Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context? - Rainforest ...

Sandra Pannellmethodology of modern heritage conservation, with its emphasis upon scientificmeasurement, classification and evaluation, “can inadvertently mummify or destroy aspectsof value by disregarding the less tangible and subtler elements of continuity” (2004: 50).It is apparent from the current management plan that the Ata Modo and the other ethnicgroups in and around the Park have failed the authenticity requirements for preservationentailed in the methodology adopted by The Nature Conservancy. Their cultural beliefsabout ora are diminished as ‘folk tales’, their traditional customs are reported to be“dwindling” at a rapid rate, local heritage is reduced to the status of a handful of ‘culturalrelicts’ (WCMC 1994), and it appears that they have also lost their ability to engage in“sustainable fish culture” (loc. cit.). According to a TNC fact sheet on ‘alternative livelihoods’,“for generations, villagers living in an around Komodo have carefully harvested the sea’sriches in sustainable ways” (TNC n.d. f: 1). However, it appears that nowadays these verysame people are engaged in “overfishing and destructive fishing practices” (loc. cit.). Itseems that while TNC is adept at recognising and saving biodiversity around the world, itdoes not appear able to identify a range of traditional community fishing activities as anythingbut ‘destructive’ or specifically distinguish who, out of the more than 20,000 people living inand around the Park, is responsible for such practices, if anyone. Through the ‘Komodo FishCulture Project’, The Nature Conservancy aims to “steer” local people towards a “thrivingmariculture industry” (TNC n.d. f: 1). In keeping with the translocal vision of TNC, this projectwill also “protect one of the world’s most biologically diverse and productive marineenvironments” (loc. cit.). In Komodo National Park, the burden of deferred consumption ofthe assets of this ‘biodiversity bank’ is firmly placed upon the local population, raisingquestions about who actually benefits from this World Heritage-inscribed, UNESCO-listedbiosphere reserve.THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY: A POSTSCRIPT FROMKOMODO NATIONAL PARK, 2005Back in 1981, when the social science researcher, Michael Hitchcock, visited the newlyformed Komodo National Park, it didn’t appear that the Komodo islanders were reallybenefiting from the environmental and tourism successes that often come with theestablishment of a protected area. Indeed Hitchcock concludes that, “overlooked by theauthorities and lacking the appropriate skills and education, the islanders have been unableto participate in the new developments” (1993: 313). Hitchcock suggests that the islanders’marginalisation partially stems from the fact that the Park’s planners were “primarilyconcerned with environmental conservation rather than the needs of the local population”(loc. cit.). Apparently, the problems posed by the presence of people within the Park were tobe solved by “resettling several villages outside the reserve” (loc. cit.).As Jim Igoe observes, along with many other commentators, “the historical creation of parksoften involved the eviction of local people” (2004: xi). An inkling of the global magnitude ofthis ‘management’ practice is found in the UNESCO-sponsored overview of ‘Human Use ofWorld Heritage Natural Sites’ (Thorsell and Sigaty 1998). While the authors of this studyreport that “the majority of natural World Heritage sites [73 out of 126 ‘natural’ and ‘mixed’sites], have no resident human population” (ibid: 3), examination of these supposedly‘natural’ sites reveals that substantial human populations, in some cases numbering tens ofthousands of people, live immediately adjacent to these protected areas. One of the moreobvious conclusions to be drawn from this material is that people lived in these spaces priorto their declaration as a protected area, whether as a World Heritage property, conservationreserve, or national park. In the 47 ‘natural’ World Heritage sites where resident humanpopulations have not been rendered invisible by the convenience of a line on a map andahistorical statistics, the degree to which their presence and involvement in shaping an38