article provides an ethnographic account of local experiences with the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership in Indonesia. Challenges with the invisibility of “carbon” as a resource—both literally and figuratively—was a common theme as community members questioned the feasibility of carbon as a commodity and expressed concerns that if REDD+ did succeed, their land rights might be usurped by more powerful interests. Concurrent to REDD+, communities were navigating imminent threats from forest fires and oil palm expansion. Village government leaders saw REDD+ as a potential buffer against these threats, but due to a history of failed development interventions they proceeded carefully in REDD+. Because the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership was funded by bi-lateral aid, it was less susceptible to fluctuations in the carbon market but more vulnerable to changes in Australia’s administration and aid priorities, which ultimately led to the project’s closure in 2014. Since the project’s closure, villages have experienced the expansion of oil palm plantations onto community lands, and local forests and croplands have been engulfed in massive peatland fires—both threats that REDD+ was designed to confront. A key lesson from the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership is that if the international community wants to work with local communities to make a lasting impact, it is essential that their engagement be built upon commitment, transparency, and trust.
This paper explores how a growing trend towards neoliberalization throughout Bhutan manifests within environmental governance in particular. Bhutan’s well-known Gross National Happiness (GNH) development strategy can be seen to represent a shift towards a variegated governmentality more generally that increasingly exhibits neoliberal tendencies as the country seeks to negotiate its further integration into the global economy. Part of this integration entails efforts to promote ecotourism as a key element of the country’s future conservation strategy. Ecotourism has been described as a growing manifestation of a “neoliberal environmentality” (Fletcher, 2010) within environmental conservation policy and practice, and hence Bhutan’s promotion of ecotourism can be seen as contributing to the promotion of neoliberal conservation. Yet in practice, my analysis demonstrates that environmental governance in Bhutan is a complex of external neoliberal influences filtered through local formal and informal institutions, specifically a Buddhist worldview, a history of state paternalism and the Gross National Happiness governance model, all of which express contrasting governance rationalities. This study thus contributes to governmentality studies by promoting a variegated environmentality perspective that calls for more nuanced analyses beyond “variegated” neoliberalization. This perspective also affords a holistic understanding of discrepancies between the vision and execution of neoliberal conservation that can be attributed to the articulation of alternative rationalities in policy formulation and implementation.
Some conservationists assert that multiple-use protected areas can accommodate competing claims for resource use, including extraction (e.g. mining and fisheries) and in-situ use (e.g. ecotourism). This is despite a growing number of studies showing how communities struggling with poverty, isolation, economic stagnation and environmental degradation experience limited benefits from ecotourism. This paper examines opposing claims over resource use (mining and ecotourism) in a World Heritage site in El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve, Mexico. It explores the idea that institutional processes can dis-incentivize both income generation from ecotourism and conservation if inequitable access to resources is not remedied. The article illustrates how ecotourism's contribution to socio-economic development of local communities can be circumscribed by: (1) the historical patterns of resource use; (2) misdirected interventions by state actors; (3) duplicitous actions of multi-national corporations, and (4) opaque governance processes with limited accountability. Findings support arguments that the capacity of ecotourism to reduce inequitable access to resources is limited and highlight why ecotourism cannot substitute for genuine institutional reform in protected area designation and management.
Key words: ecotourism, participation, El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve, Mexico, neoliberal conservation, sustainable development, equity
Activists and environmentalists all over the world have successfully framed biofuel crops as a major cause of deforestation, land grabbing and rural indebtedness. This effectively reverses earlier promotional pronouncements of biofuels as the answer to ecological problems. The counter-narrative has, however, become a very influential narrative. One important question has remained unanswered: if biofuels are responsible for a large range of social and environmental impacts, why do so many smallholders and poor farmers participate in the production of these crops? Based on key principles from agrarian studies and political ecology literature, this thesis addresses this question for the case of the recent biofuel expansion in Mesoamerica, with particular focus on the oil palm expansion in Chiapas (Mexico). This study shows that economic profit alone does not explain why so many smallholders have joined the biofuel expansion. Nor could producers be simply considered as “deceived” into planting these crops. Past agrarian struggles, the environmental history of study regions and existing political relations between rural producers and the state is what explains why smallholders in Chiapas have found biofuel crops to be advantageous for their own purposes, and why they are joining the biofuel expansion in great numbers.
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In this introduction to a special section on environmental displacement, we introduce the concept and ground it in seemingly distinct processes of climate change, extraction, and conservation. We understand environmental displacement as a process by which communities find the land they occupy irrevocably altered in ways that foreclose or otherwise impede possibilities for habitation or else disrupt access to resources within these spaces of life, work and socio-cultural reproduction. Such dislocation amounts to environmental displacement on the grounds that it is justified by environmental or ecological rationales, motivated by desires to access natural resources, or else provoked by human-induced environmental change and attempts to address it. Building from here, we make the case for why climate change and efforts to mitigate and adapt to it, extractive industries, and conservation initiatives should be analysed together as displacement inducing phenomena, as they are empirically connected in consequential ways and materialise from similar logics. We additionally lay out the contributions of the individual articles of the special issue and draw connections across them to help provide a preliminary framework for thinking through environmental displacement, including its causes, logics, and consequences, especially for vulnerable populations.
The Mozambican state is currently working to relocate 7000 people from the interior of the Limpopo National Park (LNP), itself part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP). As the process began in 2003, this stands out as one of the region's most protracted contemporary conservation-related evictions. I draw from this case to shed light on the increasingly complex spatial dynamics of land and green grabs and, more specifically, demonstrate the importance of zooming out from discrete land acquisitions to examine how their resulting displacements are increasingly shaped by spatial processes at and beyond their borders. In doing so, we begin to see that displacement from the LNP is not a simple case of eviction from a discrete protected area. Rather, it has been provoked by the opening of the international border, hence drawing transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs) like the GLTP into the purview of land and green grabs. At the same time, competition over space with an adjacent grab – a sugarcane/ethanol plantation – has severely interfered with relocation, drastically prolonging it. The case, more broadly, sheds light on how conservation, agricultural extraction and climate change mitigation – all forms of land acquisitions that incite dislocation – come together to produce novel patterns of environmental displacement, placing profound pressures on rural communities and their abilities to occupy space and access resources, including labour opportunities.
Two unrelated indigenous rainforest cultures are compared in relationship to their experiences with the oil industry in their territories. Despite their geographic separation, in Central Africa and western Amazonia, the acculturation process and its outcomes have been quite similar for the Bagyeli and the Waorani. In both cases, expectations for improvements in quality of life were high as the oil industry arrived but tremendous disappointments soon followed. Typically, indigenous people blame oil companies for creating unrealistic scenarios and for not following through with promises. To get its future neighbors on board with coming changes, enticements are a frequent part of conversations prior to establishment of industrial infrastructure and operations. Subsequent to development, indigenous people feel that they have been drawn into a negative situation, that they end up essentially abandoned by their governments, and that the oil companies come through with only a minimal proportion of what was originally offered.
This article contends that international tourism may be one important means by which the capitalist world-economy seeks to sustain itself in the face of inherent contradictions that threaten its long-term survival. Marxist critics have long identified an inevitable tendency towards crises of overproduction (over-accumulation) within the capitalist system, provoked by what Marx termed the central contradiction between imperatives of production and consumption. Subsequent analysts have highlighted a variety of so-called ‘fixes’ by which overproduction crises can be forestalled through spatial and/or temporal displacement of excess accumulated capital. Building upon this analysis, I outline a number of such fixes intrinsic to the development of the international tourism industry. In addition, I suggest that ecotourism development in particular provides additional fixes for capitalism's so-called ‘second contradiction’ between the imperative of continual growth and finite natural resources. In sum, I propose that advocacy of global ‘sustainable tourism’ by a transnational capitalist class may play an important role in sustaining capitalism as well.
Many conservationists nowadays talk about the urgent need to value nature. To bring out the ‘true value’ of nature and make conservation compatible with poverty reduction, so the argument goes, it must be appropriated into the realm of commodities and priced in monetary terms. By employing the concept of ‘derivative nature’, this paper explores the consequences of this neoliberal move. Derivatives are financial mechanisms whose monetary value is literally derived from the value of underlying assets. They were originally devised to reduce risk in the marketplace, but have actually made the global financial market immensely more complex and created more systemic risk and uncertainty because of their susceptibility to speculation. The paper suggests that similar processes can be seen in the arena of conservation. It argues that both nature and ‘the poor’ are increasingly becoming ‘underlying assets’ for what has become the ‘real’ source of value of neoliberal conservation, namely images and symbols within the realms of branding, public relations and marketing. Empirically grounded in a discussion on transfrontier conservation in Southern Africa in the run-up to the 2010 soccer World Cup, the paper examines the consequences of ‘derivative nature’ and calls for critical thinking to start facing these consequences.
This review examines the social, economic, and political effects of environmental conservation projects as they are manifested in protected areas. We pay special attention to people living in and displaced from protected areas, analyze the worldwide growth of protected areas over the past 20 years, and offer suggestions for future research trajectories in anthropology. We examine protected areas as a way of seeing, understanding, and producing nature (environment) and culture (society) and as a way of attempting to manage and control the relationship between the two. We focus on social, economic, scientific, and political changes in places where there are protected areas and in the urban centers that control these areas. We also examine violence, conflict, power relations, and governmentality as they are connected to the processes of protection. Finally, we examine discourse and its effects and argue that anthropology needs to move beyond the current examinations of language and power to attend to the ways in which protected areas produce space, place, and peoples.
Concern over the possible impacts of physical and economical displacement from protected areas is widespread and growing. Partly as a consequence of this there is now an increasing tendency to promote only voluntary displacement from protected areas. There are, however, good reasons to be cautious before welcoming this policy shift. In the first instance we should note that the extent of past evictions is far from clear, but that the demand for future displacement is likely to rise. Second, it is not always easy to distinguish voluntary from forced displacement. We discuss the difficulty of determining volition in migration and diverse contemporary conservation cases where different forms of pressure can be brought to bear within the bounds of “voluntary” migration. In the main part of this article we discuss in detail a case study of a particularly well known and apparently successful voluntary resettlement from the Korup National Park in Cameroon. We conclude that the many current attributes of protected areas’ policy and history in poorer parts of the world are likely to preclude the possibility of real voluntary resettlement.
"Displacement resulting from the establishment and enforcement of protected areas has troubled relationships between conservationists and rural groups in many parts of the world. This paper examines one aspect of displacement: eviction from protected areas. We examine divergent opinions about the quality of information available in the literature. We then examine the literature itself, discussing the patterns visible in nearly 250 reports we compiled over the last two years. We argue that the quality of the literature is not great, but that there are signs that this problem is primarily concentrated in a few regions of the world. We show that there has been a remarkable surge of publications about relocation after 1990, yet most protected areas reported in these publications were established before 1980. This reflects two processes, first a move within research circles to recover and rediscover protected areas' murky past, and second stronger enforcement of existing legislation. We review the better analyses of the consequences of relocation from protected areas which are available and highlight areas of future research."
A review of existing writings and available evidence suggests that there is no easy way for conservation professionals and organizations to defend conservation when it leads to forcible displacement of humans from areas that are to be protected, even if it is to stave off extinction of several species. Although there is clear evidence that the establishment of protected areas has been critical to the conservation of rare species and endangered habitats, there are very few studies that establish a relationship between the displacement of humans from the protected areas and the marginal gain such displacement confers on biodiversity conservation. Arguments in favor of displacement are built upon the assumption that human presence invariably impacts wildlife and biodiversity negatively. But studies have seldom focused on the extent to which this assumption is systematically correct. Therefore, generalizations asserting an inescapable conflict between biodiversity conservation and human presence in protected areas are no more accurate than those that suggest that a harmonious and sustainable relationship can and will prevail. If the scientific basis for displacing all humans from protected areas on conservationist grounds needs additional work, images showing human beings displaced by conservation projects have undeniable negative impacts. The ethical grounds for displacement, whether pursued in the name of a larger national interest or a general social good, have always been specious. The history of development-induced displacements is a useful guide in this regard. Rather than studying the negative social impact of protected areas on displaced peoples only once the political pressures for doing so makes it unavoidable, conservation organizations can take the lead in setting the agenda on how to address conservation-induced displacements, and by doing so follow the path that is both ethically appropriate, and good for conservation in the long run.
European settler societies have a long history of establishing a sense of belonging and entitlement outside Europe, but Zimbabwe has proven to be the exception to the rule. Arriving in the 1890s, white settlers never comprised more than a tiny minority. Instead of grafting themselves onto local societies, they adopted a strategy of escape.
Religious ideals have always been a central element in the interaction of the Western world with African society. Religion was a major motivation for the original fifteenth-century Portuguese explorations to discover the coast of Africa. Henry the Navigator was seeking to reunite European Christianity with the Christian kingdom of "Prester John," known to have survived in isolation for approximately a thousand years in Ethiopia. In the nineteenth century, David Livingstone opened up the interior of Africa in hopes of bringing Christianity to these domains. Yet the results of these religious missions have not always been very "Christian." Indeed, the spread of slavery and other forms of exploitation of ordinary Africans frequently followed in their wake. A number of the leading examples of past and present environmental colonialism are found in Tanzania, even though this nation is often considered to be among the most enlightened of African countries-a place where the corruption of government, the exploitation of ordinary people, the divisions of tribalism, and other African ills have been less severe. Yet in Tanzania, too, the creation of national parks and other game preserves has been and still is being accomplished only with the displacement of native tribal groups from their historic homelands, leaving them worse off economically and in some cases in dire poverty today. Like Christianity historically, current environmentalism is possessed of a strong missionary spirit. In this respect and others, the rise of environmental colonialism is not unrelated to Christianity in defending forms of colonialism. Hence, a brief digression on the religious character of modern environmentalism and its relationship to the Christian religious heritage of the West helps to set the stage for the subsequent parts of this article.
The natural resource political economy in Southern Africa is booming once more. Central in these dynamics are the practices, promises and consequences of 'investment'. Investment is ubiquitous in neoliberal discourse and has long been used as a synonym for 'development' and 'improvement', though it is also rooted in and often responsible for dynamics of dispossession. This article theorizes the ironic relations between these concepts and investigates them empirically by drawing on and connecting disparate investment spaces. Focusing on the Mozambican coal boom, the article connects the practices, promises and consequences of investment in resettled rural villages in Tete and an investors' conference in a 5-star hotel in Cape Town. It argues that 'everyday-type ironies' are an important way in which tensions and contradictions of capitalist investment are expressed and rendered manageable. 'Investing in irony', however, does not necessarily enhance the stability of the accumulation process. More importantly, the article concludes, it emphasizes its unpredictability. © 2015 European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes.
If our oil addiction is so bad for us, why don’t we kick the habit? Looking beyond the usual culprits—Big Oil, petro-states, and the strategists of empire—Lifeblood finds a deeper and more complex explanation in everyday practices of oil consumption in American culture. Those practices, Matthew T. Huber suggests, have in fact been instrumental in shaping the broader cultural politics of American capitalism. How did gasoline and countless other petroleum products become so central to our notions of the American way of life? Huber traces the answer from the 1930s through the oil shocks of the 1970s to our present predicament, revealing that oil’s role in defining popular culture extends far beyond material connections between oil, suburbia, and automobility. He shows how oil powered a cultural politics of entrepreneurial life—the very American idea that life itself is a product of individual entrepreneurial capacities. In so doing he uses oil to retell American political history from the triumph of New Deal liberalism to the rise of the New Right, from oil’s celebration as the lifeblood of postwar capitalism to increasing anxieties over oil addiction. Lifeblood rethinks debates surrounding energy and capitalism, neoliberalism and nature, and the importance of suburbanization in the rightward shift in American politics. Today, Huber tells us, as crises attributable to oil intensify, a populist clamoring for cheap energy has less to do with American excess than with the eroding conditions of life under neoliberalism. © 2013 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.
How native people—from the Miwoks of Yosemite to the Maasai of eastern Africa—have been displaced from their lands in the name of conservation.
Since 1900, more than 108,000 officially protected conservation areas have been established worldwide, largely at the urging of five international conservation organizations. About half of these areas were occupied or regularly used by indigenous peoples. Millions who had been living sustainably on their land for generations were displaced in the interests of conservation. In Conservation Refugees, Mark Dowie tells this story. This is a “good guy vs. good guy” story, Dowie writes; the indigenous peoples' movement and conservation organizations have a vital common goal—to protect biological diversity—and could work effectively and powerfully together to protect the planet and preserve biological diversity. Yet for more than a hundred years, these two forces have been at odds. The result: thousands of unmanageable protected areas and native peoples reduced to poaching and trespassing on their ancestral lands or “assimilated” but permanently indentured on the lowest rungs of the money economy. Dowie begins with the story of Yosemite National Park, which by the turn of the twentieth century established a template for bitter encounters between native peoples and conservation. He then describes the experiences of other groups, ranging from the Ogiek and Maasai of eastern Africa and the Pygmies of Central Africa to the Karen of Thailand and the Adevasis of India. He also discusses such issues as differing definitions of “nature” and “wilderness,” the influence of the “BINGOs” (Big International NGOs, including the Worldwide Fund for Nature, Conservation International, and The Nature Conservancy), the need for Western scientists to respect and honor traditional lifeways, and the need for native peoples to blend their traditional knowledge with the knowledge of modern ecology. When conservationists and native peoples acknowledge the interdependence of biodiversity conservation and cultural survival, Dowie writes, they can together create a new and much more effective paradigm for conservation.
Anthropologists have paid substantial attention to the environment and to tourism. However, they have paid less attention to their conjunction in ecotourism. This article focuses on Western ecotourism in relatively poor countries, approaching it as an expression of certain important Western values concerning the natural world and the people who live there. It places ecotourism within its broader political-economic context-neoliberalism and the institutions that reflect it, which foster its spread in the countries in question. Ecotourism may be seen as an exercise in power that can shape the natural world and the people who live in it in ways that contradict some of the values that it is supposed to express. © 2004 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved.
International environmental agreements assume that nation-states have the capacity, Internal legitimacy, and the will to manage resources within their territorial boundaries. Although many state agencies or factions may be interested in joining international conservation interests to preserve threatened resources and habitats, some state interests appropriate the ideology, legitimacy, and technology of conservation as a means of increasing or appropriating their control over valuable resources and recalcitrant populations. While international conservation groups may have no direct agenda for using violence to protect biological resources, their support of states which either lack the capacity to manage resources or intend to control ‘national’ resources at any price, contributes to the disenfranchisement of indigenous people with resource claims. This paper compares two examples of state efforts to control valuable resources in Kenya and Indonesia. In both cases, the maintenance of state control has led to a militarization of the resource ‘conservation’ process. International conservation interests either directly or indirectly legitimate the states' use of force in resource management.
A biopolitics of the population, when it succeeds in securing life and wellbeing, is surely worth having. It has become urgent in rural Asia, where a new round of enclosures has dispossessed large numbers of people from access to land as a way to sustain their own lives, and neoliberal policies have curtailed programs that once helped to sustain rural populations. At the same time, new jobs in manufacturing have not emerged to absorb this population. They are thus “surplus” to the needs of capital, and not plausibly described as a labour reserve. Who, then, would act to keep these people alive, and why would they act? I examine this question by contrasting a conjuncture in India, where a make live program has been assembled under the rubric of the “right to food”, and Indonesia, where the massacre of the organized left in 1965 has left dispossessed populations radically exposed.
This review critically surveys an extensive literature on mining, devel-opment, and environment. It identifies a significant broadening over time in the scope of the environment question as it relates to mining, from concerns about landscape aesthetics and pollution to ecosystem health, sustainable development, and indige-nous rights. A typology compares and contrasts four distinctive approaches to this question: (a) technology and management-centered accounts, defining the issue in terms of environmental performance; (b) public policy studies on the design of effec-tive institutions for capturing benefits and allocating costs of resource development; (c) structural political economy, highlighting themes of external control, resource rights, and environmental justice; and (d) cultural studies, which illustrate how mining exemplifies many of society's anxieties about the social and environmental effects of industrialization and globalization. Each approach is examined in detail.
Is the conflict between biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction, which frequently arises in park creation programs, insoluble? The authors report empirical evidence from 12 case studies from six countries, which are analyzed through the conceptual lens of the Impoverishment Risks and Reconstruction Model for Involuntary Resettlement. The research concludes conservatively that parks in the Congo basin have already displaced and impoverished about 120–150 000 people and that more will be displaced if this approach continues, despite its deleterious outcomes. The authors argue that the park-establishment strategy predicated upon compulsory population displacement has exhausted its credibility and compromised the cause of biodiversity conservation by inflicting aggravated impoverishment on very large numbers of people. They recommend that the concerned Governments should desist using the eviction approach. The alternative course, proposed by the authors, is to replace forced displacements with a pro-poor strategy that pursues “double sustainability,” to protect both the biodiversity and people’s livelihoods at the same time.
"Action to conserve biodiversity, particularly through the creation of protected areas (PAs), is inherently political. Political ecology is a field of study that embraces the interactions between the way nature is understood and the politics and impacts of environmental action. This paper explores the political ecology of conservation, particularly the establishment of PAs. It discusses the implications of the idea of pristine nature, the social impacts of and the politics of PA establishment and the way the benefits and costs of PAs are allocated. It considers three key political issues in contemporary international conservation policy: the rights of indigenous people, the relationship between biodiversity conservation and the reduction of poverty, and the arguments of those advocating a return to conventional PAs that exclude people."
It is now commonplace to assert that the contemporary discursive landscape is strewn with an abundance of environmental narratives. Yet these stories about nature seldom speak of the material geographies that link practices of postindustrial consumption to often-distant spaces of commodity supply. A postscarcity narrative in which the availability of natural resources no longer poses a limiting factor on economic growth, therefore, characterizes the current period. In this paper I examine how these narratives of `resource triumphalism' construct the nature of commodities and the places that supply them. Using a range of sources, I illustrate how extractive spaces are constructed through a discursive dialectic which simultaneously erases socioecological histories and reinscribes space in the image of the commodity. The paper advances the claim that, despite their apparent marginality in narratives of postindustrialism, primary commodity-supply zones play a key role within broader narratives about modernity and social life. I draw on Hetherington's reworking of the concept of heterotopia to argue that commodity-supply zones be considered contemporary 'badlands', marginal spaces in and through which broader processes of sociospatial ordering are worked out. By examining the geographical imaginaries associated with mineral extraction, I demonstrate how contemporary discourses of commodity-supply space facilitate the material practices through which such ordering occurs.
- Fletcher
The ecotourism/extraction nexus: rural realities and political economies of (un)comfortable bedfellows
- Smith T
The ecotourism/extraction nexus: rural realities and political economies of (un)comfortable bedfellows
- Walsh A
The ecotourism/extraction nexus: rural realities and political economies of (un)comfortable bedfellows
- D'Amico L
The ecotourism/extraction nexus: rural realities and political economies of (un)comfortable bedfellows
- Davidov V
- Büscher B
The ecotourism/extraction nexus: rural realities and political economies of (un)comfortable bedfellows
- Revelin F
- Chatty D