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Conservation Refugees

Conservation is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as the “careful preservation and protection of something; especially: planned management of a natural resource to prevent exploitation, destruction, or neglect.” If you look up Refugee in the same dictionary you will find the definition to be a person “that flees; especially: a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution.” Unfortunately when you put these two separate concepts together you end up with a widely unknown concept called Conservation Refugees. These particular refugees neither flee from danger or persecution as the definition would lead you to believe but are actually being forced from their homes and off their ancestral lands by the government, military, or as it is in most cases by an organization in order to allow conservation of the area or particular species within the area. Rights; do conservation refugees have them? The answer much to the dismay of modern society is not really. Conservation Refugees live in a world colored in shades of gray; limbo. They had rights when they were recognized citizens of their state, country or nation, but as soon as they were forced from their lands and away from their homes they lost their status as citizens and rights as people. Conservation refugees do not possess the right of eminent domain as it would pertain to the laws of essentially any developed country around the world. Eminent domain has many names: compulsory purchase, resumption/compulsory acquisition and expropriation are defined as the inherent power of the state to seize private property or expropriate property without the owner’s consent. The property is taken for either government use or is delegated to a third party for private or public use. Many other basic rights are being taken from these people or comprehensively ignored. Human rights including property rights and customary rights as well as many more, the most important being their right to due process. Since they essentially no longer hold any status as citizens local courts will not take cases concerning the rights of conservation refugees. It is left to the national and international courts to hear cases, but since there are few official laws pertaining to the rights of refugees these cases are usually taken on an individual basis which can be extremely tedious and are usually drowning in red tape. This vast sea of red tape that refugees must swim through is caused by the conflicts and partnerships between local governments and conservation organizations concerning the parameters for conservation areas. Individual cases can take years, if not decades, to be heard let alone to be decided on and even if the court votes in the refugee’s favor, actual compensation may never be given. Local governments also have many large corporations influencing decisions being made about their governmental structure and policies which usually ignore the plight of the refugee. There are, however, measures being taken to ensure the rights of these refugees. For example the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Court of Justice and even the IUCN have been convening in order to lessen the red tape that surrounds conservation refugees and will allow them easier access to legal means of protecting the rights they used to have.

Many Conservation Refugees are placed in refugee camps that are more equated to concentration camps. These camps are certainly not your typical happy go lucky summer camp; described by many as being similar to POW camps and the internment camps of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. While all are refugees the main distinction is made between who was forced from their homes and who voluntarily left, reasons why are all the same, as was previously stated. People leave due to war, instability in the government, military takeover, insurgencies, persecution, and the reason pertaining to this paper removal for the good of the environment. Conservation refugees, along with all the other refugees in the camps, are treated essentially in the same manner that the people who were forced to live in the Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana were treated after Hurricane Katrina. If you look at most camps you’ll find that there is a great amount of security on the perimeter. One would think that would be a good thing except this security is to keep people inside the camps and not to protect them from the dangers outside the camp. If you move in closer you’ll see minimal security on the inside of the camps. This security is supposed to maintain order and law, but they rarely do. Many times the inner security participates in the misconduct that occurs within the confines of the camp. There is usually very little food to eat and even less clean water to drink, shelter is extremely scarce as well as clothing. Education is severely neglected and these people are rarely allowed to leave the camp. There are high incidences of theft, rape, sodomy, severe beatings, and murder; there have also been incidences that point to possible torture within the camps. These things happen because there is no real state, national, or international laws governing these camps, welcome to limbo, a literal no man’s land. The minute laws in place are generally not enforced. Slowly but surely this festering sore of dirty laundry of past and present is being shoved into the spotlight. More and more nonprofit organizations are recruiting and doing their part to bring in clothing, food, clean drinking water, and medical supplies. Unfortunately these organizations are limited in what they can do and how much they can supply until legislature is passed governing the structure of camps and the protection of the people within. The whole idea behind “placing” conservation refugees into camps is supposedly for the sole purpose of relocation. The only problem being that most of these people depend on the land that they were forcibly removed from for their sources of food, clothing, shelter, and even medicinal practices. Once they are removed they lose all access to these things and are forced to adapt to the camp and if they’re lucky to where ever they are relocated to. Unfortunately adaptation is not easy. Many instances show that people who have been relocated starve or commit suicide due to the trauma both mental and physical they endured inside, within the boundaries, and outside the camps.

ENGOS

Most people can agree that environmental conservation is a noble cause. The protection of natural resources and the maintenance of biodiversity is undoubtedly one of the most important issues facing the world today. Governmental action, however, cannot always be relied upon to act swiftly, if at all, when environmental crises emerge. Enter environmental international non-governmental organizations. These organizations, or ENGOs for short, make the environment priority number one, as they fight to protect nature from man and the global market economy. This often involves engaging in complex international negotiations in order to influence governments to establish protected areas for the strict oversight and protection of the animals and plants that live within these defined areas. Notably missing from ENGOs protection lists are the human inhabitants of lands recently demarcated as “protected.” As human beings, their very presence is seen as a potential threat to the successful preservation of biodiversity. Often times they are forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands and severed from the traditional cultural practices that have emerged from generations of interactions with the land.

ENGOs receive funding from a variety of sources. Private foundations such as The Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation once formed the bulk of the funds that support NGO conservation efforts (Chapin 2004; Dowie 2005). Funds from bilateral and multilateral sources (think USAID and World Bank) and corporations also support ENGOs. It is the increase in corporate sponsorship that is raising eyebrows among those who see a conflict of interest between the ENGOs and the corporations that donate to them. Once beholden to the ethical rules and boundaries set by the private foundations that once constituted the majority of their funding, they have now become increasingly ethically negligent as a result of an increase in corporate funding (Chapin 2004; Dowie 2005).

In spite of the proclamations of participation with local communities that can be found on websites of the World Wild Life Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and Conservation International, actions do speak louder than words. The universally applied model of conservation based on western science often clashes with indigenous knowledge of the environment. In most scenarios the western conservationist is arrogant and dismissive towards indigenous conservation models because they are not based on western science, but rather the indigenous knowledge that is the result of generations of interactions with their environment (Dowie 2005).

The idea of separating man from nature forms the core of the conservation movement. In his article entitled “Conservation Refugees,” Mark Dowie explains: “John Muir, a forefather of the American conservation movement, argued that ‘wilderness’ should be cleared of all inhabitants and set aside to satisfy the urbane human’s need for recreation and spiritual renewal. It was a sentiment that became national policy with the passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act, which defined wilderness as a place ‘where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.’ One should not be surprised to find hardy residues of these sentiments among traditional conservation groups. The preference for ‘virgin’ wilderness has lingered on in a movement that has tended to value all nature but human nature, and refused to recognize the positive wildness in human beings.”

Dowie’s words perfectly describe the problems that have emerged with the globalization of conservation. With the removal of indigenous communities from protected land, a symbiosis between the indigenous community and their environment is disrupted, resulting in a decrease in biodiversity. The refugees that were formerly living off the land are now prohibited from interacting with it. As a result of their expulsion, they are now extremely poor additions to the over populated areas surrounding the park (Igoe 2005). In many instances poaching increases, soil degradation occurs as new farmers take up agriculture for subsistence, and various other environmentally disastrous practices occur as a result of displacement (Cernea and Schmidt-Soltau 2003). By ignoring the human factor, it is becoming ever clearer that the myopic approach of conservation that is taken by the large ENGOs is ineffective and counterproductive (Cernea and Schmidt-Soltau 2003; Chapin 2004; Dowie 2005; Igoe 2004).

Preserving natural resources and habitat, but at what cost?

Nature is defined by plants, animals, and landscapes that occur naturally. When you think of animals, and extinction do you include humans? If this sounds extreme, then consider the Adivasi from India and the fact that in the spring of 2003 they were pushed out of their farmlands and relocated to extremely cramped villages in order to import six Asiatic lions. Through the efforts to conserve land NGO's like the WWF infringe on basic human rights that every person is entitled to which include: inhumane treatment of local residents, the stripping away of land , and discrimination just to name a few. Conservation Refugees are being removed from their land for wildlife conservation and often times when they are forced to move, they are placed in communities or villages which leave them vulnerable to poverty, and starvation. They are not compensated for what was lost and have no assistance this becomes very overwhelming for them and they have a hard time adjusting to this new lifestyle.

There have been oral reports of these conservation groups practicing prejudiced acts on these people as well as acts of violence. In Green, Inc. by Christine MacDonald she quotes a tribal leader in saying that “white men”(MacDonald 2008:196) told them to leave their homes in the forest because the land was not protected, he also said that they were forced into another village (which was already occupied by another group) outside the forest and that they had “ no choice, because they told them that they will be beaten and killed”(MacDonald 2008:196-197). Left without food, and land they are forced to work on farms that the villagers before them had already established. This is the international nonprofit groups idea of “bringing the indigenous people the benefits of the modern world or to protect national economic interests such as tourism” (MacDonald 2008:197).

Eliminating Culture and Behaviors

The indigenous people that are being forced out of their land are also being forced to give up their culture and assimilate to the modern world. Once these people's land is taken away and essentially their way of life is gone, there is nothing left for them to do but assimilate or die. When looking at Posey's approach of Indigenous Knowledge in which he says that these Indigenous people have environmental knowledge that could make a contribution to conservation. (Posey 2008:4), Though Darrell Posey lacked the science to back up his claim he definitely gained a lot of attention. Posey also thought that “what looked natural might be cultural, and thus that indigenous people should be seen as models for conservation, rather than as opposed to it and thus denied land rights”(Posey 2008:5).

Many of the local residents of these conservation sties or national parks have cultural rituals and practices that have gotten them through a century’s worth of tough times and what they rely on to survive. Through these practices they have been able to survive, and a culture has emerged from this. When reading Conservation Refugees by Mark Dowie he reports on one Batwa Pygmie from Africa, Kwokwo Barume said that they themselves are dying out by saying “we are heading toward extinction” (Dowie 2009:70). These people in these conservation camps are under hard restrictions based on methods, behaviors and practices that have been part of their culture for centuries. Some of these restrictions include: no cultivation, no hunting, no gathering, and sacred sites and burial grounds are off limits all of these being essential to their daily lives. These limitations help lead the way toward the extinction of hunter gather groups around the world to make way for new game reserves, and to help develop projects for ecotourism which the national government gives land up easily for these projects and not for the local residents themselves. The practice that draws the most attention and that is essential to the lifestyle of natives is that of slash-and-burn agriculture or crop-rotation.

Slash and Burn Agriculture (Crop rotation)

Slash-and-Burn Agriculture or crop rotation is practiced around the world as the most common form of Swidden agriculture by local residents in forested areas. The way slash-and-burn agriculture works is pretty much the way it sounds, during dry seasons a chunk of forested land which has been intentionally selected as a garden site is cut, the trees and undergrowth is then left on the ground to dry out. After a couple of months whatever dry vegetation is left is burned and following that the rainy season begins and crops are then planted. The ashes that are left stay on the ground and help to the soil regain its minerals (Robert L. Carneiro 2008:249). After the resources have been utilized the plot is replanted continuously until the minerals have been completely exhausted, or the plot becomes infested with weeds. If this happens then a new plot is set up and the old one forgotten. This causes the agricultural land to be eliminated so quickly that it doesn't have enough time to recover becoming one of the primary reasons that the local residents are being forced to leave their lands in the hopes of restoring these forested areas.

Redefining conservation

When looking at Darrell Posey who was a famous anthropologist and ethnobiologist and whose writings about the Kayapo Indians of the Amazon forest influenced environmental policy in that traditional societies are now being viewed as helpers in conservation, and steps are being taken to help the reconstruction of these societies (Dove & Carpenter 2008:5). Posey often stated that Indigenous people were the only ones who truly knew the forests because they have inhabited them for centuries. What Posey also determined was that biodiversity was important for these indigenous people's lives through gardens, openings to the forest and rock outcropping, and that what is considered natural today may have been altered by the ancestors of these indigenous people and may not in fact just be naturally occurring all on its own as is thought. Posey's writings are helping to redefine conservation and what it means to these societies living on conservation sites. With the help of articles and books the more people know of what is going on with conservation groups the more they are aware and preventative measures start to take place to insure that people aren't treated unfairly.

Some participants in the help to redefine conservation are countries in South America which pay notice to indigenous areas that are willing to participate in practices of conservation with the technical resources from conservation groups. Instead of being kicked out of their land there is Federal Environmental Conservation Act that protect their rights to remain on the land and use it's natural resources and the “common wealth minister negotiates conservation agreements with them” (Alcorn, J.B. and A.G. Royo. 2007:13).

Indigenous Peoples Fighting Back

The World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP), began by Chief George Manuel of the Shoswap Nation, held its first conference in British Columbia in 1975. After traveling the world, and finding that the same suffering and mistreatment felt by the North American Indians were also felt by many other indigenous peoples, he began the World Council of Indigenous People as an alliance for all indigenous peoples that are suffering. Some Indigenous peoples fought back politically, by having a voice at important conservation meeting and other such meeting that affect them. According to author Mark Dowie, the Massai sent their leader Martin Saring’O to the World Conservation Congress meeting to defend their land rights at the November 22, 2004 meeting sponsored by IUNC in Bangkok, Thailand. “Standing before the congress, he [Martin Sarin’O] expressed, ‘we are enemies of conservation.’ Their nomadic people have lost most of their grazing lands over the last thirty years. At the meeting, Massai reminds the IUCN, and defends that they were the original conservationists” (Dowie, 2005). In another instance of indigenous people defending themselves politically, Dowie writes, Sayyaad Saltani, the elected chair of the Council of Elders of the Qashaqni Confederation in Iran, gave a speech to the World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa in October of 2003. Saltani discussed the relentless pressures on his nomadic pastoral people, how their pastures and natural resources were seized from them by various agencies, and of their migratory path being interrupted. “Their summer and winter pastures were consistently degraded and fragmented by outsiders, and not even their social identity was left alone” (Dowie, 2005).

Instances of violence and retaliation have also been a result of park creations. These cases have stemmed due to resentment from land regulations and restrictions, land displacement, or parks blocking needed access to resources causing shortages. In Nepal, when the Sagarmoutha National Park was founded, the Sherpas harbored much resentment. They intentionally accelerated the depletion of the forest because their rights and traditional practices had been taken away. “Local elders estimated that more forest was lost in the first four years after the parks creation than in the previous two decades”(Colchester, 2003). Several instances of violence have occurred separately in India due to fighting the unjustness of park creations. India is a heavily populated country with almost five hundred protected areas. The protected areas, which are rich in resources, are mostly surrounded by agricultural lands and villages full of impoverished people who are in desperate need of these resources that are now blocked. People trying to obtain their basic life needs have caused violence to erupt. “Inevitably they invade the reserves and come into conflict with authorities. Resentment at the wildlife authorities attempts to control the situation has exploded in violence against officials and guards” (Colchester, 2003). In the Naganhde National Park in South India, wildlife guards were believed to have killed a poacher. This incident resulted in local people retaliating by burning 20 square kilometers of forest. “In India, resentment by local people to National Parks legislation and enforcement agencies has caused increasing problems” (Colchester, 2003).

Many indigenous peoples from all over the world have been affected by large organizations trying to protect nature and wildlife, while overlooking the human component. Indigenous peoples have been left without rights to their own land, resources, and left impoverished. The displacement causes lasting effects on their entire community. They are fighting to not only keep their homes but also their cultures as well as their identities. Many groups fight to maintain their entire lively hoods politically and sometimes even with violence.

References

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Alcorn, J.B. and A.G. Royo. 2007. Conservation’s engagement with human rights: Traction, slippage, or avoidance? Policy Matters 15: 115-139.

Cernea, Michael M. and Kai Schmidt-Soltau. 2003 Biodiversity Conservation versus Population Resettlement: Risks to Nature and Risks to People.

Chapin, Mac. 2004 A Challenge to Conservationists.World Watch Magazine. November/December:17-31.

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