WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, UCL AL #342 - Ecology, Natural Parks: Nature conservationism or green colonialism? (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

Since the 19th century, in Europe and North America, preservationist and

then conservationist environmental movements have defended the creation
of protected spaces to fight against the destruction of environments and
species. These parks have successfully multiplied and are often the best
solution to the catastrophic fall in biodiversity. However, upon closer
examination, they actually reinforce systems of domination, particularly
racist and colonialist. ---- Since the 19th century, in Europe and North
America, preservationist and then conservationist environmental
movements have defended the creation of protected spaces to fight
against the destruction of environments and species. These parks have
successfully multiplied and are often the best solution to the
catastrophic fall in biodiversity. However, upon closer examination,
they actually reinforce systems of domination, particularly racist and
colonialist.

To study the serious problems posed by the conservationist movement
since its origins, and more particularly certain national parks, I
suggest that you return, mainly, to two of them apparently quite
different from each other: the park of Yellowstone[1]in the United
States, the first of its kind and international model, created in 1872
and that of Semèn[2], in the north of Ethiopia, created in 1969. Beyond
their contributions, they have, indeed, many common faults.

The myth of wild nature
At the heart of the creation of these two parks are two myths which have
in common the fantasy of natural spaces devoid of any human contact, or
almost. On one side, there is the American wilderness: the vast
territory of the park is presented as having large spaces that have
never known humans, the Native Americans would only pass through.

This, despite the multiple testimonies, including some by people who
worked to develop the future park, reporting the lasting presence of
Native American populations. But this wild aspect was essential to
invest these places with spiritual value, to make them a space allowing
us to rediscover the "mythified America" of the pioneers.

For African parks in general, it is the myth of the "African Eden" that
has inspired Western experts. This myth is strongly present in major
international environmental protection bodies, notably with the creation
of the World Heritage List of Humanity which places nearly half of the
cultural heritage in Europe and a quarter of the natural heritage in
Africa. .

A division expressed in 1963 by Jacques Verschuren, head of Congo's
national parks: "Europe has its cathedrals preserved through the ages,
Africa can be proud to show its prodigious natural spectacles". It is to
preserve original nature that parks are created in Africa, in areas that
are well populated.

Local populations hunted and criminalized
How can we treat, then, dominated populations living for years in spaces
that we dream of as totally wild? Well, by hunting them down and
criminalizing them! Thus, from 1872 to 2016 populations were displaced.

For Yellowstone, this enters into a broad context of bringing Native
American populations into line and confining them to reservations. To
ensure their absence, the army was sent in and their practice of burning
was made the main threat against the country's forests.

In Ethiopia, after fifty years of action in this direction by
international authorities, 2,000 inhabitants of Gich in the heart of the
park were displaced in 2016. In particular, their practice of
agro-pastoralism in terrace and extensive area presented as the main
threat to an endangered world heritage.

However, it is close to that of the Cévennes which justified the
classification of part of this region on the world heritage list! The
total ban on their means of subsistence also led to the conviction of
2,000 people between 1995 and 2012, or a fifth of the population of Semèn!

In the service of tourism and nationalism
If the consequences of conservationist policies can therefore be
dramatic, we could say that they have, at least, the merit of being
entirely at the service of ecology. But, in fact, it is far from being
that simple. Thus, from their creation, these parks were designed to
preserve wild nature so that visitors could enjoy it. Thus, the presence
of tourists is not only expected but encouraged.

For example, if the populations of Semèn are pushed to leave the park to
settle on its edge, it is also to put them to work welcoming the 4,000
annual tourists. It is therefore, in large part, for Western populations
that these spaces must be preserved, including against their inhabitants!

The States which act to create these parks also pursue political
objectives. Thus, Yellowstone, created in a post-Civil War context, was
thought of from the start as a symbol of national unity.

In Semèn, if Hailé Selassie wants the creation of a park it is, not
only, for reasons of international prestige but also because he wants to
take advantage of it to hoist the Ethiopian flag in a mountainous region
and impose himself on populations reluctant to his power.

For Western powers, the creation of a notion of universal heritage to be
protected, in a context of decolonization, made it possible to
relegitimize their presence in the former colonies, in the name of the
expertise necessary for this cause. As Guillaume Blanc says,
"international institutions act in the name of the environmental burden
of the West, an expert legitimized by ecological theories".

Good for nature?
Finally, it is not so certain that the preservation actions carried out
are always useful. Thus, Guillaume Blanc shows that the two arguments
justifying the repression against the populations of Semèn are very
weak. Indeed, the natural heritage of the region would be in danger on
the one hand by deforestation, on the other hand, by the disappearance
of the Abyssinian ibexes.

However, the idea of deforestation is based on very unreliable estimates
of ancient forest cover from the 1960s, contradicted by the testimonies
of travelers from the 16th and 17th centuries, and the ibex population
has been increasing since 1963! It is therefore possible that the
harmful action of the inhabitants is, in large part, a myth.

Finally, as the work of Violette Pouillard[3]has shown, these parks
often do little to curb exploitation for Western interests and are in
fact poorly adapted to the needs of local animals. But we will probably
have the opportunity to talk more about it in future articles!

To validate

[1]Studied by Karl Jacoby, in particular, in his article "Yellowstone,
1872: a park without Indians", L'Histoire, n°476, October 2020 and his
book Crimes against nature. Thieves, squatters and poachers. The hidden
history of conservation in the United States, Toulouse, Anacharsis, 2021.

[2]Studied by Guillaume Blanc in his article "In pursuit of African
Eden", L'Histoire, n°418 and his book The Invention of Green
Colonialism. To put an end to the myth of the African Eden, Flammarion, 2020

[3]Pouillard, Violette, History of zoos through animals, Champ Vallon, 2019

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Parcs-Naturels-Conservationnisme-de-la-nature-ou-colonialisme-vert
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca