Political Ecology - Relationship To Conservation

Relationship To Conservation

When speaking of political ecology and conservation, one ultimately finds that there is a divergence of ideas, issues, and troubles, especially when looking at conservation through biodiversity and the creation of conservation units. Sutton (2004) defines political ecology as “the study of the day-to–day conflicts, alliances, and negotiations that ultimately result in some sort of definitive behavior; how politics affects or structures resource use” (311). It is a matter of who is involved and what they eventually want the outcome to be, such as the views from NGOs or those of the local people and the government of the occupied land. They must all consider their involvement in this matter. Are the actions local people contributing an asset to the area or are they in effect causing more harm than good?Are the NGOs helping the situation and for whose benefit? What is the government’s role in this; where do they stand?

Biodiversity, meaning biological diversity, can be briefly defined as “the number and dominance of species present in an ecosystem” (Sutton 2004: 308). Many, however, feel that in cases where the local indigenous people are using slash and burn are, in effect, harming the area or in other cases where logging is being done. In some cases, biosphere reserves have been created. Hanna et al. states:

Biosphere reserves can be platforms for building place specific, mutually reinforcing policies and practices that facilitates conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, economic growth and other needs and aspirations of local communities and the emergence of knowledge based governance and management arrangements at local, provincial and national levels. (2008: 21)

These reserves are made in places such as conservation units like protected areas. It is important to not forget about the people who are also affected by the creation of these units.

With the creation of these conservation units, “political ecologists have devoted some energy to the study of protected areas, which is unsurprising given political ecology’s overall interest in forms of access to, and control over resources” (Hanna, et al. 2004: 203). The local people must in some cases show that they are as important as the area which they occupy, despite the thought that those who slash and burn are seen as doing harm. Most people have occupied the same areas for many generations and, because of their practices, can also be seen as an important aspect of the area. Just as, Dove and Carpenter state, “indigenous people have important environmental knowledge which could contribute to conservation” (2008: 4). However, some people are removed from the land. In any case, others who get involved such as NGOs and the government then make decisions about who can access the land and how it can be used, putting regulations on the local people. Sutton explains this as:

In a few cases, perhaps especially tragic local groups have been displaced to create national parks and reserves to ‘conserve’ the forest. Fortunately, most conservation bodies are now aware that, if a group has been using and managing a forest for several thousand years, throwing it off the land is more apt to destroy the forest ecosystem than to preserve it. (2004: 302)

But population increases by these people can also be seen as a problem for these areas due to over-usage and lack of sustainability.