Author: Sarah Sung (Page 1 of 2)
The modern, anthropocentric environmentalism remains so narrowly focused on the idea that industrial societies are the culprit for destruction of wilderness that it oftentimes fails to recognize the human costs followed by conservation practices (Sandler & Pezzulo, 2007). In many cases, international conservation efforts seem to cross the line between wildlife preservation and, regardless of its main motivation, environmental colonialism that forcefully interferes with the local community’s cultural and political systems (Whyte, 2016). Too centered on their strategies to combat human influence over nature, environmentalists, particularly those of developing countries, overlook the indigenous people’s rights to adapt to environmental change, rights to reject capitalist and industrial values, and the environmental responsibilities already engrained in their cultural practices (Whyte, 2016).
Let the case be of the issue regarding ivory trade bans and the African elephant conservation. There are no disputes against the fact that poaching is the primary threat to elephant populations that will likely lead to its extinction without any comprehensive solutions against it. In fact, already 30% of Africa’s savanna elephants have died in a 7 year timeframe from 2007 to 2014 primarily due to poaching (Bale, 2017). Therefore, at first glance, it makes perfect sense for international stakeholders and environmentalist groups to pressure international markets to impose a national ban on all ivory trades, and restrict the local African ivory markets to conserve the population of elephants.
However, the global trade ban on commercial ivory failed to consider its impacts on the African indigenous community. The international pressure to oversimplify the illegal poaching problem with an ivory trade ban has not only displaced the democracy in the management of elephants and trade in their natural resources, but also contributed to creating a militarized zone for possession of ivory to profit from black market ivory prices (Koro, 2017). The local African communities that depend their livelihood on selling ivory now are divested of wildlife products, undergo poverty from inability to earn income from ivory, and suffering from a civil war (Koro, 2017).
We need a new framing for conservation that does not end up being a one-way, half-enforced western ideological imperialism in the indigenous environment and economy. Conservation needs to recognize the indivisible interaction between wildlife and human communities, respecting the social rights of local communities and considering any impacts and unintended consequences that may follow preservation efforts.
It is true that much of the environmental crisis is the result of an array of human practices (Sandler & Pezzulo, 2007). However, the claim that any progress in practicing environmentalism requires local communities to give up, to some degree, their cultural practices implies that local culture is often the obstacle to protecting species and ecosystems (Sandler & Pezzulo, 2007). It is important to recognize that species conservation, humanitarian activism, and environmental justice need not, and should not undermine one another. Environmental sustainability and social justice are not mutually exclusive.
Multiple studies provide evidence that cultural diversity and biological diversity are, to a certain extent, mutually supportive of each other, and that indigenous economies and management practices left alone can support conservation (Gorenflo, Romaine, Mittermeier, & Walker-Painemilla, 2012; Maffi & Woodley, 2012; Martin, McGuire, & Sullivan, 2013). Therefore, an integrative global environmental justice analysis can not only advocate policy approaches that take account of the disproportionate cost for conservation towards the local communities, but also provide a new concept of justice that explores benefits from the cultural dimensions in conservation practices (Martin et al., 2013). We should recognize that traditional ways of understanding nature extend beyond the biophysical dimensions of biodiversity and our social construct of the separated human and natural history based on European Enlightenment ideals (Martin et al., 2013). In the end, the politics of sustainability can only secure individualized social justice when local cultural and historical understandings of nature balance out the sustainability practices governed by a single, dominant concept of justice usually evaluated by economic power and values (Martin et al., 2013).
As environmentalists and future leaders of environmental activism, we need to start asking questions whether environmental sustainability displaces local people into globally dominant ideological and sociopolitical settlements (Martin et al., 2013). We need to start integrating the natural and human aspect of justice that takes account of the spatial components and social history of the area. And maybe one day, we can then start framing conservation into a policy tool that allows local people to achieve their development goals no longer as marginalized groups that are ignored in the discourse of the management of their own lands.
Reference:
Bale, R. (2017, March 31). World’s Biggest Ivory Market Shutting Down-What It Means.
Retrieved from https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/03/wildlife-watch-china-elephant-ivory-trafficking-ban/
Gorenflo, L. J., Romaine, S., Mittermeier, R. A., & Walker-Painemilla, K. (2012). Co-
occurrence of linguistic and biological diversity in biodiversity hotspots and high biodiversity wilderness areas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(21), 8032-8037.
Koro, Emmanuel. (2017, November 20). China must not ban ivory trade. Retrieved
from https://www.herald.co.zw/china-must-not-ban-ivory-trade/
Maffi, L., & Woodley, E. (2012). Biocultural diversity conservation: a global sourcebook.
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Martin, A., McGuire, S., & Sullivan, S. (2013). Global environmental justice and biodiversity
conservation. The Geographical Journal, 179(2), 122-131.
Sandler, R. D., & Pezzullo, P. C. (Eds.). (2007). Environmental justice and environmentalism:
The social justice challenge to the environmental movement. MIT press.
Whyte, K. (2016). Is it colonial déjà vu? Indigenous peoples and climate injustice. Retrieved
from https://ssrn.com/abstract=2925277
