Protected areas

Question 1

There are almost 300,000 registered Protected Areas (February 2024) covering 244 countries and territories in the world

Answer 1

World Database on Protected Areas (2024)

This does not include private protected areas.

Question 2

In Australia, Russia and the U.S., PAs have been implemented since the late C19, excluding IP.
The idea of setting land aside was heavily influenced by ‘Man and Nature’
Yellowstone established in 1872, the first national park, heavily promoted by the railroad industry

Answer 2

Poirer & Ostergren (2003)

Question 3

This paper examines the 6 IUCN categories for PAs using two Australian Aboriginal case studies, the system of Indigenous Protected Areas and the trouwunnann country of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
AA that nature is classified, mapped and bounded. This has alienated IP by only allowing certain types of activities which need to fit into pre-determined cultural guidelands.
Relational tribal boundaries are transformed into zoning maps.
➡ fundamental tensions in nature/culture dualism, which is still upheld by IUCN guidelines

Answer 3

Lee (2016)

Question 4

A protected area is a territorialising practice, intended to restrict human and non-human interaction

Answer 4

Neumann (2015)

Question 5

Seminal 1996 essay. Wilderness as a construct. Yellowstone model extrapolated, and necessitated the U.S. army and marketing experts. Native Americans then made to reappear in these landscapes to provide services

Answer 5

Cronon (1996)

Question 6

A ‘radical’ proposal for 50% of the world’s surface to be set aside, free from human activity, for biodiversity.
For this to happen, PAs would need to more than triple in extent on land, and by more than ten-fold in the oceans.

Answer 6

Wilson (2016); Nature Needs Half (2016)

Question 7

Critique of Nature Needs Half, which offers no true agenda and does not focus on the main drivers of loss.

Answer 7

Buscher et al (2017)

Question 8

A response to Waldron et al (2021), which proposed setting aside 30% of the planet for nature. Critiques include a lack of detail, ignoring local needs, ignoring biodiversity loss drivers and a research team from the GN.
Such proposals read like a model of colonialism - driven by environmental interests from high-emission countries and imposed on developing countries.
We need a more nuanced perspective on PAs: what types are promoted, and the means by which they are sustained.

Answer 8

Agrawal et al (2021)

Question 9

PAs have contradictory effects. Some evidence that people are displaced/denied access to resources, but can also benefit livelihoods and secure the rights of people to land that would have otherwise been lost to other interests.
Cases are diverse, so we cannot generalise. And seeing as PAs are going to be a requisite in future conservation, we need to continue having high-quality evaluations.

Links to Agrawal & Kent (2009) - displacement and conservation.

Answer 9

Brockington & Wilkie (2015)

Question 10

This paper focuses on the social lives of PAs - what are their social/material/symbolic effects? PAs, and other conservation policies, are not just policies. They reflect ways of seeing/understanding the relationship between humans and nature, and therefore are rich sites of social production.
Negative impacts: altering land rights, giving increased elite control, criminalising native peoples due to land-use practices, displacement
Positive impacts: locals can resist, PAs can also produced new sorts of lands that are owned by the state and used by locals for livelihood needs
Costs and benefits are unevenly distributed

Answer 10

West et al (2009)

Question 11

We need to be careful of understanding IP as the primary victims of PA displacement.
IP are not homogenous: some are more ‘indigenous’ than others and more able to articulate the same claims to indigenity (e.g. San groups in Namibia vs Botswana)
+ IP are not always the most marginal people displaced and impoverished by PAs

Answer 11

Igoe (2005)

Question 12

An outline paper of green grabbing.

Green grabbing = the appropriation of land and resources for environmental ends
Building on old histories of colonial resource alienation
Local context is key, green grabbing looks different depending on regionally specific histories
Neoliberalism has led to novel forms of valuation and commodification, and a new range of actors/alliances
Important to leave room for agency

Answer 12

Fairhead et al (2012)

Question 13

A study overview of PAs.

Study analysed 165 PA using 171 studies.
It found that successful PAs led to socioeconomic benefits, sustainable resource use (rather than strict protection) and the empowerment of locals.
The regional context determined the extent and nature of effects e.g. political representation of rural populations, transparency of national government
The key conflict between human development and positive conservation is not as simple as it might seem

Answer 13

Oldekop et al (2015)

Links to Dawson et al (2021) - the role of IP in effective conservation.
And Garnett et al (2018) - on IP management of PAs.

Question 14

IP managed PAs.

IP have deep spiritual ties to the land
We need to recognise these rights to meet conservation goals
IP management institutions have proven to be resilient especially from the bottom-up

There could be an issue of co-optation.

IP - have tenure rights/manage over 25% of the world’s surface, but represent >5% of the global population.

Answer 14

Garnett et al (2018)

Question 15

Do PPAs conserve biodiversity?

PPAs experience key issues in different ways to state PAs, especially regarding social accountability.
* Critiqued for preserving the interests of a narrow and wealthy section of society
* Accusations of neocolonialism and green-grabbing
* Best considered as a supplement rather than substitute

Answer 15

Holmes (2013)

Question 16

Private protected areas: a conservation strategy seen as a neoliberal form of conservation.
Largely absent in literature - but are growing in number

Answer 16

PPA overview

Question 17

Case study. Oryx reintroduction project, Arabian Peninsula. This was lauded as a success story and involved the creation of a buffer zone where hunting was banned.
However, the local Harasiis people, who had exercised their grazing rights for years, now have resorted to poaching as a financial and subsistence option.

Answer 17

Chatty (2002)

Question 18

Case study. The Catimbau National Park in Brazil, an example of negative impacts on IP due to PAs.
IP well-being is connected with the landscape through place-based relational values that have developed over generations: goats and cattle grazing, medicine, wood, community
IP had had very little contact with park management, feared displacement and felt that management wanted to control their cultural practices.
Villagers have had very little involvement in tourism.
Whilst there are some examples of conservation initiatives under the relative control of locals, these are scarce.

Answer 18

Dawson et al (2023)

Question 19

Case study on the impacts on IP of PAs. The Batwa people in Uganda - have lost access to the forest for their livelihoods and cultural practices.
* High levels of poverty, substance abuse, prostitution
* BUT they also have vast knowledge and have conserved their forest culture amidst waves of development
* From the 2000s onwards, the Batwa became more active in asserting their presence. e.g. petitioning the Ugandan court to seek redress
So whilst the dominant discourse presents Batwa as passive victims of conservation, they are also actively involved with selling products for tourism.

Builds on Laudati (2010), which presents a wholly negative and pessimistic viewpoint of the Batwa.

Answer 19

Ampumuza (2020)

Question 20

PPA in NE Argentina.

Case study. Douglas Tompkins, clothing billionaire and founder of Conservation Land Trust, has acquired large tracts of land in NE Argentina.
AA these are land grabs that take away local control - response has been polemic with concerns of reduced sovereignty
However, Tompkins has funded new infrastructure and roads to open access to his reserve, facilitating small-scale tourism development.
Is the root issue here Tompkins himself, or the governmental context which has allowed barriers to investment and overlooks the desires of impacted communities?

Answer 20

Buscher et al (2018)

Question 21

Chile’s neoliberal and PPA context.

Case study. Douglas Tompkins purchased tracts of land such as Parque Pumalin, one of the world’s largest PAs.
This led to concerns that he was locking up natural resources, so he was no longer allowed to buy more and agreed for infrastructure to be built.
This was criticised for being anti-neoliberal and contrary to the freedom given to all other foreign buyers.
More than 300 PPAs have been established, owned by individuals, universities, NGOs and businesses, with varied interests from conservation to tourism and carbon credits
Because of Chile’s institutional context and aversion to state-led conservation, PPAs present a limited way in which ecological diversity can be protected - a ‘jujutsu’ reaction.
➡ What broader economic contexts allow only certain forms of conservation to thrive? What is the role of the state in ‘neoliberal’ restructuring? Is it valid to argue that in this context, engaging with the market is a necessary evil?

Answer 21

Holmes (2018)