The cultural context of biodiversity conservation - Oapen

The discursive context
In the end, Ellen recalls that the sources of ethnographic data are also seamless and
fragile webs of information:
We speak of ›gathering‹, ›collecting‹, ›sorting‹, ›processing‹ and ›recording‹ data, as if it were out there
waiting for us. Of course it is not: ›data‹ is only a convenient summary term for the documented and
memorate results of conducting research, either based on our own first-hand experiences or based on
those of others set down in texts. [...] we can never escape from the philosophical dilemma as to what
it is we really ›observe‹, how categories affect what we observe and what is ›fact‹ and what ›interpretation‹
(1984: 213f.).
3.2 Perspectives on protected area management
Environmental and social concerns are inextricably woven together. (Jeanrenaud 1999: 133)
With regard to the role of anthropology in research on biodiversity conservation, it
can be observed that the implications of protected area management as a significant
instrument in achieving the objectives of the CBD concerning in situ conservation
gained new relevance as a field of study. In the past decade, writings on this topic
have grown exponentially. 16 Anthropological interest in the field emerged in the 1970s
and draws on a diversity of theoretical backgrounds. In addition to the fields of ecological
and economic anthropology and studies of local management of common
property resources, it includes major lines of thought from political ecology. Detailed
examination of policy issues between states and local populations and in social
movements have also been developed in applied anthropology and advocacy anthropology
(Orlove & Brush 1996: 333). Based on wider scale issues of environmental and social
change, advancing contributions from this area analyse the impacts of the global expansion
of policies and economics at local level interrelationships of resource users
with regional, national and international actors. More specifically, many accounts focus
on policy issues such as competing claims over territory inherent in relationships
between nation-states and local populations and place-based conflicts over natural resources
within protected area management regimes. Within this frame, the underlying
approach places the concept of interaction above that of intervention (Slikkerveer 2000:
172) and devolves more responsibility and power in decision-making to local communities.
It implies the adoption of new participatory concepts and methods in conservation
and development practice. Thereby, it has been claimed that ›participation‹ is not
to be seen as a means to achieve externally desirable goals but must rather be based on
an interactive long-term process of concerted dialogue, negotiation and conflict resolution
to understand how local livelihoods are constructed by people's own meanings
and priorities. In this vein, much recent academic work reveals the social dimension of
linking conservation efforts through protected areas with local level development.
16 See for instance Wells & Brandon (1993), Furze et al. (1996), Stevens (1997), Stolton & Dudley
(1999), Beltrán (2000), Oviedo et al. (2000), Brechin et al. (2003) and Berkes (2004).
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