Protected Areas and Human Displacement: a Conservation Perspective
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WORKING PAPER NO. 29 APRIL 2007 protected areas and human displacement: a conservation perspective Edited by Kent H. Redford and Eva Fearn WORKING PAPER NO. 29 APRIL 2007 protected areas and human displacement: a conservation perspective Edited by Kent H. Redford and Eva Fearn Kent Redford WCS Institute Wildlife Conservation Society 2300 Southern Blvd. Bronx, NY 10460 (718) 220-5889 [email protected] WCS Working Papers: ISSN 1530-4426 Online posting: ISSN 1534-7389 Copies of the WCS Working Papers are available at http://www.wcs.org/science Cover illustration: Mimbres bowl sketch courtesy of Burton C. Cosgrove and Carolyn O'Bagy Davis Copyright: The contents of this paper are the sole property of the authors and cannot be reproduced without permission of the authors. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) saves wildlife and wild lands around the world. We do this through science, conservation, education, and the management of the world's largest system of urban wildlife parks, led by the flagship Bronx Zoo. Together, these activities inspire people to imagine wildlife and humans living together sustainably. WCS believes that this work is essen- tial to the integrity of life on earth. Over the past century, WCS has grown and diversified to include four zoos, an aquarium, over 100 field conservation projects, local and international educa- tion programs, and a wildlife health program. To amplify this dispersed con- servation knowledge, the WCS Institute was established as an internal “think tank” to coordinate WCS expertise for specific conservation opportunities and to analyze conservation and academic trends that provide opportunities to further conservation effectiveness. The Institute disseminates WCS' conserva- tion work via papers and workshops, adding value to WCS' discoveries and experience by sharing them with partner organizations, policy-makers, and the public. Each year, the Institute identifies a set of emerging issues that poten- tially challenge WCS' mission and holds both internal and external meetings on the subject to produce reports and guidelines for the institution. The WCS Working Paper Series, produced through the WCS Institute, is designed to share with the conservation and development communities in a timely fashion information from the various settings where WCS works. These Papers address issues that are of immediate importance to helping conserve wildlife and wildlands either through offering new data or analyses relevant to specific conservation settings, or through offering new methods, approaches, or perspectives on rapidly evolving conservation issues. The findings, interpre- tations, and conclusions expressed in the Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Wildlife Conservation Society. For a complete list of WCS Working Papers, please see the end of this publication. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction – John G. Robinson 2 Part 1: An Overview 4 1.1 Conservation and Displacement: An Overview – Arun Agrawal and Kent H. Redford 4 Part 2: Latin America 16 2.1 Working with Local People to Conserve Nature in Latin America – Avecita Chicchon 16 2.2 The Maya Biosphere Reserve and Human Displacement: Social Patterns and Management Paradigms Under Pressure – Roan Balas McNab and Victor Hugo Ramos 20 2.3 Impacts of Displacement in the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, Peru – Richard Bodmer and Pablo Puertas 29 2.4 Multiethnic Dynamics, Protected Areas, and Human Displacement within the Kaa-Iya Greater Landscape, Bolivia: Indigenous Peoples, Building Alliances, and Governing and Managing Protected Areas – Oscar Castillo 34 Part 3: Asia 42 3.1 The WCS Cambodia Program in the Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area (SBCA) – Tom Evans 42 3.2 Free to Move: Conservation and Voluntary Resettlements in the Western Ghats of Karnataka, India – K. Ullas Karanth and Krithi K. Karanth 48 Part 4: North America 60 4.1 Aboriginal Peoples and Protected Areas in Canada: Implications for Achieving 60 Conservation – Justina Ray and Donald Reid Part 5: Africa 65 5.1 Protected Areas and Displacement: Okapi Faunal Reserve in the Ituri Forest, DR Congo – Richard Tshombe 65 5.2 Parks and People in Gabon – David S. Wilkie, Lee White, and Bryan Curran 70 5.3 Central Africa’s Protected Areas and the Purported Displacement of People: A First Critical Review of Existing Data – Fiona Maisels, Terry Sunderland, Bryan Curran, Karin von Loebenstein, John Oates, Leonard Usongo, Andrew Dunn, Stella Asaha, Michael Balinga, Louis Defo, and Paul Telfer 75 Part 6: The Marine Realm 90 6.1 Displacement in Marine Protected Areas: Making Sense of Social Change – Michael B. Mascia and C. Anne Claus 90 Part 7: International Policies 93 7.1 Protected Areas and Human Displacement: International Conventions, Policy, and Guidance – Linda Krueger 93 Part 8: Academic Perspectives 103 8.1 From Displacement Conservation to Place-Based Conservation – David Barton Bray 103 8.2 Reflections on Conservation, Displacement, and Exclusion – J. Peter Brosius 106 Part 9: Perspectives from other International Conservation NGOs 113 9.1 Perspectives on Protected Areas and Displacement from within Conservation International – Katrina Brandon 113 9.2 Protected Areas and Local Peoples: The Experience of The Nature Conservancy in Latin America – Tarsicio Granizo and Paulina Arroyo 121 9.3 Addressing the Social Impacts of Conservation: Strategies, Experience, and Future Directions, World Wildlife Fund – Jenny Springer 125 Bibliographies 130 WCS Working Paper Series 147 INTRODUCTION Decisions that affect how people use land are among the most fraught that any enlightened society has to grapple with. Those decisions are responsive to historical precedence, the relative power and economic influence of different interest groups, ethical and moral considerations, as well as the greater aspira- tions of that society. There are those that argue that the economic needs of the nation state, especially in the developing world, should always take precedence in determining land use. Others argue that land use should be determined by the legal land owner. More egalitarian arguments promote the greatest good for the greatest number, while others argue to prejudice land uses towards the most marginalized and disenfranchised people. Stressing historical precedence, some argue that indigenous or traditional claims to land use have greater standing. Finally, stressing humankind’s stewardship obligations, still others argue that where nature is threatened, the best use consists of setting areas aside for non- human species. Two claims that typically come out on the short end of the land-use debate are the claims of indigenous people and claims for non-human species. Sometimes claims for indigenous people are generalized to include economi- cally marginalized and politically disenfranchised people, and even to local rural people writ large. Claims for non-human species are sometimes extended to include those people who benefit (economically, intellectually, socially, or politically) from the establishment of parks and protected areas, locally and/or globally. It is ironic that some of the most heart-felt disagreements in recent years have been between these two claims – who generally have the weakest political and economic standing and tend to lose out to industrial users and more powerful immigrants. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is a conservation organization whose mission is to save wild lands and wildlife, and we work in parts of the world were the human footprint is lightest – areas where the forces of globaliza- tion, economic development, and land transformation are less felt. These areas are the last bastions for the survival of many species, and they are frequently areas inhabited by the rural poor, by marginalized and disenfranchised people, or by long-term traditional, indigenous inhabitants. We are thus confronted and challenged by opposing claims for different land uses in the areas where we work. As part of a broader effort to engage with this issue, we convened a meeting in May 2006 at the White Oak Conservation Center that brought together WCS field-based staff, other WCS staff with strategic and policy responsibilities, representatives from other conservation organizations, and social scientists. We wanted to avoid the sterile arguments of whether people are a part of nature or extrinsic to it, whether “wilderness” exists outside of the human context, whether traditional management benefits biodiversity or not, or whether human presence is always detrimental to certain species. Instead we focused on the impact of conservation areas on local people. Are parks and protected areas of benefit to local people, or are they costly to them? WCS is keenly aware of the cresting wave of sentiment concerning the attributed role of protected areas in causing human displacement. We wanted to evaluate the situation in our own field programs and discuss some of the larger questions that face the conservation community: What has been the history of protected area establishment on local people? What is the current nature of this impact – positive and negative? How is it possible to evaluate the nature of costs and benefits? If there are benefits, how should they be allocated? If there are Wildlife Conservation Society | WORKING PAPER NO. 29 costs, especially if people are relocated, who is responsible for addressing those costs? What should WCS’ institutional response be? How are other institutions, both governmental and non-governmental, responding?