galvin_haller_nccr_people_protected_areas_2008.pdf

People, Protected Areas and Global Change


Participatory Conservation in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe

Edited by Marc Galvin and Tobias Haller

NCCR North-South Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research North-South University of Bern Switzerland

Citation:Galvin M, Haller T, editors. 2008. People, Protected Areas and GlobalChange: Participatory Conservation in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe. Perspectives of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South, University of Bern, Vol. 3. Bern: Geogra- phica Bernensia, 560 pp.

Copyright 2008 by NCCR North-South, Bern, Switzerland.All rights reserved.

Published by:NCCR North-Southc/o Centre for Development and Environment (CDE)University of Bern, Institute of GeographyHallerstrasse 10, 3012 Bern, Switzerland.

ISBN: 978-3-905835-06-9Geographica Bernensia, Bern.

Coordination of publication:Anne Zimmermann (NCCR North-South).

English language editing:Theodore Wachs, Marlne Thibault, Anne Zimmermann (CDE) and David Taylor (Zurich).

Layout:Simone Kummer (CDE).

Printed by:Staempfli AG, Wlflistrasse 1, 3001 Bern, Switzerland.

Printed on FSC paper

Distribution:Additional copies may be obtained from NCCR North-South, c/o CDE, Bern: [email protected]. A downloadable version of this publication is available at: www.north-south.unibe.ch

Cover photo:Conflicts between game wardens and people before the time of partici-patory conservation in the Waza Logone area, Cameroon. (Anonymous painter; photo of painting taken at the entrance of Waza National Park, Cameroon, by T. Haller)

Produktgruppe aus vorbildlich bewirtschafteten Wldern und anderen kontrollierten Herknften.

www.fsc.org Cert. No. SQS-COC-22253 1996 Forest Stewardship Council

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Table of Contents

Foreword 7 Hans Hurni

Acknowledgements 9

Introduction: The Problem of Participatory Conservation 13Tobias Haller and Marc Galvin

Part I Latin American Case Studies: Conservation as Political Gain for Local Actors

1 Struggling Ontological Com munities: The Transformation of Conservationists and Peasants Discourses in the Tunari National Park, Bolivia

Sbastien Boillat, Stephan Rist, Elvira Serrano, Dora Ponce, Jaime Delgadillo 37

2 Linking Socio- and Bio- Diversity: The Stakes of Indigenous and Non-indigenous Co-management in the Bolivian Lowlands

Patrick Bottazzi 81

3 The Difficult Invention of Participation in the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, Peru

Alex lvarez, Jamil Alca, Marc Galvin, Alfredo Garca 111

4 Pizarro Protected Area: A Political Ecology Perspective on Land Use, Soybeans and Argentinas Nature Conservation Policy

Marc Hufty 145

Part II African Case Studies: Conservation and the Minimal Benefits for Local Actors

5 Government Wildlife, Unful filled Promises and Business: Lessons from Partici patory Conservation in the Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania

Patrick Meroka and Tobias Haller 177

6 Conservation for Whose Benefit? Challenges and Opportunities for Management of Mkomazi Game Reserve, Tanzania

Gimbage E. Mbeyale and Alexander N. Songorwa 221


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7 Integrated Fortress Conservation in the Buffer Zone of Ankarafantsika National Park: Malagasy Narratives of Conservation, Participation and Livelihoods

Frank Muttenzer 253

8 The Evolution of Institutional Approaches in the Simen Mountains National Park, Ethiopia

Hans Hurni, Leykun Abunie, Eva Ludi, Mulugeta Woubshet 287

9 Are Local Stakeholders Conservationists? Livelihood Insecurity and Participatory Management of Waza National Park, North Cameroon

Gilbert Fokou and Tobias Haller 325

Part III Asian and European Case Studies: An Evolution of Interests

10 Because the Project Is Helping Us to Improve Our Lives, We Also Help Them with Conservation Integrated Conservation and Development in the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area, Nepal

Urs Mller, Ghana S. Gurung, Michael Kollmair, Ulrike Mller-Bker 363

11 Environmentality Reconsidered: Indigenous To Lindu Conservation Strategies and the Reclaiming of the Commons in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

Greg Acciaioli 401

12 Linking Livelihoods and Protected Area Conservation in Vietnam: Phong Nha K Bng World Heritage, Local Futures?

Peter Bille Larsen 431

13 Protection: A Means for Sustainable Development? The Case of the Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn World Heritage Site in Switzerland

Astrid Wallner, Stephan Rist, Karina Liechti, Urs Wiesmann 471

Part IV Conclusion

14 Participation, Ideologies and Strategies: A Comparative New Institutionalist Analysis of Community Conservation

Tobias Haller and Marc Galvin 507

Afterword 551 Stan Stevens

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Foreword

Foreword

Global concern about the maintenance of the Earths biological diversity in 1992 induced broad agreement among governments to establish a Con-vention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which was endorsed during the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro and has since been signed by 168 states. Between 1992 and 2008, protected areas increased from 9% to over 12% of the earths ice-free land area. This total surface area is as large as the surface for all cultivated land, which feeds humanity and a good part of our livestock. But what are the benefits of these protected areas? What sacrifices must people endure in order to preserve flora and fauna, and ensure eventual use by later genera-tions? How can local land users be compensated for losses that directly affect them?

There are serious problems between people and protected areas all over the world. In particular, numerous land users be they farmers, herders, busi-nesspeople or tourists are affected by rules and regulations that were set up by governments and have been reinforced in the CBD ratification proc-ess. Public opinion, as well as the attitudes of those who want to make good use of the resources available in protected areas, are often opposed to the idea of area protection. Increasingly, there have been calls for greater pub-lic participation in the management of protected areas, and scientists have supported this in numerous publications commissioned by institutions such as the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) of the World Con-servation Union (IUCN). The basic question is: does public participation increase the effectiveness of protected area management? Or is it just a means to safeguard or even enhance current human uses in such areas?

As a research partnership programme, the NCCR North-South has gained considerable experience with case studies on people and protected areas carried out since 2001 in different contexts on four continents: Latin Amer-ica, Africa, Asia and Europe. These individual studies looked at the prob-lems people faced and at environmental issues from a variety of angles, including governance, conflict transformation, livelihoods, institutions and natural resources. On 31 August 2005, Tobias Haller and Marc Galvin, who had both been involved as senior researchers in the NCCR North-South, proposed a transversal analysis and a common synthesis of the case studies on protected areas that were then available. This was a project endorsed with pleasure by the Board of Directors, and for which the necessary finan-cial support was made available in due course. The present book is the out-


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come of this project, which took nearly three years to complete. It answers a basic question: what are the ecological, social and economic benefits of enhanced participation in protected area management and use?

All 13 case studies in this book were written by different authors who complied with thorough guidelines set by the Editors, for which theoretical support is presented in their introductory article (pp 13-34). All contribu-tions were reviewed by distinguished external experts. The Editors then analysed them in a comparative manner, using the theoretical framework of New Institutionalism, including a comparison with experience in other protected areas found in the literature, which they present in a concluding synthesis chapter in Part IV of the book (pp 507-549). The basic hypothesis of the Editors is that sustainable conservation in a protected area can only take place if people can fully participate, and if there are incentives at the household and individual level for them to do so.

The synthesis shows that participation in the protected areas under study was generally better in theory, i.e. according to existing regulations, than in perceived practice. In most cases, however, this gap did not drastically worsen the sustainability of conservation efforts, although there are cases where it did. The use of New Institutionalism as a tool apparently made it possible to address the issue of participation in conservation very well. However, this tool is weaker in assessing overall sustainability in general, and ecological sustainability in particular.

What I have personally learnt from this book and from my own experience in one of the case studies presented here is that the participatory approach is very appealing in terms of its promise as a sustainable conservation strat-egy in protected areas; but it requires careful assessment and application.

Bern, Switzerland Hans HurniJune 2008 Director, NCCR North-South

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our thanks to numerous individuals who helped make this publication possible: The NCCR North-South programme, and especially Hans Hurni and Urs Wiesmann, for their trust, financial support and judicious contributions to the orientation of this project; the Centre for Development and Environment, and especially Anne Zimmermann and Stephan Rist, for their excellent, friendly and very professional collabora-tion, without which this book would not have been so rigorous and pertinent; the WP1-IP8 at the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies and its Vice Director, Michel Carton, for hosting the project for a period of 15 months; and Jrg Helbling, Department of Social Anthropol-ogy, for providing Tobias Haller with working space and logistic support; all the individuals involved in the production of this volume: Pedro Albornoz for translation from Spanish to English; Macia McLardy for English revi-sion; Ulla Gaemperli and Corinne Furrer for the maps; Ted Wachs and David Taylor for the final editing; Stefan Zach for his professional proofreading and Marlne Thibault and Manuela Born for their patient and efficient cor-rections; and special thanks to Simone Kummer for the layout.

We also thank the international experts who peer-reviewed the contribu-tions: Marc Hocking, Vice-chair of the IUCN World Commission on Pro-tected Areas (WCPA), and a member of the Commissions Executive Com-mittee and the Global and Australian Steering Committees. He leads the WCPA programme on Science, Knowledge and Management of Protected Areas, and is a member of the Fraser Island World Heritage Area Scientific Advisory Committee. Marc Hocking was the principal author of the IUCNs Best practice guidelines on evaluation of management effectiveness in protected areas. He is currently managing a joint United Nations Educa-tional, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)/IUCN project that is applying these guidelines in nine World Heritage sites in Africa, South Asia and Latin America.

Stan Stevens is Associate Professor of Geography in the Geosciences Department of the University of Massachusetts. He is a cultural and politi-cal ecologist whose research has focused on indigenous peoples, land use and conservation in Nepal, with particular emphasis on community con-served areas and efforts to create a new paradigm for protected areas. He has worked closely with Sherpa communities in and around Sagarmatha (Chomolungma/Mt. Everest) for twenty-five years on collaborative research


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projects, also advising local leaders on community-based conservation programmes and indigenous rights issues.

Estienne Rodary works as a researcher at the South African office of the Institut de Recherche et de Dveloppement (IRD). As a geographer work-ing on environmental policy, he focuses his research on natural resources management and protected areas, especially transboundary parks in South-ern Africa, and on links between conservation and poverty alleviation. He is co-author and co-editor of Conservation de la nature et dveloppement: Lintgration impossible (edited by E. Rodary, C. Castellanet, and G. Rossi, 2003, Paris: Karthala).

Ashish Kothari is Co-chair of IUCNs Intercommission Theme on Indigenous and Local Communities, Equity, and Protected Areas (TILCEPA). He is also a founder-member of Kalpavriksh, a 29-year-old environmental research and action group. He has coordinated the Technical and Policy Core Group to for-mulate Indias National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. He has been a member of the Expert Group on the Biodiversity Act, the committee to re-vise the National Wildlife Action Plan, the Environmental Appraisal Commit-tee for River Valley Projects, etc., and has served on the governing board of Greenpeace International and Greenpeace India. He is the author or editor of over 20 books, including Managing Protected Areas: A Global Guide (edited by M. Lockwood, G. Worboys and A. Kothari, 2006, London: Earthscan).

Neema Pathak is a member of Kalpavriksh and a student of environmental science. She has compiled a status report on the Management Status of Pro-tected Areas in the State of Maharashtra and coordinated a project on Peoples Involvement in Wildlife Management in South Asia. This project was carried out with the help of a network of people and organisations across South Asia.

Finally, we wish to extend our thanks to all thirty-one authors for their long and patient work in making contributions to this book. We are very grateful to all of them for having embarked with us on this fruitful scientific adventure.

Last but not least this book is dedicated to all people who live near protected areas and are confronted with problems and the promises of community conservation. We thank all of them for having shared their time as well as their knowledge and views with the researchers involved in this book.

Marc Galvin and Tobias Haller, Bern

Introduction

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Introduction: The Problem of Participatory Conservation

Tobias Haller1 and Marc Galvin2

Conservation of biodiversity in a territory, usually excluding human use, has been a major and, in terms of scale, a very successful strategy for pro-tecting nature from human use since the 19th century. Protected areas3 (PAs) are the largest land use category, covering about 12% of the Earth, and number between 104,000 and 113,707 entities (Chape et al 2005; Lock-wood et al 2006).4 A great deal of literature has been published on PAs.5 This literature has lately addressed the question of what role local peo-ple living in the vicinity of protected areas play in their management and therefore whether and how local actors can be involved in protecting the stock of biodiversity on the planet (Hulme and Murphree 2001; McShane and Wells 2004; Borgerhoff Mulder and Coppolillo 2005). Some of the main concerns in the debate have lately focused on the question of the social im-pact protected areas have on local people (see, for example, West et al 2006) and what kinds of power relations are linked to PAs (Blaikie 2006). With so many publications on this topic, is another lengthy publication justified?

Bridging approaches, scales and disciplines: An institutional

approach to PA analysis

The present publication compiles results from 13 international research groups of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South.6 These groups focus on environmental problems and global changes that link the North and the South. The uniqueness of this publica-tion consists in assembling and comparing findings from in-depth research in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe (Switzerland) on how PAs have been managed over a period of 50 to 100 years and how they are linked with global change. This provides a solid basis for qualitative and quantita-tive comparison, as the case studies are all structured in the same manner, which is seldom the case with these kinds of publications. We are therefore able to provide a comparison that goes beyond case studies to a large-scale quantitative view. The basis of our analysis is a focus on governance and institutional analysis (New Institutionalism), including an approach based on political economy. In addition and in line with some of the more recent


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anthropological studies we have decided to include a constructivist ap-proach that views what is called nature in PAs as a contested social con-struction (Escobar 1999; Brockington 2003; West et al 2006). This view, however, is combined with analysis of different actors interests and strate-gies, including economic and political contexts, in which global, national and local changes are involved. The major theoretical approach adopted for comparison is influenced by the New Institutionalism in economics, politi-cal science, human geography and social anthropology (see North 1990; Ostrom 1990; Ensminger 1992; Ostrom et al 2002; Acheson 2003). Institu-tions in this context are seen as norms, rules and regulations that shape hu-man expectations and human actions by reducing what economists call the costs of transactions. But this approach has been developed much further to allow room for more realistic analysis than just an economic reading: specifically, the approach used by Ensminger offers the possibility to link external changes with local developments in the political and economic domains or with use of natural resources. It is a theoretical approach that helps to explain why, at a local level, specific kinds of institutional settings are used and why others are not used or advocated. The approach of Ens-minger also takes a close look at the issues of actors bargaining power and ideologies. This is of central importance in the present volume. As we focus on the development of the participatory approach in terms of institutional change, we examine why and how ideologies are used in specific contexts. Ideologies are considered here as worldviews that give major orientation and explain how the world is perceived. From a Marxist perspective, the term is of importance in analysing the legitimacy of actions taken in both global and local contexts. Ideologies also embody discourses, referring to how meaning and orientation are produced in a coherent way in spoken or written language, as well as narratives, referring to how a specific situation is logically described and explained. In the context of PA management, for example, a basic ideology adopted by conservationists is that there is such a thing as pure nature and that it is in peril. The discourse then focuses on different types of conservation to protect nature by normative means. The narrative would then argue that, due to population growth or misuse of natural resources by local people, nature has been put in peril (see Haller 2007b; Haller et al 2008).

This framework helps us to bridge different disciplines and to integrate the approaches of political economy, economics and more post-modern and critical readings in the social sciences focusing on constructivist issues. It also means that, regarding the issue of why PAs are implemented, we

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believe there are more reasons behind their existence than just conserving nature: conservation is no longer just a noble goal but can be viewed as a kind of global business, which is based on the construction of what we call nature. The construction of nature produces goods such as tourism, which can be sold internationally and in which large-scale investments are made. But the view of nature in peril also generates cash resources because it gives access to funds, nowadays often combining conservation with de-velopment goals. This is increasingly justified by highlighting the fact that local people(s)7 are enabled to participate in PA management.

History, biology and interdisciplinarity: placing culture in nature

and reasons for PAs

The present collection of papers has another central aspect: we adopt a historical perspective focusing on pre-colonial times and on local change and its connection to global change. By this we understand that each set-ting is undergoing rapid bio-geophysical, political and economic change affecting human practices at all levels and on different scales (Chapin et al 2000), linking external and internal factors (Ensminger 1992). Therefore, the innovative aspect of this book is to contextualise PAs in time and space and to make global comparisons among well-researched case studies. We are, however, aware that the selection of PAs in this volume is based on wider project logic and that we are dealing with a specific selection. Nev-ertheless, we believe we are contributing to a central debate.

It is true that in the process of modernity and post-modernity previously es-tablished landscapes are and will be transformed in a way that reduces bio-diversity and global ecological stability. Due to the great impact industrial and post-industrial development has on biodiversity, some authors even speak of these changes as a new geological force. Human-induced climate change caused by air pollution will lead to large-scale changes in vegeta-tion with often unexpected developments and consequences (Grinevald 2007). Realising the impact of modernisation on our common future in the late 1980s, the Brundtland Report (WCED 1987) focused on sustain-ability. Later on, the first global response was proposed in 1992 at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, where the concept of biodiversity was specially highlighted and first presented as a key political and economic concept (Aubertin and Vivien 1998). Genes, ecosystems and species were taken as a unique dimension and can be seen today as a specific construction of a reality shaped by the international

Introduction: The Problem of Participative Conservation


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community to organise the sustainable and fair use of natural resources (ibid.; see also Haller 2007b). Linked to this political goal was the inten-tion to preserve livelihoods for future generations and to ensure a better distribution of wealth, in order to boost development and reduce poverty at the same time. This paradigmatic change in the perception of nature had a major impact on actions and tools used to face the massive destruction of diversity of species and ecosystems, especially with respect to one of the principal options developed to date: protected areas.

Protected areas: a response to or a problem of global change?

Rooted within the North American philosophy of protection of pure nature in a rather romantic way, Yellowstone National Park, as the first PA, was regarded as a pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the peo-ple (Shivers Culpin 2003). It became a success story in terms of todays PAs covering more space than agricultural land worldwide. According to the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), the number of PAs world-wide doubled during the decade prior to 2005 (Lockwood et al 2006; West et al 2006). This rapid increase represents a potential chance to save endan-gered species but has also produced rapid changes of livelihoods for many people, mainly local communities in and adjacent to such areas. In a con-text of human population and economic growth, which supposes growing demand for natural resources, the pressure on land and competition over access to and control of land has become greater than ever. The develop-ment of new PAs represents a response to, as well as a constitutive element of this global change, and it can be viewed both as a solution and as a prob-lem. Indeed, the type, form and objective of PA management systems can have positive or negative impacts on the livelihoods of millions of people who are directly or indirectly affected by PAs in different ways, as well as on the ecosystems to be protected. In any case, conservation of what is called nature is always driven by political and economic interests linked with the implementation and management of the worldwide PA system.

Comparing governance and participatory management of PAs

As the main focus of the present publication is the interactions of people(s), PAs and global change, based on data from the NCCR North-South, we tried to determine how the participatory approach to conservation evolved in specific settings and who profits from the new approach, considering not only (economic) benefits related to the uses of natural resources but

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also (political and symbolic) benefits achieved or unintentionally produced by different actors involved in PAs taking account of social areas that provide livelihoods and are contested by different actors with different interests, powers, knowledge, histories and perceptions. The principle of participation appears to be an institutional means to mitigate problems of global change, reconciling local people with conservationists, and conser-vation with development. Syndromes of global change in this volume are defined as clusters of ecological, social, economic and political problems or symptoms that form typical patterns, based on similar processes, and that emerge in different regions of the world, thereby actually or poten-tially resulting in adverse impacts at the global level (see Hurni et al 2004). Therefore while comparing the formal settings of PA management, and comparing these to the different realities local people face in PA areas, we also focus on lessons learnt from positive developments, best practices, and potentials for mitigation of syndromes of global change with respect to conservation of landscapes and biodiversity.

Two key concepts used throughout this volume and linked to the definition of institutions given above need to be defined and analysed. Literature ad-dressing the management of PAs often uses the term governance. This refers to how PAs are managed in overall terms and includes especially not just technical but conceptual and political aspects and therefore power issues.8 The basic governance system in which a PA is located is related to who controls the basic power structures in an area. It is therefore impor-tant whether a PA is governed by a military-like organisation based on the notion of total exclusion of local people or whether there is a governance concept that includes more participatory local involvement. Is it generally possible, for example, that local actors might have a say in the way a PA is managed? Participation will then be defined at different levels as the possibility of local involvement in management, ranging from just being informed or consulted up to full control by local communities (see also Borrini-Feyerabend 1996, discussed in the next section). The link to New Institutionalism is now twofold. On the one hand, institutions are of major importance because they determine the dos and donts implied in a spe-cific governance system that includes a certain kind of participation or lack thereof. Rules and regulations, norms and values of how a PA under a spe-cific label of governance is to be operated and managed are then defined by these institutions. The way such institutions are implemented or negotiated is then part of the process of institutional change, which we can analyse through a historical process. But before we set out to indicate how the case


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studies have been structured in order to allow for comparative analysis, we need to have a look at the state of the art in PA studies.

State of the art: selected overview

From fortress to community conservation

The current state of the art in the debate over PAs is linked to the way PAs have been governed in the past and the way they are governed now. This is not the only aspect of the worldwide debate but it is the most central aspect and the one that generates the most tension (see, for example, the World Park Congress in Durban in 2005 or other large-scale conferences). Tensions are largely related to debates over rights of access to natural re-sources for local (or indigenous) people and levels of exclusion (fortress approach) or inclusion (different levels of participation: collaborative, co-management or community-based). Very often relations between PAs and local people are difficult because concepts of nature, natural resources or PA conservation include restrictions or competition in land and resource use, and issues related to other rights. Historically, especially in African countries, PA implementation has often been linked to the colonial project of conserving areas from local use for colonial use as forests or hunting are-as (Neumann 1998). In other parts of the world conservation had to do with colonial projects, although not exclusively so (Asia) and sometimes very little so (Latin America). However, since the emergence of nation-states from former colonies and the move towards greater control by the state, PAs have become a means not only to conserve nature but also to manifest state control over different areas within a national territory (in Africa, see Neumann 1998). Involvement of local people in participatory governance with specific institutions, including community or co-management, was never an issue in this context up to the 1980s. Here, however, the domi-nant view began to change into what Adams, Hulme and Murphree call a paradigm shift for Africa (Adams and Hulme 2001; Hulme and Murphree 2001). They refer to major institutional changes regarding PA governance and management, from the so-called fortress approach to the community approach. The former refers to police or military-like central state control of a protected area, in which human use is completely forbidden, while the latter recognises and returns power and decision-making to the local level, in communities or in bottom-up, participatory approximation, based on the experience that top-down, interventionist and anti-popular approaches to

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PA implementation and management involve too many obstacles and have not contributed to conservation as such. Moreover, they are too costly and inefficient. This point also refers to the fact that many countries in the South lack adequate means to finance monitoring and sanctioning of PAs (see also Gibson 1999). These approaches are in fact often contained in dominant narrative regimes that are used within discourses to deal with protected areas and the way they should be managed.

Governance via local institutions: lessons from the tragedy of

the commons debate and local knowledge

An important additional issue is the debate on the famous Tragedy of the Commons paradigm, which suggests that collectively owned resources should either be protected by the state or privatised, and the subsequent critical debate on the possibility of conservation of natural resources as common-pool resources9 and of PAs as a particular category harbouring such resources. This led to more participatory strategies. As many studies have demonstrated, local people managed collectively held resources by using clearly defined institutional settings and customary laws, norms and regulations (institutions) for sustainable management of common-pool re-sources in pre-colonial times. These studies also illustrate how such insti-tutions were distorted, eradicated, marginalised or overlapped in terms of legal pluralism created by the states own redefinition of natural resources or protected areas (McCay and Acheson 1987; Feeny et al 1990; Ostrom 1990; Berkes 1999; Haller 2007a, 2007c). The notion that local people are indeed able to define rules, share power and be key agents in achieving conservation or sustainable use within protected areas as a basic system of governance (Borrini-Feyerabend et al 2004) has finally been recognised. This recognition has recently been manifested in official discourses on the management of PAs, while local and indigenous organisations in turn con-tinue to claim their right to be active agents in these issues. Thus there is presently great interest in understanding the historical conditions under which PAs have emerged and the ways they affect management today, in order to achieve relevant governance and management systems that pro-mote people-centred conservation in most of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) PA categories (Adams 1990; Borrini-Fey-erabend 1996). And even if not fully implemented in the new IUCN defini-tion of PAs, the involvement of local people in the context of the debate on indigenous peoples worldwide includes the will to cooperate with the grassroots level, fostered by international conventions such as the Inter-


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national Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169, Agenda 21, and the Convention on Biological Diversity, as well as international organisations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and leading conservation NGOs such as the IUCN and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) (see Colchester 2000).

Looking for cross-actor and cross-sectoral linkages

At the international level, collaboration among key stakeholders and peo-ple involved in PA governance may lead to the establishment of a more coherent and effective PA system and also advance a more relevant global regulation framework. The intention is to improve collaboration between actors at all levels and inter-cultural communication and negotiation, as well as to define a more efficient and coherent system for applying global, national and local regulations that affect PAs (trans-scale regulations, see Rodary et al 2003). In an IUCN Social Policy Paper written by Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend in 1996, major guidelines for so-called Collaborative Management of Protected Areas were outlined. This is one of the first at-tempts to analyse management and governance issues as well as lessons learnt, based on case studies. Borrini-Feyerabend also explains the con-tinuum between full control of agency in charge of managing PAs and full control of stakeholders, resembling the two poles of the fortress and community approaches mentioned by Hulme and Murphree (ibid., p 17). Interestingly, her paper shows how locally defined institutions evolved, for example in defining local by-laws in collaboration with state agencies and NGOs (ibid.). The same approach is taken by the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), which has published a series of Best Practice Protected Area Guidelines. A relevant process was also started in 2003 at the IUCN World Congress on Protected Areas, aimed at better understand-ing the governance of protected areas in terms of who holds relevant authority and responsibility and can be held accountable. Borrini-Feyer-abend et al (2004) offer a classification of governance types for PA man-agement.10 Ideally, different levels of governance should be established: a collective process for managing the PA; a collective process to make coherent the regional or national regulation of several PAs; and an interna-tional process to make global conservation by PAs more efficient.

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What are good incentives for participation? Economic gains and

development gains vs. human rights violations

As governance and participation by local actors in decision-making and defining local institutions through participation have become issues, ini-tial evaluations of participatory approaches (Pimbert 2003; Chambers and Miller 2004; IUED et al 2007) have emerged in the field of sustainable development which are critical of such processes. For some scholars, par-ticipation is tantamount to New Tyranny in development projects (Cooke and Kothari 2001). Although some participatory projects have been a suc-cess, at least on paper, the failure of many projects based on a participatory approach has led to a problematic constellation in PA management. Much of the debate on this issue relates to the fact that legal access to common-pool resources in a park is one of the most critical questions. It is related to access rights, while property rights, security to land and resource tenure, empowerment, and true participation in decision-making are key factors in creating or mitigating socio-environmental syndromes in PAs. Already in 1999 Gibson reviewed the situation in Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe and concluded that neither the strong-men policy in conservation nor rhe-torical appeals to participation on paper were important for success. What counts are the political and economic contexts in which such approaches take place, their effective results, and their sustainability. If economic in-centives for this kind of collective action are not considered or based on an understanding of the calculations of local stakeholders and an evaluation of their power, interests, needs and cultures, participation is likely to ex-ist only rhetorically, on paper. Collective incentives and interests will not be considered by local individuals because collective incentives are badly understood and the gains cannot be harnessed individually (Gibson 1999; Hulme and Murphree 2001). However, this is one of the major challenges to be addressed, for there is no real alternative discourse to link conserva-tion and development in combination with a specific form of multi-stake-holder process (see also Hurni et al 2004), though Chambers and Miller (2004) suggest that an approach that is less top-down and interventionist and more dialogical, intercultural, equitable, negotiated and participatory, is an option. One of the important questions relating to adequate participa-tion is whether this is only possible under few strong democratic systems with bottom-up political processes, such as that in Switzerland (direct de-mocracy) or in countries with a representative democracy for example, in Europe generally (Borrini-Feyerabend et al 2004). We investigate which kinds of participatory processes that may be possible in PA governance are


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required under other political systems and in other cultural contexts. This is a question that is also debated in relation to common-pool resource man-agement (Ostrom 1990; Ostrom et al 2002).

Conclusions and lessons learnt for comparison

The basic lesson to be learnt from the literature, and also highlighted in the case studies presented in this volume, can be summarised as follows: If we look at the kind of governance established as a function of power relations by which a certain constellation of participatory institutions is crafted, we see that we are dealing with power issues and issues of ideology in order to legitimise actions. These ideologies, with their discourses and narratives, are used strategically by all actors in order to structure governance and the underlying institutions for their own gain. One of the major aspects of relevance here is that we often do have institutions at the international, national and local levels that manifest themselves in the governance struc-ture adapted. We therefore speak of legal pluralism, giving a high level of insecurity for actors, on the one hand, but on the other hand allowing actors to make reference to institutional settings at several levels, which is of strategic interest. Therefore, on the local level, participatory approaches are not so much about conservation in the Western sense of the term than about trying to obtain political control, while participation used by NGOs and government agencies is perhaps more about enlarging PA areas for economic and political reasons. Conservation is then often used differently at the on-stage (i.e. official) and the off-stage (i.e. based on hidden agenda) level, illustrating the basic interests of actors. This view has major implica-tions for the comparative methodology used.

Methodology

This volume presents a series of papers that provide very comprehensive information on each of the 13 PAs selected for a case study: 4 in Latin Amer-ica (2 in Bolivia, Argentina, Peru), 5 in Africa (2 in Tanzania, Madagascar, Cameroon, Ethiopia), 3 in Asia (Indonesia, Nepal, Vietnam) and 1 in Swit-zerland. In the interest of scientific coherence, each contribution is similarly structured and presents material for comparison in a quantitative but espe-cially a qualitative manner, incorporating: a) setting of the PA (ecological, historical, demography), b) resources, livelihoods and institutional change in the PA (economic activities at local and national levels), c) governance and participatory institutions of the PA (authority and basic structure/organisa-

23


tion, power relations between stakeholders, norms, values, regulations, etc.), d) discourses and narratives (regarding perceptions, wishes and motivations) and e) conclusions. We are thus able to focus on the colonial and postcolonial past and how this past influences the present-day perception local people have of governments and implementing agencies and NGOs. This defines the level of trust local people have in participatory approaches. We can also examine the political and economic context in which a PA system is situated and which shapes the local and regional interests of powerful actors.

Although each team was encouraged to use its own theoretical framework, two specific analyses were strongly recommended: above all costbenefit analysis, in order to make economic and political evaluations of the di-rect and indirect interests involved in processes of participation among stakeholders (groups, family, individual). The other analysis relates to dis-courses (ideology, major arguments given to legitimise views and strate-gies) and narratives (views of how a particular problem in the PA area came about).11 These are important resources which different actors use in order to increase their bargaining power and influence institutional change in PA management for their own benefit.

Epistemic communitiesScientists, experts and militants produce ideas

and concepts that will be used by policy makers

International forum & regional forumBased on epistemic communities and lobbies inputs, policy makers x principles

and meta norms in international or regional treaties

National sceneNational policy makers translate international and regional engagements into national norms (laws, public policies) according to the political, cultural, historical, economic context. Some countries are

more dependent and permeable than others to the international process of implementation of norms

PA as local arena

Not concernedConict & resistanceStrategic recuperation & alliance

Social & culturalchange

Bio-physicalchange

Multitude of social agents with specic interests in NR, knowledge, techniques, cosmovisions, identities, histories, role in conservatory process

Authority; relation of power between agents & institutions

Mosaic of institutions (norms) involved in PA

Fig. 1 The multi-level

framework of PA governance. (Source: Galvin

and Haller 2008)


24


Analysis of participatory governance and institutional change, the focus of the contributions in this collection, is illustrated in Figure 1, indicating the normative context (at different scales) in which participatory approaches are implemented.

In addition, we have developed Figure 2 to address the debate on the stra-tegic use of PA management in terms of development and economic incen-tives and level of participation (from fortress to community conservation), in the form of a matrix. The different PAs discussed here can then be lo-cated in two different ways to illustrate the difference between on-stage and off-stage ideology and discourse in participatory management. Each PA can be placed both according to what is formally defined in terms of governance and institutional design (on-stage criteria) and to the findings of our studies (e.g. real options that local people have with regard to the management of a PA and perceptions of a given PA; off-stage criteria). Re-garding the mitigating effects for biodiversity conservation, we expect that PAs that are placed in the upper right area of the graph will also produce the best conservation outcome. The results of this analysis are presented in Chapter 14 (Conclusions), along with a worldmap giving an overview of participation in and benefits from the thirteen protected areas presented in this volume.

Fig. 2 Comparative ParticipationSustainability Matrix for PAs in the NCCR North-South. (Source: Haller and Galvin 2008, based on concepts by Bor-rini-Feyerabend [1996]; Gibson [1999]; Hulme and Murphree [2001])[1999]; Hulme and Murphree [2001])

Individual/householdincentives

Collectiveincentives

Full controlby agency

Consultation

Nosustainable

developmentactivities

Consensus Negotiation Sharedpower

Transferredpower

Participation

Park outreach

Collaborative management Community conservation

Onlysustainable

developmentactivities

Fortress conservation

+ +

+

Weak and unsustainable conservation, weak participation

No conservation, no participation

+ +

+

Sustainable conservation through full participation and individual incentives

Medium-level conservation and participation

25

Overview of case studies

Although we address major similarities in the conclusion, each case has its unique features and each team has its own theoretical background, which makes each of the cases interesting for readers with both regional and gen-eral interests. In order to provide some orientation, we present short ab-stracts of all contributions organised according to geographic distribution. The first section deals with cases in Latin America, the middle and the last parts with cases in Africa and Asia/Europe.

The first contribution, Struggling ontological communities: The transfor-mation of conservationists and peasants discourses in the Tunari Natio-

nal Park, Bolivia, by Sbastien Boillat, Stephan Rist, Elvira Serrano, Dora Ponce and Jaime Delgadillo, presents a discourse analysis of the main ac-tors involved in the conflict in the Tunari National Park (Bolivia), close to a major city. Local people perceive themselves as indigenous ontologi-cal communities with a special right to nature and natural resources. This leads to conflicts with the city government over the protected area, which indigenous people would like to control, in order to protect land that they perceive as theirs against land dealers, politicians and settlers. The label indigenousness in particular is a key concept in the alliance between indigenous leaders and conservationists.

In Linking socio- and biodiversity: The stakes of indigenous and non- indigenous co-management in the Bolivian lowlands, Patrick Bottazzi argues that biodiversity conservation policies are intrinsically linked to ethnic issues in the Bolivian Amazon. The great social diversity that pre-vails in Bolivia is rooted in specific institutional pluralism according to categories, which makes implementation of participatory mechanisms dif-ficult. Nevertheless, the notion of indigenousness is an important resource for local people to legitimise their presence in PA management.

In The difficult invention of participation in the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, Peru, the Peruvian team composed of Alex lvarez, Jamil Alca, Alfredo Garca and Marc Galvin illustrates how, through international de-bate that promotes the incorporation of local actors in the management of protected areas, the establishment of a conservation structure based on co-management between indigenous people and state administration produces more political and symbolic benefits for advocates of indigenous interests and conservation than economic (and therefore concrete) benefits for the local Harakmbut people.



26


Marc Hufty, in Pizarro Protected Area: A political ecology perspective on land use, soybeans and Argentinas Nature Conservation Policy, proposes an astute analysis of the politics of conservation and development and con-tention over the attempted, but reversed, declassification of the Pizarro Protected Area (Province of Salta, north-west Argentina). Although the protected area was saved and entrusted to the National Park Administra-tion that intended to make a showcase of its new conversion to the par-ticipatory paradigm, the author says that the main question concerns the factors that made it possible for this case to be won. These can be found in the discourse of participatory conservation and its link to the notion of indigenousness of local people.

The second part presents five African case studies on PAs. In Government wildlife, unfulfilled promises and business: Lessons from participatory con-

servation in the Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania, Patrick Meroka and Tobias Haller illustrate how economic costs and benefits are unequally distributed between the government and tourism on the one hand and local people on the other. The contribution also shows the various ideologies, including dis-courses and narratives, used by different actors. Participatory conservation and co-management arrangements with NGOs and the government for ex-ample, the installation of Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) formally provide major incentives for local people, but in fact increase costs (wild animal attacks, crop raiding, land taken away for conservation) to locals. On the other hand, the dominant state ideology of nature protection and the discourse on participatory conservation provide access to funds and profits from tourism for the government. This is the reason why different local stakeholders believe that conservation creates poverty and not development, as maintained by governments and NGOs. Locals therefore put their hopes in private-sector tourism to help them control land via land titles.

Mkomazi Game Reserve (MGR) in north-eastern Tanzania is one of the protected areas where various groups in society have engaged in contests over resources. In Conservation for whose benefit? Challenges and oppor-tunities for management of Mkomazi Game Reserve, Tanzania, Gimbage E. Mbeyale and Alexander N. Songorwa focus on how the fortress approach has led to management problems. This is a very interesting case that argues that the game reserve is not a natural but a cultural landscape, and examines the environment under which the contested resource use has occurred and persisted over the years. The authors conclude by recommending alterna-tive conservation pathways that adopt the new participatory conservation ap-proaches instead of the fortress approach currently implemented by MGR.

27

In Integrated fortress conservation in the buffer zone of Ankarafant-sika National Park: Malagasy narratives of conservation, participation,

and livelihoods, Frank Muttenzer presents the story of the Ankarafantsika Reserve. The Reserve was transformed in 2005 into a National Park. The author argues that evidence of evictions and displacement of local people raises questions about the formally indicated paradigm shift from fortress conservation to integrated conservation, and does not imply substitution of a topdown approach with participation and involvement of local commu-nities. This evidence rather justifies the old paradigm (protected areas) in terms of the new one (community management of buffer zones and biologi-cal corridors) based on a new version of the old fortress discourse, leaving no benefits for local people.

According to Hans Hurni, Leykun Abunie, Eva Ludi and Mulugeta Woubshet, the authors of The evolution of institutional approaches in the Simen Mountains National Park, Ethiopia, institutional approaches to park administration have changed considerably in the last nearly 40 years of management of the Simen Mountains National Park. After park establish-ment, people were formally not allowed to continue cultivating, which they ignored for nearly 10 years. Then some were expelled but returned after several years, at a time when the park was not attended due to political insecurity in that remote area. Recently, park boundaries were redefined, excluding most agricultural land from the PA, after negotiation with the lo-cal villages concerned. Laws and rules, however, have not yet been adapted to this new degree of participation. The paper concludes by saying that practical experience with multi-stakeholder participation in management is still relatively new (~10 years old) and will thus require additional mutual development and the formation of trust between all actors, especially the government and the local level.

The contribution entitled Are local stakeholders conservationists? Liveli-hood insecurity and participatory management of Waza National Park,

North Cameroon, by Gilbert Fokou and Tobias Haller, demonstrates that due to institutional changes local users fear that their very livelihood is at risk, and this naturally leads to a change in perceptions and attitudes to-wards natural resources and long-term sustainability. This example shows that although policymakers and conservationists (IUCN) were aware of economic and institutional problems and initiated a participatory process, it was not possible to strike a balance of costs and benefits. Local stake-holders (fishermen, peasants and pastoralists) do not benefit directly and do not benefit enough to see this as an incentive for participating in the



28


protection of the Waza Logone area, which was once a cultural landscape and has been taken away from them.

The third part deals with Asia and Europe. In Because the project is helping us to improve our lives, we also help them with conservation integrated

conservation and development in the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area,

Nepal, Urs Mller, Ghana S. Gurung, Michael Kollmair and Ulrike Mller-Bker present a success story based on the participatory approach. Results indicate an improvement in forest conditions in the area and perceptible growth in the wildlife population, as well as the enhancement of the liveli-hoods of most of the local inhabitants and creation of a positive attitude to-wards conservation among most local people. However, the WWF project is based on a park outreach rationale, which makes local people opt for conservation not as a means to protect the area but as a means of gaining from projects, which will not continue in the same way once the NGO has left. However, the basic idea of wildlife damage insurance merits attention for the mitigation of PA problems.

In his contribution Environmentality reconsidered: Indigenous To Lindu con-servation strategies and the reclaiming of the commons in Central Sulawe-

si, Indonesia, Greg Acciaioli examines how a local group called To Lindu, who define themselves as indigenous people, are dealing strategically with the option of a PA in their area. Based on the knowledge that immigrant groups have to be integrated but at the same time the government of Indo-nesia and NGOs have an interest in conservation, the To Lindu leaders use the ideology of nature threatened by immigrant settlers. The indigenous leaders therefore engage in a participatory conservation discourse fostering indigenous knowledge and indigenous institutions, which are meant for ap-plication to conservation of the forest area. While showing that they have incorporated conservation issues, their main strategic interest is to control the amount of land used by the immigrant farming communities and to benefit politically from the PA setting in which they participate.

The article Linking livelihoods and protected area conservation in Vietnam: Phong Nha K Bng World Heritage, local futures? by Peter Larsen focuses on the evolution of livelihood issues and their role in protected area proc-esses. He shows that despite an increase in conservation and development funding, the Vietnamese path to conservation is very close to the fortress approach and the ideology of nature in peril, which do not address live-lihood concerns and community participation in the management of the

29

Phong Nha K Bng (PNKB) National Park. Local hunter-gatherers and swidden cultivators are being evicted from the area. Therefore, food se-curity and livelihood vulnerability remain key challenges, particularly for the areas ethnic minorities, who do not have the power to benefit from the political notion of indigenousness to boost their bargaining power.

In Protection: A means for sustainable development? The case of the Jung-frau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn World Heritage Site in Switzerland, Astrid Wall-ner, Karina Liechti, Stephan Rist and Urs Wiesmann analyse a participa-tory multi-stakeholder process. The contribution shows that if negotiation of conservation issues related to a World Heritage Site (WHS) is to be successful, it must necessarily be linked to issues of development in the entire region. Different visions and perceptions of nature and landscape are indeed an underlying current in the debate, and they influence positions taken in negotiations. But based on the democratic structures and institu-tions governing the political process in Switzerland, and on the notion that cultural landscapes and not just nature were at stake, it was possible to ar-range a participatory project that helped to bridge the gap between the po-sitions of different stakeholders, balancing one side (conservationists and government) against the other (local peasants and local tourist business). What is unique in this case is that everybody has been working within a kind of basic institution that has taken on the form of a broader binding constitution.

Conclusions

In conclusion, the question arises of whether there are positive lessons to be learnt and, if so, in what respect they are positive. The major challenge faced by PAs is to generate enough incentives compared to losses and opportunity costs, and to deal with the fact that historical experience from fortress ap-proaches still undermines trust in the relationship between people and state PA management. One major problem concerns the notion of ownership by local people and the options they see for acting on their own. This refers to the institutional design that regulates the dos and donts in the context of a PA. This is of crucial importance, as we see in the examples of how differ-ent local stakeholders are able to identify themselves with the institutional arrangements in place. This is linked to the ways in which they were able to participate in formulation of these arrangements and gain empowerment. In addition, the balance of costs and benefits is important, but again, benefits



30


need not be immediate economic benefits. They can also be anticipated po-litical benefits for local leaders. If we see little direct economic gain, some political gain and very differential ecological gains (in terms of conservation of specific species), it is clear that conservation, in all its different forms, is not primarily a means of distributing benefits but a tool of control and fab-rication of nature. The main challenge lies in this basic dichotomy between nature and culture. If we are interested in maintaining biological diversity, we should acknowledge the work done by local people as creators of these biologically diverse habitats. Hence use of biological diversity has to be paid for if we (including donors) hope to conserve (i.e. reproduce and keep alive) the diversity of ecosystems. On the other hand, the more different local actors are frustrated by discourse on participation without gain, the more they opt to sell out and overuse common-pool resources. This could be termed the Tragedy of Protected Areas, which in turn reinforces the argu-ments of more radical conservationists to opt for a new version of the fortress approach. This is already happening to a certain degree in the biological corridor approach. However, if another approach is to be taken in which participation by local people is taken seriously, the lesson to be learnt from the case studies is that economic and political benefits do matter, and that the development of a common constitutional ground and the trust to be part of a common project are key elements in successful participatory conservation of cultural landscapes.

31

Endnotes

Full citation for this article:Haller T, Galvin M. 2008. Introduction: The problem of participatory conservation. In: Galvin M, Haller T, editors. People, Protected Areas and Global Change: Participatory Conservation in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe. Perspectives of the Swiss National Centre of Compe-tence in Research (NCCR) North-South, University of Bern, Vol. 3. Bern: Geographica Bernensia, pp 13-34.

1 PD Dr. Tobias Haller has studied social anthropology, geography and sociology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He did research in northern Cameroon in the 1990s and in Zambia in 2002-2004, and is a senior lecturer at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Zurich, Switzerland. He specialises in common-pool resource management and institutional change in Africa. Contact: [email protected]

2 Dr. Marc Galvin is currently working as a Programme Officer at the Graduate Institute of Interna-tional and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. He has conducted socio-anthropolog-ical research in Peru since 2001 with a specific focus on local knowledge, nature conservation and governance. Marc Galvin was also co-director of the 2-year research project TPM: People, Protected Areas and Global Change of the NCCR North-South. Contact: [email protected]

3 According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN 1994), a protected area is an area of land/or sea especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or other effective means. In 2007, the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) set up a process that was to be finished by the end of 2008, in order to revise guidelines concerning the IUCN pro-tected area categories and change their definition. These changes should not substantially alter the meaning of the term, but add some accompanying principles and change the wording slightly to reflect the full range of biomes and services from protected areas.

4 PAs cover a surface area of about 20.2 million km2 worldwide. Of this area, 15.3 million km2, or 75.5%, is land area. 4.7 million km2 is mountainous, and 10.5 million km2 (69.4% of the world-wide PA land surface) is non-mountainous. The percentages of protected areas by continent are: Africa 9.8%, Asia 13.2%, and Latin America 20% (Chape et al 2005).

5 This literature includes specialised journals, such as: Ambio, Conservation Biology, Conserva-tion Ecology, Environmental Conservation, Oryx, and Parks (IUCN journal).

6 See Foreword by Hans Hurni for more details about the NCCR North-South programme.7 In the title of this book, we refer to people rather than peoples, as different groups and actors

are involved and not just local ethnic groups such as indigenous peoples. The latter, however, are included in our thinking. In this section we have included the s to indicate this thinking.

8 In a broader sense, governance refers to a general conceptual framework for addressing the evo-lution of governing processes (formal and informal) in a society (local, national, international or global; Hufty et al 2007). More specifically, it refers to the interactions among actors involved in a collective issue that lead to decisions and the formulation of social norms. Governance should ideally be distinct from the normative concept of good governance, which is action-oriented and not analytic.

9 Common-pool resources are a specific category with two characteristics: the difficulty of exclud-ing other users (because they are highly mobile or do not occur in a concentrated form than can be controlled easily) and subtractability (the portion used is not immediately available for other users; some common-pool resources regenerate but with a certain time lag). Examples include mobile and immobile resources such as wildlife stocks, fisheries, water for irrigation, forests, pastures, extensively used land, etc. (see Ostrom 1990; McKean 2000; Ostrom et al 2002).



32


10 PA management includes: a) government-managed protected areas, b) co-management protected areas, c) private protected areas, d) community-conserved areas.

11 Discourses refers to the way major worldviews or ideologies are used to legitimise strategies that are self-enforcing in this local framework and have specific value and legitimacy. The term narrative refers to the way a story explaining a situation is told, based on specific assumptions making reference to a specific discourse. It is about views of how a particular problem in a PA came about (see also Hulme and Murphree 2001).

33

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Part I Latin American Case Studies: Conservation as Political Gain for Local Actors

37

1 Struggling Ontological Communities: The Transformation of Conservationists and Peasants Discourses in the Tunari National Park in Bolivia

Sbastien Boillat1, Stephan Rist2, Elvira Serrano3, Dora Ponce4, Jaime Delgadillo5

Abstract

The Tunari National Park is located to the north of the city of Cochabamba,

and has been settled by over 380 Quechua peasant communities since pre-

colonial times. Though the state authorities have only enforced the Law of

the Park on 1% of its territory, the communities are in open conflict with

them, since the Park restrains their traditional activities. Discourse analysis

of the main actors involved in the conflict shows fundamental differences

not only in claims of access to resources, but also in the claim of basic prin-

ciples governing the relationship between society and nature. In this sense,

the groups of actors in conflict can be conceived of as different ontologi-

cal communities sharing a group of basic presuppositions on social and

natural reality. These differences state the need for an ontological dialogue

among the actors which has, until now, been hindered by the mainstream

modern-Western ontological community, and its traditional marginalisa-

tion of the Andean ontological community. However, recent changes in the

Bolivian national scene have opened up the possibility for the state to create

a space of communicative action, offering new options for the interaction of

the actors involved.

Keywords: protected areas, governance, ontological communities, conflicts,

social movements, communicative action.


38

NorthSouthperspectives

1.1 Introduction

The Tunari National Park (TNP), the second oldest protected area (PA) in Bolivia, holds a particular position among Bolivian protected areas. It is the only protected area in close proximity to a big city, Cochabamba (Macchi 2002) that also has an important rural indigenous population within its limits. Created in 1962, the Park was expanded in 1991 with the enactment of a very restrictive law that hindered traditional pastoralism, cultivation and agrofor-estry activities. The governments involved applied highly vertical political processes without consulting the local population or informing them. The Law has only been implemented in the area of the Park established in 1962, near the city (Province of Cercado). This area corresponds to 1% of the total Park area. The government has not yet begun enforcing the Law within the expanded area (Provinces of Quillacollo, Chapare, Ayopaya and Tapacari). To do so would not only mean confronting the over 380 indigenous peasant communities living within the area, but would also require resources and capacities which the state does not possess. In spite of its limited enforce-ment, the TNP is one of the protected areas that have generated the greatest amount of conflicts in Bolivia. The conflicts not only occur within the area of enforcement, but also within the area of expansion, where the rural popu-lation considers the TNP a serious threat to their livelihood and their mate-rial, social and symbolic foundations.

These threats to the livelihood strategies of peasant communities contrast sharply with the opening up of the territory to national and international urban financial capital. This expansion was accompanied by the illegal divi-sion and sale of land to which the competent authorities turned a blind eye and the granting of licences for fishing activities, ecotourism and indus-trial activities (brewery, hydroelectricity, mining and oil drilling). This situ-ation confronts local actors with a twofold threat to their socio-territorial sovereignty: on the one hand, there was the TNP Law, and on the other, the exploitation of natural resources through investment of financial capital in their territory from national and international urban spheres. Thus a conflict already present in other national park areas arose here. Consequently, local actors started to perceive legislation on natural resources and on protected areas as a strategy of the state to marginalise them from their central role in the territorial management (Orozco et al 2006).

These conflicts are related to a deep crisis of legitimacy in the Bolivian State (Delgado 2002) that arose because the government authorities were

39

Transformation of Discourses in Bolivia

supported by a mestizo-urban national elite, while the rural communities of predominantly indigenous origin were being marginalised. This crisis generated a powerful social movement, which led to the recent election of Evo Morales, the first indigenous president in America. This movement not only questioned the neo-liberal economic policy of the Bolivian government introduced in 1985, but also the organisation of the state, which is currently being reformulated into a constitutional assembly.

The case of the TNP shows how national policies can have serious implica-tions in the management of natural resources within peasant communities, by creating a conflictive social interface. The government, supported by the urban elite, intended to impose a territorial management based exclusively on hydrological-ecological and economic criteria. This is in stark opposi-tion to the affected peasant population, who reject the Park, as it would force them to cease their multidimensional traditional management of natural resources, which is based on their specific perception of the naturesociety relationship.

The results of the research carried out within the framework of the NCCR North-South (4 PhD theses and 2 supporting Partnership Action for Mitigat-ing Syndromes [PAMS] pilot actions) show that the conflicts between the actors involved must be understood as conflicts between different ontolo-gies (or basic presuppositions about the constitution of the real world). Against this background, it is evident that any analysis seeking to help bal-ance the positive and negative effects of specific human activities must take into account that different world visions (ontologies) also constitute differ-ent value systems or normative bases. These determine the priorities and content of value-oriented indicators for natural resources encompassed by the TNP. Therefore, the conflicts can only be transformed if spaces for nego-tiation and learning are open enough for the actors involved to establish a dialogue based on their practical, normative and interpretative knowledge. Policies or incentives that ignore this inter-ontological dimension tend to deepen current conflicts instead of solving them.

1.2 Context of the protected area (PA)

The main area of the Tunari National Park (Figure 1) is occupied by the Tunari Cordillera, or Cochabamba Cordillera, a massif in the eastern moun-tain range of the Bolivian Andes formed by Ordovician sedimentary rocks


40


Park limitPark law implementationMunicipality borderRural community

#* Urban settlementUrbanised areaNational roadSecondary roadTrackLake

Tunari National Park

Ecological RegionsAndean puna

D D

D D

Dry valleys) ) Subhumid yungas

( ( ( Hyperhumid yungas

Elevation1000-1500 m1500-2000 m2000-2500 m2500-3000 m3000-3500 m3500-4000 m4000-4500 m4500-5000 m5000-5500 m

#*#*#*#*#*

#*#* #*#*#*#*#*#*#*

#*#*#*#*#*

#*#*

#* #*#*#*

#*#* #* #*

Morochata

Sacaba

Villa Tunari

Tapacar

Colomi Quillacollo

Sipe Sipe

Vinto

Tiquipaya

Independencia

Cochabamba

Santivaez TolataArbieto

San Benito

Cliza

Colcapirhua

740000 750000 760000 770000 780000 790000 800000 810000 820000 830000

8060

000

8070

000

8080

000

8090

000

8100

000

8110

000

8120

000

8130

000

0 10 205Km

Tunari5035 m

COCHABAMBAQuillacollo Sacaba

MisicuniReservoir(under construction)

MisicuniTunnel

Cordille

ra del Tunari

Cordillera Mazo Cruz

Tiquipaya

Tirani

(Undefined/disputed municipal territory)

Bolivia

Departmentof Cochabamba

La PazTunari

National Park

Fig. 1 General map of the Tunari National Park. Source: Boillat (2007, p 119)

41

Transformation of Discourses in Bolivia

(Claure 1995), with plateaus and lakes of glacial origin. The Park ranges from the foot of the mountain range, at an altitude of 2,750 m, to the Tunari Peak, at an altitude of 5,035 m. The area has three ecological stages: the dry valleys below 3,200 m, the pre-Puna, between 3,200 and 4,000 m, and the Puna, above 4,000 m. Although dry valleys and pre-Puna have potential native forest cover, these have been reduced to isolated spots by cultiva-tion, logging and grazing activities during pre-colonial and colonial times (Fjeldsa and Kessler 1996; De la Barra 1998).

The initial idea of creating a protected area in the Tunari Cordillera stemmed from a small group of highly educated members of the elite of Cochabamba. The objective for the area was to counteract the environmental problems relating to the expansion of the city of Cochabambas northern limit towards the foot of the mountain range, by preserving the valley countryside, by protecting the city from mountain flood streams with forestation, and by promoting tourism. The disastrous floods of 1958, caused by mountain streams, convinced the city and government authorities to create the Tunari National Park through a decree in 1962. Back then, the Park covered an area of approximately 240 km2, and was restricted to the mountain range area located above the city. The Park Laws enforcement began in 1968, with plantations of pines and eucalyptus, under the successive responsibility of diverse state institutions entrusted with Park management. The tree plan-tation activities were supported by German and Swiss development agen-cies. However, the citys encroachment on the mountain range could not be stopped, and was accelerated by the migration of populations from other regions of the country, following the closing of the mines in 1985. Ironi-cally, some state institutions granted lands from the Park to their officials (Nina 2005; Aguilar 2006).

In 1988, a proposal to expand the area to the entire Tunari Mountain Range was published, motivated by increasing urbanisation in the satellite cities of Quillacollo and Sacaba (Pereira 2002). The expansion was enacted in 1991, under the current Law No. 1262, which governs the Tunari National Park. The TNP reached its current extension of 3,000 km2, distributed among 5 provinces and 10 municipalities. The Law prohibits, or strongly restricts, the traditional use of resources, and was established without previously consult-ing the population living in the area.

The expansion of the TNP coincided with the creation of a set of new protected areas throughout the country, each with the specific objective of biodiversity


42


conservation. However, at the same time, the decentralisation process had begun in Bolivia, granting decision-making competence to the intermediate government level (municipalities). It was during this process which began in 1996, with the enactment of the Law of Municipalities that the peasant com-munities in the Tunari Cordillera were informed that they now lived within a protected area (AGRUCO 2002). Their opposition to the Park was clear from the beginning, and the conflict was aggravated when studies and proposals to zone the Park (CLAS 2001) were carried out. These studies were request-ed by the prefectural government, and were based exclusively on technical information. An extreme proposition of the departmental government, with the goal of forcing the 7 peasant communities within the implementation zone to relocate out of the Park (Los Tiempos 1999), worsened the conflict. Fortunately, this plan was not carried out due to governmental changes after the social movement in 2003.

The conflicts in the area are rooted in legal, administrative and technical problems (AGRUCO 2002). In creating and expanding the Park, the rural and urban property in its actual territory was not considered. Moreover, the competences assigned by the process of decentralisation were cancelled by the National Park authority, and the central government was given custody of the Parks territory, which covers up to 70% of the area of some munici-palities. Although the administration of the area would legally lie within the competence of the central government, it has been transferred to the Prefec-ture of the Department of Cochabamba. The Prefecture not only lacks the resources and capacities to manage the area, but also has drafted manage-ment proposals that do not recognise the management capacities of the local communities. The category of National Park, the most restrictive one in Bolivia, generates technical problems, because it does not correspond to the ecological characteristics of the area, and has not been established on the basis of biodiversity studies. This technical flaw is even recognised by the Servicio Nacional de reas Protegidas (SERNAP), and is expressed in inad-equate management of exotic tree (pines and eucalyptus) plantations, managed by the Parks administration as if they were natural forests.

The marginality of the rural indigenous population and unequal pow

galvin_haller_nccr_people_protected_areas_2008.pdf

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