Conservation and Displacement: An Overview

Abstract

protestations vary in the evidence, conviction, and passion with which they are made.The criticism that blunts the moral and ethical focus on biodiversity conservation is that which highlights the misery conservation programs impose on people.If conservation strategies distress human populations, especially those who are less powerful, politically marginalized, and poor, little that conservationists argue on behalf of biodiversity makes sense.A spate of recent publications appearing in both the academic and the popular press overwhelms conservation precisely on this ground (Chatty & Colchester 2002;Choudhary 2000; Geisler 2003a, b; Geisler & Letsoalo 2001; Pearce 2005: 16).Conservation, the argument goes, has led to the displacement of tens of millions of people who formerly lived, hunted, Þ shed, and farmed in areas now protected for wildlife, watersheds, reefs, forests, or rare ecosystems.The critiques compare the magnitude of human evictions and suffering to that caused by civil wars, megadevelopment projects, and high modernist state interventions (Schmidt-Soltau 2005; Brockington et al. 2006: 250; West & Brockington 2006: 613).These types of articles began to appear in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Albert 1992;Brechin & West 1991;Peluso 1993), but recent accusations are more assured, more caustic, and more sweeping.Perhaps as they amplify each other, they have found more traction (Adamson 2006; Dowie 2006a, b; Lal 2003;Schmidt-Soltau 2003;Veit & Benson 2004).Despite these damning accusations against the widespread strategy upon which much conservation work is basedprotected areas-it is remarkable that none of the major international conservation organizations has formulated a coherent, systematic, and/or effective set of guidelines to address conservation-induced displacements.This gap between the severity of accusations and the lack of response stands in stark contrast to similar arguments in relation to development-induced displacement.