Conservation and Society 

About: Conservation and Society is an academic journal published by Medknow. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Protected area & National park. It has an ISSN identifier of 0972-4923. Over the lifetime, 654 publications have been published receiving 19217 citations. The journal is also known as: Conservation & Society & Conservation and Society.

People, Parks and Poverty: Political Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation

Abstract: Action to conserve biodiversity, particularly through the creation of protected areas (PAs), is inherently political. Political ecology is a field of study that embraces the interactions between the way nature is understood and the politics and impacts of environmental action. This paper explores the political ecology of conservation, particularly the establishment of PAs. It dis- cusses the implications of the idea of pristine nature, the social impacts of and the politics of PA establishment and the way the benefits and costs of PAs are allocated. It considers three key political issues in contemporary international conservation policy: the rights of indigenous people, the relationship between biodiversity conservation and the reduction of poverty, and the arguments of those advocating a return to conventional PAs that exclude people.

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Recent Instances for Debate

Abstract: After 1992 many conservation biologists thought that the use of economic instruments would be more effective to halt biodiversity loss than policies based on setting apart some natural spaces outside the market. At the same time there was a new elaboration of the concept of ecosystem services and, since 1997, there have been attempts at costing in money terms the loss of ecosystem services and biodiversity, including the high profile TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) project (2008-2011). Our discussion rests on instances showing the analytical implications of three main socio-economic meanings of biodiversity loss: 1) the loss of natural capital; 2) the loss of ecosystem functions; and 3) the loss of cultural values and human rights to livelihood. We review several approaches to include economic considerations in biodiversity conservation. We show cases where monetary valuation is relevant and other cases where it is controversial and even counterproductive, as it undermines the objectives of conservation.

Neoliberal Conservation: A Brief Introduction

Abstract: The growing body of work on the 'neoliberalisation of nature' does not as yet pay adequate attention to conservation policy and its impacts. Simi­larly, studies of conservation have much to learn by placing conservation policies in the context of broader social and economic changes that define neoliberalism. In this introduction, we outline and analyse the ways in which viewing conservation through a neoliberal lens adds value (if you will excuse the metaphor) to the collection of critiques we offer, placing quite different geographical areas and case studies in a comparative context. We argue that neoliberalisation involves the reregulation of nature through forms of com­modification. This, in turn, entails new types of territorialisation: the parti­tioning of resources and landscapes in ways that control, and often exclude, local people. Territorialisation is a starkly visible form of reregulation, which frequently creates new types of values and makes those values available to national and transnational elites. Finally, neoliberalisation has also coin­cided with the emergence of new networks that cut across traditional divides of state, non-governmental organisation (NGO), and for-profit enterprise. These networks are rhetorically united by neoliberal ideologies and are com­bining in ways that profoundly alter the lives of rural people in areas targeted for biodiversity conservation. The studies this collection brings together, which are all rooted in place-based detailed research, are united by their ex­perience of these processes. We argue that the disparate collection of cri­tiques on the neoliberalisation of nature needs more grounded studies like these. We conclude this introduction with some tentative recommendations for future research and policy on neoliberal conservation.

Eviction for Conservation: A Global Overview

Abstract: Displacement resulting from the establishment and enforcement of protected areas has troubled relationships between conservationists and rural groups in many parts of the world. This paper examines one aspect of dis- placement: eviction from protected areas. We examine divergent opinions about the quality of information available in the literature. We then examine the literature itself, discussing the patterns visible in nearly 250 reports we compiled over the last two years. We argue that the quality of the literature is not great, but that there are signs that this problem is primarily concentrated in a few regions of the world. We show that there has been a remarkable surge of publications about relocation after 1990, yet most protected areas reported in these publications were established before 1980. This reflects two processes, first a move within research circles to recover and rediscover pro- tected areas' murky past, and second stronger enforcement of existing legisla- tion. We review the better analyses of the consequences of relocation from protected areas which are available and highlight areas of future research.

Neoliberal environmentality: Towards a poststructuralist political ecology of the conservation debate

Abstract: This article proposes a Foucaultian poststructuralist framework for understanding different positions within the contemporary debate concerning appropriate biodiversity conservation policy as embodying distinctive ‘environmentalities’. In a recently-released work, Michel Foucault describes a neoliberal form of his familiar concept ‘governmentality’ quite different from conventional understandings of this oft-cited analytic. Following this, I suggest that neoliberalisation within natural resource policy can be understood as the expression of a ‘neoliberal environmentality’ similarly distinct from recent discussions employing the environmentality concept. In addition, I follow Foucault in describing several other discrete environmentalities embodied in competing approaches to conservation policy. Finally, I ask whether political ecologists’ critiques of mainstream conservation might be viewed as the expression of yet another environmentality foregrounding concerns for social equity and environmental justice and call for more conceptualisation of what this might look like.