Conservation, ecological justice and harm to nature - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 92

Echoes of this resonate in many places around the world today. In
Africa, for instance, traditional practices are being undermined by
imposition 'from above' of national parks in ways that disenfranchise
locals from their customary lands. These land acquisitions are having
major negative impacts on local people who are losing access and
control over the resources on which they depend, and which are the
rightful inheritance of future generations.
Specific places are associated with the needs of multiple stakeholders.
This pertains to water-based resources such as rivers, coastal waters and
ocean stretches (and associated utilities and activities such as drinking
water, fisheries, recreation uses, transportation and oil production),
and land-based resources such as forests, mountains and grasslands
(and associated utilities and activities such as hunting, mining, tourism
and gathering of medicinal ingredients). The particular perspective
of stakeholders varies greatly as do their specific social interests.
The ecologist may view nature through scientific lens; the naturalist
through the lens of wonder and enjoyment; the local resident via
their experiences of personal biography and community history; the
developer according to possibilities of commercial exploitation; and
the conservationist in terms of conservation of species. Friction occurs
when particular models of natural resource management are imposed in
ways that do not acknowledge or engage the spectrum of stakeholders,
especially those at the local level (Abel and Blaikie, 1986; Tsing, 2005;
Rivers III and Gibbs, 2011).
For example, the take-over and take-away of land are compounded
by the ways in which 'conservation' regulations are being foisted upon
these same communities. As Duffy (2010: 11) points out:
When wildlife reserves are established, local communities can
suddenly find that their everyday subsistence activities have
been outlawed and they have been redefined as criminals…
Some of the world's best-known pristine wilderness
areas are, in fact, engineered environments. Creating a
national park means drawing up new conservation rules
which outlaw the everyday subsistence activities of local
communities, such as hunting for food and collecting wood.
Victims can thus be transformed into offenders, a phenomenon that is
by no means novel or restricted to any one continent or time period.
The person with no land and no natural resources already faces a huge
and daunting task to survive - to be subjected to ill-treatment and
placed in prison constitutes an additional harm that further violates