Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
(2008, 773) define political ecology as the examination of the “complex intersection
of cultural perceptions of environment, and changing ecological conditions and
political-economic interests.” These authors observe that “efforts targeted at environ-
mental conservation are intrinsically interwoven with questions of power and politi-
cal authority” (Nygren and Rikoon 2008, 775). Harvey (1996, 185) is unambiguous
in situating restoration squarely in the realm of political-economic activity: “Ecolog-
ical arguments are never socially neutral any more than socio-political arguments are
ecologically neutral.”
From a political ecology perspective, then, questioning the power relations em-
bedded within or implied by ecological restoration activities is imperative. The con-
scientious restorationist must ask such questions as: Who determines what ecosystem
is in need of restoration? Who determines the target condition, and which ecological
structures, processes, and components are to be valued? Whose values, histories, and
traditions are privileged, and whose are not? For whom is restoration initiated? Who
benefits from restoration? Who loses? Who pays? Who has rights or claims to the land
to be restored? How will local or traditional access and use patterns be affected? Who
will do the work of restoration?
Each of these questions merits serious consideration and opens up whole webs of
interrelated questions, problems, and potential conflicts. To illustrate with one impor-
tant example, consider the questions, Who determines target conditions for ecologi-
cal restoration, and how? In their encyclopedic analysis of deforestation in West
Africa, Fairhead and Leach (1998) illustrate how a selective reading of history, flawed
ecological reasoning, and ingrained colonial prejudices combined to form the domi-
nant—but highly erroneous—paradigm regarding the region's forests. In the domi-
nant view, widely accepted by forest ecologists even today, the West African coast was,
until the relatively recent past, covered by “primeval” forest, largely untouched by hu-
mans. Serious forest degradation and deforestation commenced only in the past cen-
tury, as farmers and pastoralists migrated into the forested coastal region from savan-
nas to the north. As the population swelled, forests were felled until only tiny relic
forests remained as islands in the encroaching, human-induced savanna. Building
upon this telling of regional history, colonial as well as postindependence govern-
ments established forest reserves, restricted indigenous peoples' tenure rights, and
usurped much of the remaining forest. Moreover, conservation policy in Africa, in
general, sprang from the underlying philosophy that growing human populations
cause deforestation (Fairhead and Leach 1998).
Fairhead and Leach's (1998) reappraisal of the region's history reveals that early es-
timates of “original” forest cover were based on very limited and selective empirical
data, and wildly exaggerated. Subsequent estimates of deforestation rates built on
these inflated guesses. What's more, in many cases, ecologists misread not only the
causes but the direction of forest change. Many forest “relics” have been shown not to
be the remains of a formerly vast “natural” forest, but rather anthropogenic forests es-
tablished to buffer human settlements from the surrounding savanna! These authors
do not claim that all human-forest interactions are similarly favorable to maintaining
