| 1. |
- Gooch, Pernille
(author)
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Victims of Conservation or Rights as Forest Dwellers: The Van Gujjar pastoralists between contesting codes of law
- 2009
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In: Conservation & Society. - : Medknow. - 0972-4923. ; 7:4, s. 239-248
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Van (forest) Gujjars, surviving as forest pastoralists in the central part of the Indian Himalaya, are a people who, due to their nomadic lifestyle, have since colonial rule found themselves at the margin of Indian society. This paper will look at the relationship between the Van Gujjars and their forest base in a historical perspective from colonial rule to 'conservation of nature' and the 'rights of forest dwellers' and further discuss how changing codes and rules of power affect the society-citizen-nature / forest relationship for the community. We will look back into history and see how a system of strict control and regulation of Van Gujjars as nomadic pastoralists without a fixed address, initiated during colonial time, was continued by the national state of India after independence. We will further discuss how a history of unequal treatment and marginalisation of Van Gujjar pastoralists has continued into the present. What is manifest here is 'the forest' as a contested space: a site of power struggles, where forest dwellers are threatened with displacement in order to provide space, first for modern forestry and revenue producing land, and later for conservation of nature. The paper further looks at the latest developments where the Van Gujjars now have obtained domicile rights such as voters' rights and have been linked with Government services for education and health. It finishes by discussing the new possibilities and hopes for the community provided by the The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act.
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| 2. |
- Hansen, Melissa, et al.
(author)
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The Politics of Natural Resource Enclosure in South Africa and Ecuador
- 2015
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In: Conservation and Society. - : Medknow. - 0975-3133 .- 0972-4923. ; 13:3, s. 287-298
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The paper examines the ways in which states facilitate 'new enclosures' of natural resources, and the challenges of this as a strategy of development and environmental sustainability. We argue that enclosures introduce significant changes in property regimes, which redefine conditions for the access and control of land and forest, especially for tribal and indigenous communities. In this context, we analyse two state-initiated projects-the iSimangaliso Wetland Park in South Africa, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the Socio Bosque incentive conservation programme in Ecuador.
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| 3. |
- Dalberg, Annika, et al.
(author)
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National Parks and Environmental Justice : Comparing Access Rights and Ideological Legacies in Three countries
- 2010
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In: Conservation and Society. - India : Wolters Kluwer Health. - 0972-4923 .- 0975-3133. ; 8:3, s. 209-224
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- National parks are often places where people have previously lived and worked-they have been formed by a combination of natural and human processes that embody an identifiable history of cultural and political values. Conservation of protected areas is primarily about how we perceive such landscapes, how we place differential values on different landscape components, and who gets to decide on these values. Thus, conservation has been and still is very much about issues of power and environmental justice. This paper analyses the social, political and environmental histories of three national park regimes (South Africa, Sweden and Scotland) through the lens of public access rights. We examine the evolving status of access rights-in a broad sense that includes access to land, resources and institutions of governance-as a critical indicator of the extent to which conservation policies and legislation realise the aims of environmental justice in practice. Our case studies illustrate how access rights are contingent on the historical settings and ideological contexts in which the institutions controlling national park management have evolved. Dominant cultural, political and scientific ideologies have given rise to historical precedents and institutional structures that affect the promotion of environmental justice in and around national parks today. In countries where national parks were initially created to preserve perceived 'wilderness', with decisions taken by powerful elites and central authorities, this historical legacy has prevented profound change in line with new policy directives. The comparative analysis of national park regimes, where historical trajectories both converge and diverge, was useful in improving our understanding of contemporary issues involving conservation, people and politics
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| 4. |
- Ghosh, Nilanjan, et al.
(author)
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Tiger, Lion, and Human Life in the Heart of Wilderness : Impacts of Institutional Tourism on Development and Conservation in East Africa and India
- 2013
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In: Conservation and Society. - : Medknow. - 0972-4923 .- 0975-3133. ; 11:4, s. 375-390
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article tests the hypothesis on whether tourism is an important institutional factor in reconciling the conflicting goals of conservation and development. The study entails data from field surveys across protected areas including the Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in northern Tanzania, and the Corbett National Park in northern India. With human development defined in terms of stages of progress (SOP) delineated by the respondents themselves, the study finds indicative evidences of the validity of the posed hypothesis in the two nations, in varying proportions. Factors not related to tourism, like incomes from livestock, have affected development in Tanzania, though not in India.
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| 5. |
- Karlsson, Bengt G., 1961-
(author)
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The Forest of Our Lives : In and Out of Political Ecology
- 2016
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In: Conservation and Society. - Bangalore : ARTREE. - 0972-4923 .- 0975-3133. ; 14:4, s. 380-390
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this article, I seek to bring together a number of environmental histories to think about the place of forest in our lives. It is partly autobiographical in the sense that it concerns forest issues that 1, for various reasons, have been entangled with recently. These are the making of carbon (REDD+) forests in Northeast India, preservation of the urban forests and planting of indigenous trees in Karura forests in Nairobi, Kenya, and the transformation of Swedish forests into vast industrial plantations. I come to these issues with little knowledge about the forest ecology or the flora and fauna, as such, but rather as a scholar with earlier experience of analysis of the social and political dynamics involved in conflicts over forests, that is, how differently powered actors seek to appropriate, stake claims to or control the forest. Hence, my point of departure and analytical framework is largely that of political ecology. In a conversation about the work of the anthropologist Brian Morris, I will point to the thinness of such an approach and open up aspects that are critical to Morris' way of engaging with the interactions of people, plants, insects, and animals. This, I will argue, is a truly grounded environmental anthropology.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Von Essen, Erica, et al.
(author)
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How Stakeholder Co-management Reproduces Conservation Conflicts: Revealing Rationality Problems in Swedish Wolf Conservation
- 2015
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In: Conservation and Society. - : Medknow. - 0972-4923 .- 0975-3133. ; 13, s. 332-344
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- 'Stakeholder' has become the primary category of political actor in decision-making, not least within nature conservation. Drawing from Habermas' theory on communicative action, this article argues that there are democratic deficits to the stakeholder model that promote citizens to remain locked in predetermined, polarized positions. It contends that the stakeholder model must, hence, be scrutinized with respect to its potential role in perpetuating conservation conflicts in modernity. Using the case study of stakeholder-based game management delegations (GMDs) in Sweden, our research identifies four barriers, which tie to the instrumental basis and liberal democratic legacy of the stakeholder approach: 1) strong sense of accountability; 2) overly purposive atmosphere; 3) overemphasis on decision as final outcome; and 4) perceived inability on the part of the delegates to influence science-led decision-making. The article suggests that these democratic deficits preclude the deliberation and contestation necessary to legitimate conservation policy. Indeed, stakeholder rationality causes citizens to become inert, instrumental agents who approach discussion with strategic rather than communicative rationality. We conclude that the deficits of the stakeholder model currently: 1) restrict democratic freedom for citizens; 2) engender a crisis of legitimacy of management; and 3) reproduce the conflict, which in Sweden relates to the conservation of wolves.
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| 8. |
- von Heland, Franciska, et al.
(author)
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Whose Threat Counts? : Conservation Narratives in the Wakatobi National Park, Indonesia
- 2015
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In: Conservation and Society. - : Medknow. - 0972-4923 .- 0975-3133. ; 13:2, s. 154-165
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The ongoing global decline of coral reefs and their associated fisheries highlights issues of governance, including contrasting interpretations of the marine environment, the drivers and agents of environmental degradation, and the appropriate actions to address these. It is therefore essential to understand the social practices of value articulation through which marine ecosystems and resources are assigned meaning and recognition. In this regard, narratives identifying which aspects of the environment should be made resilient, to what threats, and through which solutions are particularly important. Such narratives may fundamentally alter marine governance by defining which knowledge counts, steering conservation activities toward certain goals, and assigning people with new identities. We explore these issues in the context of a marine national park in eastern Indonesia, where the key narratives revolve around values associated with high coral reef biodiversity. International and domestic conservation-oriented organisations promote a narrative describing the park as a success story exemplifying co-management and equality in decision-making. Furthermore, a narrative emphasising illegal fishing by outsiders creates an adversarial scenario that favours certain more powerful institutions and subsumes competing narratives emanating from disadvantaged ethnic minorities. We suggest that these narratives reflect critical issues of governance, including resource allocation, management practices, stakeholder relations, and influence conservation outcomes by favouring the protection of some species, ecosystems, and sites over others.
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| 9. |
- Westholm, Lisa, 1980, et al.
(author)
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Defining Solutions, Finding Problems: Deforestation, Gender, and REDD plus in Burkina Faso
- 2015
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In: Conservation & Society. - : Medknow. - 0972-4923 .- 0975-3133. ; 13:2, s. 189-199
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) is a policy instrument meant to mitigate climate change while also achieving poverty reduction in tropical countries. It has garnered critics for homogenising environmental and development governance and for ignoring how similar efforts have tended to exacerbate gender inequalities. Nonetheless, regarding such schemes as inevitable, some feminists argue for requirements that include womens empowerment and participation. In this paper we move beyond discussions about safeguards and examine whether the very framing of REDD programs can provide openings for a transformation as argued for by its proponents. Following the REDD policy process in Burkina Faso, we come to two important insights: REDD is a solution in need of a problem. Assumptions about gender are at the heart of creating actionable knowledge that enabled REDD to be presented as a policy solution to the problems of deforestation, poverty and gender inequality. Second, despite its safeguards, REDD appears to be perpetuating gendered divisions of labour, as formal environmental decision-making moves upwards; and responsibility and the burden of actual environmental labour shifts further down in particularly gendered ways. We explore how this is enabled by the development of policies whose stated aims are to tackle inequalities.
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