vade the communities that are so often its
targets. As in the conservation movement,
these struggles are often linked to certain
kinds of prizes, especially natural resources
and conservation/development funding.
Moreover, they are historically contingent,
and fundamentally shaped by global
processes. In this light, some considerations
can help us to understand the relationship
between culture and local conservation
practice.
First:, “the ways of being and living in the
world that we think of as culture can be
seen as a particular forms assumed by the
interaction of a multitude of historical
processes at particular moments in time”.^1
In other words, history and culture are inex-
tricably linked, and ideas and values are
continually shaped and reshaped through
action and practice.^2 Second: action and
practice take place in specific physical envi-
ronments. As these physical environments
are transformed, people must adapt and
transform accordingly their practices, cultur-
al values and environmental knowledge.
In my own research I have studied issues of
history, culture, and conservation with
Maasai communities living on the borders of
Tarangire in Tanzania, and Oglala Sioux
communities living on the borders of
Badlands National Park in South Dakota,
U.S.A. Additionally, I am involved in ongoing
discussions with anthropologists and conser-
vation practitioners engaged in similar work
in other parts of the world. Finally, I have
worked with students in my class
Conservation, Globalisation, and Indigenous
Communities to compare written case stud-
ies from around the world. We have identi-
fied five interrelated historical and cultural
variables that appear to influence outcomes
of community-based conservation. These
variables include:
- Colonial Histories and Conservation
Encounters; - Sovereignty and Political Clout;
3. Civil Society and NGOs;
Local Attitudes Towards Conservation; and
4. Indigenous Environmental Knowledge
and the Issue of Capacity.
In this article I outline these variables, and
touch upon the ways in which they have
influenced community-based conservation
interventions in different local contexts.
These necessarily brief discussions in no
way represent a comprehensive paradigm.
Rather they suggest a tentative framework
for future research geared towards under-
standing the interplay of history and culture
in community-based conservation. I firmly
believe that such knowledge is essential to
the design and implementation of conserva-
tion interventions that are effective in both
1) protecting biodiversity; 2) ensuring equi-
table distribution of benefits to the local
communities that pay for conservation by
foregoing access to land and other natural
resource on which their livelihoods depend.Conservation aas ccultural aand ppolitical ppractice
Figure 1.A group of Lakota activists called the
Keepers of the Stronghold Dream meet at their
encampment inside the Badlands National Park
under the tribal and spiritual flags of the Lakota
Nation. These activists have been occupying
parts of the park that overlaps with their tribal
land since July of 2003, demanding that the U.S.
National Park Service returns the land to the
Lakota. Leaders of this group are currently work-
ing with the Oglala Sioux Parks and Recreation
Authority and the Oglala Lakota College to create
a plan to convert this area into a tribal park or
wilderness area.(Courtesy James Igoe).