Agroecology and the Struggle for Food Sovereignty ... - Yale University

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constellation of areas influenced by the effects of agriculture and resource use during
implementation. This spatial evolution has taken place through the practical
necessities of multi-level planning, and it might, at first glance, be viewed as mere
fine-tuning.
In reality, the forming of the braided network reflects a more profound set of
processes and activities in conservation and sustainability planning, namely the
shifting and multiple loci of power in MBC implementation. Establishment of the
separate braided segments is explained in part by decision-making associated with
national and local interests for agriculture and resource use in the countries of the
MBC. Since the coordination of the MBC involves the national governments of each
country, as well as Central American Commission for Environment and
Development, the evolution of the MBC project has been strongly shaped by the
needs of national governments and, to a degree, the within-country constituencies
such as rural social movements and agricultural and resource use groups (Kaiser
2001).
While global conservation organizations have continued to predicate the MBC
project on the successful participation of local groups and government backing
(Miller et al. 2001), there is definite disagreement among indigenous and human
rights activists and the global networks that support them. These groups have
expressed concern and alarm that the agenda of the MBC is a “captive of the Plan
Puebla Panamá,” a World Bank plan launched in 2001 that calls for economic
integration through the growth of markets, including the presumed expansion of
resource markets, in the countries from southern Mexico through Panama (Martinez
2001, World Rainforest Movement 2001). Thus the adjustments in the MBC are
propelled, in part, by socially broad-based sectors of land users and civil-society
groups and by governments of the region. Such adjustments have become
fundamental to the conservation corridor, rather than mere fine-tuning.
Evolution of the MBC is most likely a foreshadowing of one of the major future
directions of environmental globalization. The expanding design and implementation
of corridors for nature protection in areas of developing countries seem destined
to bring conservation–including a component that is conspicuously international
and global in scope–into ever-closer contact with agriculture and resource use, and
thus to multiply the management issues and areal coverage of this expanding interface.
If the MBC is any indication, this increased contact seems to give rise to the
implementation of protected areas influenced as much by robust and nuanced local
priorities as by theoretically vague strict preservation or sustainable development
directives. 2
2 Another sort of dual purpose
is also evident in maps of
conservation corridor projects
such as shown here (Figure 1).
Many such maps are intended
both to show reality and to
shape reality, which may verge
on contradictory goals. While
both maps in our example
were designed to represent
the reality of MBC as
accurately as possible at the
time, these maps were also
prepared as part of funding
proposals. The importance of
these maps as attempts to
shape future reality needs to
be seen as part of the general
financial appeal of such
corridor projects as MBC
(Kaiser 2001: 2197).
yale school of forestry & environmental studies