106
4
Conclusions
In this chapter, we have focused on the importance of making an analytical distinction
between discourses and practices in conservation. On that basis, we have documented
a mismatch between discourse and practice in two cases of protected areas; one in
South Africa and one in India. Today the win-win discourse on protected areas dominates presentations on area conservation in Africa, but in both cases, we found practice
to be in consistence with the previously dominating fortress conservation discourse.
How can this mismatch between discourse and practice be explained? We argue that both conservation organizations and government officials have interests
in reproducing the win-win discourse, albeit for different reasons. It should not be
surprising that conservation NGOs are giving priority to conservation aiming at including as large areas as possible under their ‘jurisdiction’. They, however, depend on
reproducing the win-win discourse in order to attract funding from state aid agencies
as well as from companies and wealthy individuals.
State conservation agencies are also important contributors to the win-win discourse on protected areas and are at the same time implementing practices more
closely associated with fortress conservation leading to dispossession of a ‘surplus
population’. In order to attract external funding and tourists to their country, they
have an interest in maintaining an impression of a win-win situation between conservation and local people.
Instead, they maintain settlements within the reserve, but find their land and resource
use restricted to the point that they were forced to replace farming with becoming
labourers on nearby coffee estates and agricultural lands.
The conversion from independent producer to labourer also involves rapid rural
proletarianization (Hall 2011). Adivasi are certainly a ‘surplus population’ (Li 2009)
who are ‘in the way’ of conservation and accumulation. The chronic squeeze on
livelihoods and the resultant proletarianization makes it easy for the state to eventually remove Adivasi from these landscapes.
. Photo 4.3 Who
should be made live and
let die? (Photo: Tor
A. Benjaminsen)
Chapter 4 · Conservation Discourses Versus Practices
4
Conclusions
In this chapter, we have focused on the importance of making an analytical distinction
between discourses and practices in conservation. On that basis, we have documented
a mismatch between discourse and practice in two cases of protected areas; one in
South Africa and one in India. Today the win-win discourse on protected areas dominates presentations on area conservation in Africa, but in both cases, we found practice
to be in consistence with the previously dominating fortress conservation discourse.
How can this mismatch between discourse and practice be explained? We argue that both conservation organizations and government officials have interests
in reproducing the win-win discourse, albeit for different reasons. It should not be
surprising that conservation NGOs are giving priority to conservation aiming at including as large areas as possible under their ‘jurisdiction’. They, however, depend on
reproducing the win-win discourse in order to attract funding from state aid agencies
as well as from companies and wealthy individuals.
State conservation agencies are also important contributors to the win-win discourse on protected areas and are at the same time implementing practices more
closely associated with fortress conservation leading to dispossession of a ‘surplus
population’. In order to attract external funding and tourists to their country, they
have an interest in maintaining an impression of a win-win situation between conservation and local people.
Instead, they maintain settlements within the reserve, but find their land and resource
use restricted to the point that they were forced to replace farming with becoming
labourers on nearby coffee estates and agricultural lands.
The conversion from independent producer to labourer also involves rapid rural
proletarianization (Hall 2011). Adivasi are certainly a ‘surplus population’ (Li 2009)
who are ‘in the way’ of conservation and accumulation. The chronic squeeze on
livelihoods and the resultant proletarianization makes it easy for the state to eventually remove Adivasi from these landscapes.
. Photo 4.3 Who
should be made live and
let die? (Photo: Tor
A. Benjaminsen)
Chapter 4 · Conservation Discourses Versus Practices