Co-management of National Protected Areas: Lessons Learned From Bolivia

A Pluralistic Approach to Protected Area Governance: Indigenous Peoples and Makuira National Park, Colombia

“…Co-governance in Makuira is a further example of strategic collaboration for the common interest of land protection. Here we have an example of a type of alliance between Indigenous peoples and conservationists commonly found in Latin America that fights against external threats (Brockington et al 2008, Schwartzman and Zimmerman 2005, Mason et al 2010). This case works because of legal acknowledgment of territorial and self-governing rights.…”

Amazonian Erasures: Landscape and Myth-making in Lowland Bolivia

“…Parts of their land claims were overlapping protected areas. The indigenous peoples succeeded in appropriating the social and political space of the protected areas to some extent by organising themselves around the management of this land, which initially had been declared protected without their consent (Mason et al 2010). Other stories told of tough processes of demarcation of land with unfavourable outcomes, especially where large cattle-ranchers laid counter-claims, but the settlement of boundaries provided relative rest and the peace needed to consolidate the territories.…”

“…The granting of areas for nature conservation to indigenous peoples in the 1990s was not uncommon, often based on the assertion (myth) that native peoples' views of nature and ways of using natural resources were consistent with Western conservationist principles (Conklin and Graham 1995). In Bolivia, the expansion of the protected area service occurred simultaneously with growing demands of recognition of indigenous peoples' rights, and co-management arrangements were made between the National Service of Protected Areas (SERNAP), and the indigenous peoples in overlapping areas (SERNAP 2005;Mason et al 2010); Anthias and Radcliffe (2015) argue that such arrangements were an ' ethno-environmental fix', not explicitly governed by neoliberal policy, but nonetheless formed in relation to the wider, neoliberal project prevailing in the decade, and actively promoted by World Bank, as a safeguard to protect vulnerable populations and valuable nature from the destructive effects of the market. An attempt, probably, to ensure the institution's legitimacy at a time when the privatisation of hydrocarbons and mining industries was promoted by the World Bank itself in numerous developing countries.…”

“…In Beni the indigenous peoples had already proactively appropriated the space of the protected areas (Ávila 2009). A strong interest in maintaining control over their land, the asset to their development aspirations, and to keep settlers out, stimulated cooperation with the SERNAP, who in turn would have faced considerable difficulties in protecting parks from the onrushing agricultural and migrant frontiers without indigenous groups leading those efforts (Mason et al 2010). Through decades trust was built between the protected areas' co-managing parties, enabling both park-control and gradually also the expansion of local economic benefits of the areas.…”

“…This will, at least initially, imply a continued close relationship with environmental NGOs and intergovernmental institutions, with the diverse approaches and requirements such cooperation induces. Assuming the role of preservationists is perhaps not farfetched (Chhatre and Agrawal 2009;Mason et al 2010;Porter-Bolland et al 2012). The forest retreats still exist as forests, and when deforestation occurs, it is primarily due to external parties: smallholders, agribusinesses, infrastructure or expanding cattle farmers (Müller et al 2012).…”