Conservation practice as primitive accumulation

Abstract

Protected areas appear to be examples of Marx's primitive accumulation, complete with acts of enclosure, dispossession, dissolution of the commons and accumulation. There are limits to these parallels, however. Though primitive accumulation generally involves the enclosure of a commons in favor of private property, protected areas generally create public, not private property. Protected areas that limit extraction are not being commodified, but are being taken out of the market. This paper shows that arguments against the parallels between primitive accumulation and the creation of protected areas may be confounded bythe realities of conservation practice. The violent acts of enclosure and dispossession related to the creation of protected areas may lead to private benefit, and expand the conditions under which capitalist production can expand and continue. I show the mechanisms by which enclosure and dispossession take place, the consequences of these actions, as well as the acts of resistance against them.