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Entry 1: “Forest Developers, Forest Protectors: Commercial Agroforestry by the Chiripá of Paraguay”
Use of natural resources by local populations is often presented as degrading to biodiversity in tropical ecosystems. However, the environment perceived as “natural” and separate from humans has had human intervention for generations. Richard Reed discusses the effectiveness and sustainability of agroforestry. Agroforestry is an economically, environmentally, culturally sustainable and profitable practice. Reed believes more Amazonian populations could benefit through agroforestry, where the use of a culture’s environmental knowledge is applied to land. Reed’s research is based off previous agroforestry studies on the Chiripá of Paraguay. Agroforestry practices replicate tropical forest ecosystems. Chiripá labor is divided between horticulture, hunting, fishing, and commercial extraction such as the marketing of yerba. Subsistence farming provides families with a more reliable source of income. Extraction cycles and divisions of labor prevent the exhaustion of resources.
Reed’s article is important because certain practices, such as agriculture and commercial extraction, are viewed as negating forest management and protection. The use of natural resources however, can be conducive to the management and health of land. This article presents a contrasting viewpoint to Sodikoff’s article, where the relationship between conservation and production are observed as incompatible.
Entry 2: “Primate Conservation and Local Communities— Ethical Issues and Debates”
Conservation can be ethically questionable in its representation of animal over human interests. Catherine Hill analyzes the costs and benefits of protection of the Greater Apes against human right protection. She questions whether one group has higher merit than the other and the implications of that attributed merit. Hill argues species protection and sustainable development can be reached through an interdisciplinary ethical approach.
Hill uses previous literature on primates from Uganda, Central and West Africa, and Asia. She discusses the ecological, economical, scientific, moral and cultural value of primates, then highlights the repercussions of protecting them. On one hand, primates are important to biodiversity, and their similarity to humans could extend human rights to them. On the other hand, Greater Apes may act as crop pests and spread diseases to humans. Their protection would imply regulations to a habitat used by locals for resources. Hill also questions the ethics of pairing conservation and development; depending on the actors and stakeholders, species conservation may be valued over “community development” or “community development” may be valued over species conservation.
Hill’s ethical questions reflect the binaries often set up between humans and animals. Delving deeper into the set boundaries for primates, humans, and plant species reveals protection can compromise the rights of the “other.” The frameworks she considers can be found in McNeil’s ethics article as well as in Nazarea’s “View From a Point.” The ethical standing or stake one has affects the discussion. Depending on how a problem is framed as being a problem, the accompanying solution will also be different.
Entry 3: “Government and Community Relations and Efforts for Comanagement”
When a local identity is defined in opposition of scientific or governmental identities, conservation efforts will potentially exclude affected locals. Maggie Messerschmidt views the local as an invaluable asset to the management of protected areas. She encourages co-management between government and locals. Messerschmidt conducted research in Villa Mills, Alto de Jaular, and Piedra Alta in Costa Rica. Data was collected from community observations and interviews with locals and conservation organizations like MINAE, a government branch. The three towns are within the Rio Macho Forest Reserve and Area de Conservacion de la Amistad-Pacifica.
Messerschmidt found locals within the three towns expressed an interest in conservation efforts, particularly in land management, ecotourism, and environmental education. Local proposals to MINAE to get involved however were often received negatively. The townspeople have no trust in MINAE, and they believe MINAE has no trust in them; still, Messerschmidt sees a niche for government and local collaboration, as there is a struggle amongst the three towns to come together and discuss their environmental issues. Funds, technology, and environmental education stand as obstacles to locals benefiting from conservation in their area. Conservation can result in economic and political problems without local involvement. The division between government and local is solidified in the representation of the government as a locus of control and the towns as a marginalized region. This division creates tensions where the right way to manage land is determined by the government. The same can be said for many other nations as described in Larson’s REDD+ article.The reading also draws parallels to Nazarea’s article on ethnoecology — a local’s perspective is insightful in environmental knowledge.Rather than functioning as institutions of land control, government organizations would make a larger difference by working with locals who live on or around the land.
Entry 4: “Hunting in Ancient and Modern Amazonia: Rethinking Sustainability”
Population growth is often referred to as a force of destruction, whereas smaller indigenous populations are thought to be more “sustainable.” Shepard et. al address this concern for population growth within rainforests. They call attention to flaws in current sustainability indices. Researchers should look deeper into the “paradigmatic shift in the spatial and temporal impacts” of hunting for a more comprehensive understanding of population. Using computer modeling, quantitative and qualitative data have provided insight into the “sustainability” of indigenous populations of the Amazon from the past, present, and future.
The model used by Shepard et. al focuses on the Matsigenka people and large primates in Peru’s Manu National Park, an area which falls under a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage site. They find that Matsigenka population growth is not the number one factor depleting animals. Rather, hunting technology and distribution of human settlements are the biggest determinants of the size and rate of primate populations. Food preferences and taboos, settlement patterns, seasons, and hunting technology are some factors which Shepard et. al describe as affecting resources. The use of this modeling system is proposed as useful in looking at the sustainability of hunting and settlements in other Amazonian groups.
This research is important because it does not just focus on quantitative data, but takes into account qualitative data such as past interviews and taboos. Also, the model goes beyond population growth as one factor affecting environmental destruction as in Sherbin et al’s article. The model is set for a more localized scale rather than a globalized one as discussed in Taylor and Buttel’s and Tsing’s work. For management of natural resources, looking at the indices to decide what is or is not “sustainable” is important. Population’s relation to the environment should not be romanticized into a bigger more destructive group and a smaller more sustainable group. The inclusion or exclusion of indices change the picture presented of how and why natural resources or species are being affected.
Entry 5: “The Low-Wage Conservationist: Biodiversity and Perversities of Value in Madagascar”
Conservation in Africa is often conducted through “decentralization,” with conservation agencies filing in to take the place of the state. The creation of conservation development programs however, can result in bureaucracies that reinforce the need for programs. Genese Sodikoff explains one form of bureaucracy by focussing on the “implementer” and “target” of development programs. She draws on fieldwork, participant observation, and interviews from conservation agents (implementers) and villagers (targets) in the Mananora- Nord Biosphere Reserve of Madagascar. Sodikoff finds social spheres and identities are created in the leveling off of jobs in a way that reinforces deforestation practices. Most agents are villagers who must navigate between UNESCO, supporting NGOs, the state, and their neighbors. Their commitment to kin and their position as conservation agents puts them in a socio-economical, cultural, and political conflict of interest. Agents recognize ecological benefits of protecting the reserve alongside the financial. The conservation agent’s wage however, is low enough that agents often return to the subsistence they are meant to be preventing. Similarly, the enforcement of laws means estranging the kin to whom they have social and financial ties; so, turning a blind eye to tree felling is not uncommon.
Capitalism inspires the use of cheap labor for conservation, helping to solidify wealth gaps and increase deforestation. It relates to Messerschmidt’s article in take on the role the state and NGOs play in the delegation of responsibilities and how those responsibilities affect an area. The representation of agriculture being counter-culture to conservation is presented in this article. Agriculture however, is represented as more productive to villagers than a conservation approach. The article is important because it questions whether methods of conservation are actually conserving resources, or if they are fueling the very practices that they are trying to change. The politics, economics, and social restrictions at play are reflective of diverse influences in the acceptance of or resistance to forest conservation.
Entry 6: “Excerpt from Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection”
The interactions of people from different states and societies is often feared to result in a homogeneous society. Anna Tsing argues that globalization has been around for thousands of years and is a process that directly and indirectly affects regions of the world. Tsing’s data expounds from previous research in Indonesia to make a global reference. She found even cultures distanced from groups of people were being shaped by local or regional processes. Cultures are constantly reproduced and reinvented in their domestic and “long distance” interactions. She calls these interactions friction: “the awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of interconnection across difference.”
Often, smaller, peripheral or local states are seen as only being influenced, rather than influencing. Globalization does not reflect one superior world cycle. Several cycles are at work is a force of the regional to the global. These local regions have power of their own. Tsing urges “global” processes to be seen not as a smoothly uniform entity, but as several parts that move against each other causing friction. Cultural frictions are integral to productions like deforestation and conservation. Without the production of deforestation there would be no conservation.
Like Taylor and Buttel, Tsing questions the use of the term “global” to define environmental problems. What is a problem to one region may not be felt heavily by another region. Or, the “problem” may not be perceived as a problem.
Entry 7: “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”
Dualisms such as culture and nature are commonly portrayed as two irreconcilably distinct realms. Donna Haraway approaches dualisms by illustrating a world of cyborgs with a political-scientific approach. Haraway concentrates on the role of the cyborg in medicine, politics, and human and animal relations. Cyborgs can also be part male and female. Sexual reproduction is no longer the sole means of creating life and humans and animals represent each others interests. Resistance forms against the idea of technology taking control of the human world. While Haraway finds cyborgs to be antagonized, particularly by “American feminists and socialists,” she argues the cyborg acts out of second nature; cyborgs are not so unnatural. These resisted, yet accepted, combinations reflect power relationships that are constantly changing in form and definition. Haraway describes cyborgs as “unfaithful” because at any time one part can dominate the other.
Haraway favors the acceptance of cyborgs and argues they provide insight into culturally constructed dominations. What may have been stark binaries have been blurred such that what is natural comes to embody humanity and humanity the the natural. They function in an interdependent relationship that can be viewed as tumultuous or supportive.
Vilaça presents dualisms like culture and nature as bendable constructions. Ortner also calls for the re-evaluation of gender and culture to nature. While she does imply binaries exist, these binaries are constructed and vary. The Great Chain of Being, with human above physical attributes to nature is broken.
Entry 8: “Land Tenure and REDD+: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”
Conflict over land and lost tenure rights are not uncommon issues in the conservation of natural resources. Larson et. al evaluates REDD+, a program that regulates use of forest resources and compensates “developing” countries for the financial opportunity cost of maintaining in carbon sequestration. Information is compiled from interviews from technical staff and villagers on the project sites, research by Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the GCS-REDD project addressing national stakeholders, policies, and processes, and subnational projects for REDD+. Larson et al focus on Brazil, Indonesia, Tanzania, Vietnam, Cameroon. Land tenure is mainly public and held by the government.
Larson et. al find discussion and problem solving are framed around politics and policy making rather than land tenure; yet, many NGOs and civil groups position themselves around governance and land tenure rights. For some minorities, they don’t take advantage of the opportunities. At a local level, there are opportunities presented but would benefit from a national program. Still, even though REDD provides compensation, awareness of the compensation is not widespread. Problems created in the value making of REDD policies are overlooked. can play a role in tenure reform on behalf of those in tenure conflict.
Land rights may be an ethical sacrifice resulting from conservation efforts. Distinguishing between environmental protection and human rights can result in harm to one or both parties, a dynamic addressed in “Stolen Apes.”
Entry 9: “The Power of Environmental Knowledge: Ethnoecology and Environmental Conflicts in Mexican Conservation”
Conservationists, governments, and locals may have competing interests and perceptions of the environment. These interests can be reflected in constructed anti-identities. Nora Haenn examines the differing approaches to the environment. She collects data from the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in Mexico. Conflict has occurred over forest resources between campesinos (swidden farmers) and conservationists. Each party has different perceptions of land use – the campesinos feel the forest is a powerful force requiring social control and labor, while conservationists believe the reserve needs a hands off approach. Haenn explores conflicts in the reserve as the origination of differences in knowledge and identity. Knowledge affects how one party approaches another and their perceptions and beliefs. The campesino class identity is only formed in opposition to the conservationist identity. Despite differences among the campesinos, they have a shared identity because there is an opposing group. When a compromise promising developmental programs was reached, resistance to conservation continued. Campesinos however, have learned how to speak the language of conservation however, in a way that allows easier communication between parties.
As Tsing describes in “Friction” the presence of one identity creates the presence of another. These identities complex such that they are not restricted to a divide between the rich and poor. Assumption that humans will destroy nature. The work draws on Nazarea’s ethnoecologies and Milton’s comparisons of nature and culture.
Entry 10: “Differences and Conflict in the Struggle over Natural Resources: A Political Ecology Framework”
Within the conflicts over natural resources, economic reasons like resource distribution are likely to be highlighted. Ideals of modernity and sustainability are associated with capitalism and technology. Struggles of environmental proportions often have rich capitalists on one side of the argument, and poor anti-capitalists on the other. Arturo Escobar explains the struggle over natural resources occurs in economic, ecological, and cultural dimensions. Difference-in-equality, the equal respect of these different dimensions, is rarely achieved on regional or international scales.
Escobar uses a political ecology lens to analyze resource conflicts. While economic costs are applied to ecological services, monetary costs are not the only guiding criteria to arguments over resources. Critics do not focus on the cultural dimension as much as the economic and ecological. Cultural perceptions, however, are integral to the management of resources. Escobar calls for equality of distribution in all three dimensions. The consideration of the three dimensions is important to prevent the automatic associations between conflict and financial instability in specific regions of the world. Escobar creates a connection to Tsing’s idea of friction, where diversities are constantly being created through contact.
Entry 11: “Indigenous Initiatives and Petroleum Politics in the Ecuadorian Amazon”
Globalization can occur when new economies and environmental degradations are brought to an area. The process shapes likeminded organizations unite in defense of rights in conservation. In Villano, located in Ecuador’s central Amazon province, an oil company called ARCO has created issues for surrounding peoples. Suzana Sawyer gathers data from the Villano Assembly and OPIP the (Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza). OPIP formed to get communal land rights. Parts of the Amazon have already been observed as changed. Petroleum companies have polluted and degraded land and livelihoods.
With resource management and livelihoods tied to the health of forests, indigenous peoples are seeking justice and greater land involvement. The supported call for rights has solidified an ethnic-national identity. However, the state, which is in control of subterranean rights, have gave access to ARCO. Groups near oil well were represented as representative of indigenous groups, but everyone is included in forest management. Groups near oil well were represented as representative of indigenous groups, but everyone is included in forest management. In Villano, commoditized state property is called “tierra” or “territorio,” which represents ancestral land. A protest supported by other organizations forced the state to involve itself in an agreement with ARCO.
Villano’s situation reflects development is not in itself a wholly good process. The indigenous were put in a position to defend the environment against development —a position usually prescribed to the “developed world”. The physical environment is connected to livelihoods as is described by Alex de Sherbinin et. al. Sawyer connects to Haenn’s work with campesinos in Mexico.
Entry 12: “Endangered Forests, Endangered People: Environmentalist Representations of Indigenous”
Environmental “facts” are guided by past research. That research however, can be based on biases and projections of information rather than supported empirical data. J. Peter Brosius gathers information from ethnobotanist Wade Davis and environmental activist Thom Henly. They did research in the the Western and Eastern Penan of Sarawak, located in Malaysia. Brosius found that the researchers juxtaposed information from the Eastern Penan to the Western Penan. Their conclusions were also guided by romanticized notions of indigenous peoples. In the West, scientists had made more of an impact. The region consisted of a smaller group of people than the East. In the East, the presence of the researchers affected their perceptions of the environment such that their vocalizations of the forest deforestation began to concern the loss of medicinal plants even though medicinal plants were never an important part of their society.
Sources considered to be reputable may misinterpret data, separating images or people into categories that have been constructed by themselves. The categories in the case of Penan were not distinguished by the two regions with different peoples formed by different social structures and environments, but the West vs. the rest. Fairhead and Leach too discuss the importance of questioning data sources and their interpretations.
Entry 13: “How to Queer Ecology”
With rises in industrialization, culture is often perceived as an entity both distinct and superior to nature. Alex Johnson approaches the culture-nature dichotomy by comparing it to the relationship between homosexual and heterosexual. Like culture and nature, the sexual orientations are constructed as polar opposites where one is and the “other” is not. He wishes for the language surrounding these dichotomies to change and to start a conversation. Johnson’s argument is based on an essay describing geese as natural because of their monogamous male female relationships. Another article however, shows geese and other animals deemed as “natural” are not all heterosexual. The queer, and the movement of culture and nature in and out of one another is not hard to find. Johnson argues for the “queering” of nature, or taking away the constructed line between culture and nature.
This article reflects binaries that can occur in environmental management or protection, the binaries being the right way or wrong way approach what is taken to be a problem. Images should not be divided into what is or is not natural because those categories will continuously cross over each other. This binaries can be reflective of a certain framework and understanding of the world that is neither right nor wrong.
Similarly, in protected area management, particular practices or styles of management may be seen as more “natural” and conducive to an environment’s health. Nature for instance, may be romanticized in a way that warrants human exclusion; however, it would be hard to find a place that was never inhabited or shaped by humans in some way. Like Johnson, Milton and Vilaça also question the notion of culture and nature as separate. We must stop overlooking the nature in culture and culture in nature.
Entry 14: “But I Know it is True: Environmental Risk Assessment, Justice, Anthropology”
Environmental assessments can be informed by several frameworks such as the physical, life, and social sciences. The knowledge of the scientist however, often reigns over other sources of knowledge. This can have implications to environmental justice. Melissa Checker pushes for these hierarchal barriers to be broken down so that the scientist and the local can work together in environmental risk assessment. Her data is taken the EPA and from Black residents in Augusta, Georgia’s Hyde Park.
Checker analyzes the approach taken by the EPA and scientists in determining environmental risk and relates it to the stories of pollution told by residents. Residents reported harmful contamination, but EPA reports contradicted these complaints. The residents were found to be correct in their fears. Indices and references from other populations cannot always reflect the size, genetics, or geography of a population. Risk assessments can be entangled in cultural stereotypes. Had there been a greater outreach towards residents, the problem could have been remedied sooner. Checker suggests that more collaborations should occur for a. Science does not always identify problems nor does it have the solution. For locals living in an approached environment, they can give a different, but equally informed perspective on the processes around them.
It is important to note that just because a person is of a certain socioeconomic status, education level, or region, does not mean that they cannot understand that a problem is in their midst. On the same note, their lack of seeing a problem does mean that they are ignorant. Authority figures in environmental management and protection should be questioned because there is not one way to approach the environment.This relates to Messerschmidt’s article in the perceived ignorance of the locals in environmental matters.
Entry 15: “Protecting the Environment the Natural Way”
Consumers increasingly seek to play a more ethical role in the market, mainly by choosing what to buy or not to buy. James Carrier points out that certain political economies (capitalistic and neoliberal) encourage buying that unbeknownst to the ethical consumer, is ethically questionable. Carrier focuses on Fair trade coffee in Costa Rica and ecotourism in the Caribbean. Ecotourism can be perceived as a means to financially support locals and the physical environment. Through ecotourism, however, both are commodified. Fair trade coffee can simplify a production process of many actors and stakeholders into two — the farmer and the coffee buyer.
Images can be reproduced as categorical representations in which authoritative, ethical, and often romanticized notions imbued. These images produced for consumers, are often projected by consumers. As such, these images are solidified. Images of ethicality may not be representative of reality. The moment of consumption is the consumer focus rather than looking at how that choice was shaped. The ethical consumer ignores some ethical questions. Carrier believes consumers need to look at themselves rather than solely the product they are buying. Consumers seek producers, and producers create for consumers. Consumers cannot detach themselves from such a cyclical equation.
The way an image is sold can influence a person’s perspective of it being environmentally friendly or ethical. Images are driven by the consumer. An image can frame a safari jeep up close and personal to a lion, but not the radio collar around it’s neck. An indigenous woman might be photographed in vibrant and “ethnic” clothes, but when the tourists and cameras leave, she puts on “Western” clothing. For the consumer who wishes to act ethically, support for a certain form of environmental management can be shaped by images that are projections of themselves.
Entry 16: “Stolen Apes: The Illicit Trade in Chimpanzee, Gorillas, Bonobos, and Orangutans”
The Greater Apes are being illegally traded, by locals with international actors playing a larger role than before. Stiles et. al collected data on primates in 12 African countries and Indonesia through the United Nations (UN), Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, and NGOs. A Rapid Response Assessment was created to provide recommendations for illegal trade.
They found conservation threats are no longer the number one cause for apes being entered into trade. Now international markets are a big drive. Logging and mining have also fueled markets. Habitat reduction increases the contact between apes and humans with most ape deaths resulting from the trade process rather than the confiscation. There is not enough regulation or enforcement from the states. Agents in protected areas can play a large role in catching poachers and actors in the trade of primates.
Stiles et. al recommend stricter policies and enforcement on trades. Government corruption needs to be reduced. International actors must be wary of illegally traded apes.
The article read in one way supports a narrative of environmental destruction, with illicit trade as a problem. Apes are seen as a part of the “wild” or nature that need to be protected by humans, from humans. Narratives are paired with anti-narratives. From another point of view, the trade is a solution connected to local livelihoods, where apes are pest problem that need to be rid of to protect crops, or food and financial stability is needed. Recommendations for these local problems are not included, rather, solutions focus on stricter rules that are meant to protect. What is seen as needing protection by one group can be seen as a problem by another group.
Entry 17: “Rural Household Demographics, Livelihoods and the Environment”
Population growth is not the sole factor driving environmental degradation. Population dynamics is a complex process driven by multiple factors. Sherbinin et. al approach rural households as important actors in population dynamics and in the use of natural resources. They study the linked livelihoods determined by the demographics of these households. The authors want to demonstrate that population is not blindly driven or a “problem” of the “developing” world. It is affected by particular households which differ in wealth.
Data is collected on the correlation between fertility, morbidity, mortality, and migration and household life cycles. Sherbin et. al look at capital — natural, social, human, physical and financial capital. The form of capital held by a household acts as a feedback mechanism within itself and in the consumption of natural resources. Roles change and pass on to and between family members, as do the forms of capital. Reduction of one type of capital can lead to heavier reliance on another sort of capital.
In terms of livelihood, a household might not look at increasing the number of kids, or cutting down trees as environmental destruction but as a solution to increasing their capital. The article is similar to Sodikoff’s article. While conservation agents in a protected area who lived in the village held financial capital over their fellow villagers, the villagers held social capital over them. As in Perdue and Pavela’s article, locality (such as rural) can provide insight into the role of natural resources.
Entry 18: “How Do We Know We Have Global Environmental Problems?”
Environmental problems are defined as global, a term that can result in predictions that are inconsistent with regional processes. So, Taylor and Buttel, ask that we question this term. They look at data from global models of the past and present, and discourse surrounding the term. They analyze how a global perspective on the environment has played out at a regional and international scale. Designation of environmental processes as a problem is largely political. Certain models and research, often regarding climate, can be supported over others. A moral and technocratic discourse follows the term. Solutions become based in what we should do as global citizens with a shared problem such that international agencies like the United Nations and World Bank are formed. The form of aid given by these agencies however can play a role in increasing environmental degradation.
Their analysis points to a hierarchy of physical sciences over social science that should be erased. Checker relates to the focus on scientific authority figures as policy drivers. This article is important because environmental destruction is widely referred to in global terms. A global problem can expound a presented image of environmental destruction in one part of the world to a seemingly similar part of the world. Responsibility of environmental destruction in placed everyone’s hands no matter the contribution. Protected areas can have an international touch, in that many of them are structured similarly from country to country as a “fortress” or with buffer zones, core areas, multi-use zones, or transition areas. The efficiency of a protected area however, is largely dependent on regions. They would not prove a global solution to a global problem such as deforestation.
Entry 19: “Anthropology, Culture, Environmentalism”
Kay Milton discusses the concept of culture and the role that anthropology and environmentalism play in that definition and with each other. Sub-genres of cultural anthropology are compared with each other. Milton contends that anthropology is not only the study of culture, but also the study of the environment. Milton does not commit to a definition of culture. She compares culture to a black box, where the contents of the box are unseen and everything can be engulfed. As such, anthropology can play an important role in environmental discourse.
She provides a spectrum of biosphere peoples and ecosystem peoples. At one end of the spectrum are ecosystem peoples whose livelihoods are tied to their surroundings. On the other end of the spectrum are biosphere peoples who collect their resources from other regions. Biosphere peoples usually perceive ecosystem peoples as tied to nature. Looking closer at biosphere and ecosystem peoples, the connections or disconnections of humans and nature as perceived by many environmentalists fall apart.
Because there is a culture and nature dichotomy, from afar anthropology and environmentalism may seem to focus on separate images. Milton’s article is important in seeing that anthropology is not an anthropocentric discipline. Similarly, ecology and other disciplines based on the “natural” world have close ties to humans. This work explores a similar ideology with “Chronically Unstable Bodies” where there is no fine line between culture and nature. The relationship between culture and nature can be explored through each of the articles explored on the site and in the course.
Entry 20: “False Forest History “
In the environmental discourse, there is a commonly defended narrative that the world’s resources are finite and are being consumed, destroyed, or degraded at an alarming rate. James Fairhead and Mellisa Leach analyze this narrative through its comparison to a counternarrative.
The loss of forest cover in Kissidougou, Guinea is the focus of the article alongside savanna and farming regions. On one side are narratives of population growth, farming, and modernity as reasons for loss of forest cover. Policy makers and officials use soil science, and geographic studies to support their premises about the role locals play in deforestation. On the other side are aerial photographs and the local knowledge of the past is evidence which implicates there has not been as much forest lost as is implied which do not show a major decrease in forest cover. Through the counternarrative, Fairhead and Leach do not try to say that all scientific research is incorrect. Their goal is instead to illustrate that what is taken to be fact must be questioned.
Social constructs and power have an affect on the narrative that is told. Farming, for example, is often seen as destructive. Contrary to belief, villagers’ practices cam encourage forest growth rather than degrade, it. In the case of Kissidougou, locals were repeating what was said by officials.
Information can be taken for granted as correct regarding environmental management. When information that is taken for granted is used as the basis for studies, actions, and policy, environmental management can end up playing a role in social, political, and environmental degradation.
Entry 21: “The Anti-Politics Machine”
Many nongovernmental organizations and international governmental organizations establish themselves in countries with the goal of sustainable development. However, their attempts at development are at times ignorant of both what the local population wants and needs, and the impacts of addressing local, state, and global interests. James Ferguson and Larry Lohmann look at the Basotho in Lesotho, where NGOs and IGOs like the World Bank, UNDP, and USAID have made a presence. Their attempts at community development, strengthens state bureaucracy and has a major affect on politics rather than giving more autonomy to locals.Development projects are politically charged. Physical infrastructure brings peripheral towns in closer contact with the state center and control of natural resources changes Ferguson and Lohmann indicate that the relationship between developmental programs and the areas being “developed” should be reassessed, particularly because the country plays a larger role in industry and mining than is said. .
Descriptions of Lesotho have included the words “traditional,” “isolated,” and “rural,” words in which ideals of primitivity are connected. Perceptions of primitivity create a division between peoples. The non-primitive are developed and have taken a role of environmental stewardship, whereas the primitive are ignorant of their affect on the environment. The ethics of developmental programs are questionable because interests that are promised to be represented are not always represented. Similarly, this article also draws on the importance of ethnoecology in the representation of the local’s point of view of the environment and management.
Entry 22: “Addictive Economies and Coal Dependency: Methods of Extraction and Socioeconomic Outcomes in West Virginia”
The increase of the world population is used as an important factor in the reduction of resources. The larger or more dense the settlement, the more likely it will be used as an example for adding to environmental pollution and destruction; so, the landscape of urban settlements often stands against rural settlements to exemplify the magnanimity of the impact being made. Robert Pavela and Gregory Purdue however, focus on economic livelihood as impacting the environment.
Population growth is not the sole factor to blame for pollution of the environment. Pavela and Purdue collected data from towns in West Virginia where coal mining was or was not a dominant industry. For over a century, coal mining has been a large force in West Virginia, with new technologies improving the way efficiency with which coal is extracted. Pavela and Purdue found a positive correlation between coal mining as a major industry and higher poverty levels in West Virginia. In coal mining towns, laborers are locked into boom and bust cycles of supply and demand. Dependence on economic livelihood drives the need to use natural resources.
West Virginia’s case can also be applied to towns around the world afflicted by the “resource curse” — where nutrient rich regions have high poverty levels. These areas are often seen as “backward” or more “traditional,” but modernization is an ongoing process. Use of and improvements in technology for example, have affected labor and in turn the economy in regions big and small. Power structures play an important role in the divisions between rich and poor.
Entry 23: “Ethics Primer for University Students Intending to Become Natural Resources Managers and Administrators”
Richard J McNeil focuses on differing ethical stances that can be applied to environmental management. The standpoints are presented from different philosophers of the past. Alone, one ethical view creates the possibility of excluding one population that could argumentatively be included by another view. There are views which are more anthropocentric, and others which are more biocentric or ecocentric.
McNeil does not say that one standpoint is better than another. A decision is usually the combination of more than one ethical viewpoint. There is no right or wrong view for ethics. In the same way, there is no one right approach to environmental management. Different groups of people think in different ethical frameworks. On the other hand, values are ascribed to different living beings and the inanimate that can be debated even within a group of people living and interacting with each other in the same environment.
Questioning the source, values, and reasoning behind a theory based in ethics is important. McNeil argues that researchers, policy makers, and constituents often act with ethical intent without fully understanding the ethical consequences of their actions. Similarly, a person’s ethical reasoning behind an action or decision might be considered to withstand scrutiny. Were that reasoning to be analyzed, the ethics of that decision might prove less stable.
In the environmental management of protected areas, sometimes locals who once lived in the area are given less rights than the flora and fauna within the borders. The decision of what is to be protected may fall to the hands of a select few. “The Anti-Politics Machine” exemplifies what can happen with “good” intentions in environmental management and development.
Entry 24: “Chronically Unstable Bodies”
Aparacida Vilaça explores the meaning of being human from her own ethnographic data. She presents the Wari’ of the Brazilian Amazon as a society whose definition of human is not refined to homo-sapiens. The name Wari’ extends to animals, plants, and inanimate objects. The body can be transformed to the effect that the form one assumes oneself to have can be perceived differently by someone else.
The work can be looked at in terms of the “Great Chain of Being,” where humans are depicted on a higher hierarchal level than animals, plants, and inanimate objects. This hierarchy falls away from the Wari’ as the power to transform is not distinctive to the Wari’. Similarly,Vilaça addresses the culture-nature dichotomy where culture is seen as separate and at times dominate to nature. Her article implies that culture and nature are constructed and as so, begs the question of where the distinction between culture and nature lies.
When one questions what it means to be human, nonhumans can be given “human” characteristics, which elicits a higher moral consideration. Humans and the environment can both beth be looked at as dynamic processes that are subject to the other. Julian Steward’s cultural ecology makes a similar connection. The environment changes just as humans change. Neither would stop changing if the other did not exist. Ideas and practices of intervention, preservation, conservation, and manipulation of the environment should be considered in a different light. The form that is presented to the eye –whether it be a crystal clear body of water, a status report on deforestation, or farmer — is not a form that should be accepted as a single image.
Entry 25: “A View from A Point: Ethnoecology as Situated Knowledge”
This work addresses the interpretation of cultural knowledge. When it comes to science, often the “Western” point of view is given more validation than perspectives from the rest of the world. Virginia Nazarea discusses the role ethnoecology has played in the past and the role she hopes it will play in the future. The discipline focusses on the local perspective and emphasizes that this perspective is just as if not more valuable than the West’s. Rather than just documenting local knowledge, Nazarea would like to see ethnoecologists implement local knowledge into action. Ethnoecology gives validation to the native’s point of view as legitimate for their given environment. The point of view with which one looks at environmental matters changes the narrative that is told or knowledge that is spread. Similarly, Nazarea emphasizes that a point of view is “fixed.” Even if two peoples are looking at an image or an environment, there will be different interpretations or constructed landscapes.
This can have implications towards any centralized or non-local implemented structures of environmental management. Ferguson and Lohmann’s “Anti-Politics Machine” underscores that the point of view instituted by international development agencies in Lesotho are coming from the agencies. Their point of view is a shared image of the country as “underdeveloped” and needing aid in order to “develop.” Nazarea’s work is important because local knowledge should not be undermined as ignorant in human environment relations. People have access to shared histories, observations, and interactions with their environment that provide unique insight into the world around them.