Resources ffrom CCEESP mmembers
As it deals with fundamental rights and
struggles for resource access and con-
trol, nature conservation is de factoa
political endeavour. In other words,
there are winners and losers in conser-
vation, and Contested Nature—as the
name implies—amply illustrates that.
The volume makes an important contri-
bution to the political ecology literature
by presenting concrete approaches to
critically re-thinking conservation initia-
tives and institutions, and inviting con-
servationists to seriously consider the
wide-reaching impacts of their work. The
volume examines the pervasive “hege-
mony” of conservation thinking, and how
“cultures of control and resistance” have
remained stable through colonial and
post-colonial eras and regimes. Chapters
take the reader from Mexico to
Madagascar showing that conservation
success depends upon human organisa-
tion and institutions and that the roots
of conservation failures or successes lay
in the social arena. They also show how
resource-use rights are rooted in state,
market, religion, ethnicity and family
practices. Unfortunately, the socio-politi-
cal aspects of biodiversity protection
have been neglected in conservation pol-
icy and practice, and conservation with
equity is the “road less travelled”. So-
called “integrated conservation and
development projects”, for instance, are
rightly described as having focused on
incentives and compensation as means
of buying constraint—a very poor model
indeed, when natural resources depend
on and affect all aspects of human life,
from the symbolic to the political. The
acute need to learn from positive cases
and scale up to other contexts and sites
is stressed by Contested Nature, which,
in addition to case studies, offers con-
ceptual chapters and analyses. The
authors are concerned with governance
processes across scales and powerfully
argue that the history, social identity and
“amount of power” possessed by people
are crucial determinants of their relation-
ship to conservation. Through delibera-
tive democracy and an emphasis on dia-
logue, collaboration, accountability and
adaptive learning, this book powerfully
argues what many of us long to hear—
that we can, indeed, pursue a future
that is ecologically sound and socially
just.Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend
([email protected]) is Chair of CEESP/CMWG
and Co-chair of TILCEPA. Ellen L. Brown
([email protected]) is a doctoral candi-
date at Yale. Steven Brechinis Associate
Professor of Sociology at the University of
Illinois. Crystal L. Fortwangler is a doctoral
candidate at the University of Michigan.
Steven and Crystal are members of
CEESP/CMWG.ciology at the University of
Illinois.