Conservation labour geographies: Subsuming regional labour into private conservation spaces in South Africa

From 2007 to 2015, rhino poaching grew rapidly in and around Kruger National Park, South Africa. And though poaching numbers have declined since then, the 'poaching crisis' and its consequences continue to influence rhetoric and practice in the area, including continuing public outcries that the rhino is close to extinction. This discourse of extinction is also prevalent among the luxurious tourist lodges on private nature reserves of the Greater Kruger Area that attract wealthy tourists. In response, some lodges started initiatives in which tourists can join the fight against rhino poaching. These tourist activities share important similarities with 'philanthrocapitalism',in which wealthy philanthropists address social and environmental challenges drawing on the same business principles that made them successful. Based on research on the tourism industry, I explore the political ecology of such high-end, 'environmentourist' activities. I argue that philanthropic environmental tourist activities are based on a reductionist articulation of the rhino poaching crisis. They de-politicize it from its socio-economic and historical context and are 'excessive', in that they produce and legitimize exorbitant forms of privatized, luxurious tourism and consumerism as a solution for social and environmental crises. Moreover,such 'excessive environmentourism' allows wealthy tourists to enjoy 'doing good'in a very specific way, best captured by the term 'jouissance.' Jouissance is a particular type of ambivalent enjoyment that includes fascination with dark and horrific elements (i.e. poached rhinos and the idea that these animals are at the brink of extinction). I conclude that jouissance functions as a core motivation for wealthy tourists to engage in touristic experiences precisely because it enables them to believe they can overcome the dark sides of their own excesses ironically by 'doing good', grounded in excessive consumption.

Section: Journal Of Political Ecologysupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: The Tourism Solution In Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enjoying extinction: philanthrocapitalism, <i>jouissance</i>, and 'excessive environmentourism' in the South African rhino poaching crisis

Koot¹

2021

“…14 With unemployment rates so high, nature reserves do create jobs. However, talk about local 'participation' and 'benefits' often mask the fact that conservation also needs labor, and that this labor is crucial for private capital (Neimark et al, 2020;Thakholi, 2021). That said, it is important to dissect what these jobs entail.…”

Section: Neoliberal Environmentality (Jobs As Incentives)mentioning

confidence: 99%

The biopolitics of private conservation: jeopardizing labor and rhino to optimize capital?

Thakholi¹

2021

Self Cite

The conservation of biodiversity has increasingly been analyzed as biopolitical. That is, conservation initiatives such as breeding programs and protected areas seek to optimize some nonhuman life forms while exposing others to harm or degradation. Biopolitical conservation studies have looked at the implications of how human and non-human lives have been valued differently. Wildlife has received more attention than the lives of conservation laborers in studies of private conservation. The article builds on Foucault's conceptualization of biopolitics to dissect the responses of the eco-tourism and wildlife breeding industries to rhino poaching in the Lowveld, South Africa. There are two central arguments. First, their responses hinge on creating new, and re-instating old, avenues of capital accumulation that ironically prioritize the optimization of the wildlife economy over the lives of rhino. Second, I show that private conservation disproportionately exposes black laborers to harm while attempting to protect rhino from poachers, a function of how conservation labor has been governed since the onset of poaching in 2008. I conclude that private conservationists in South Africa make value judgments to construct a hierarchy of life with whiteness at its apex, rhinos following closely behind, with laborers, and finally poachers at the bottom.

“…Hoedspruit is a small village west of the Kruger National Park (Figures 2 and 3). A quiet backwater only 20-25 years ago, Hoedspruit has grown rapidly into the center of the most important wildlife economy region in South Africa (Thakholi 2021b). The town calls itself a 'wildlife haven' and is surrounded by private nature reserves and smaller, so-called 'wildlife estates': fenced lifestyle estates where one can live surrounded by wildlife.…”

Section: Hoedspruit: the Wildlife Havenmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The situation is therefore quite desperate in the area, leading Thakholi (2021a;2021b) to refer to this as a socio-economic crisis situation. Yet, many whites in the area do little to fundamentally change the situation.…”

Section: Hoedspruit: the Wildlife Havenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between overstocking and extinction: conservation and the intensification of uneven wildlife geographies in Africa

Büscher¹

2021

Conservation news from Africa generally seems to exude crisis. Over the last decade,especially, we have witnessed the increasingly visible decline of charismatic species such as the rhino, elephant, cheetah, lion, giraffe and others, coupled with an ongoing defaunation of many forested areas. What is much less visible is that in certain areas an important countertrend is also occurring: the growth of wildlife species, most notably through the stocking of private lands and initiatives to develop broader wildlife economies. This article explores these two trends and shows that they are key in understanding conservation in sub-Sahara Africa and its rapidly changing political economy more generally.Focusing on South Africa, especially the booming wildlife economy in the Greater Kruger area, the article argues that the private possession or commodified management of conservation spaces and its (over)stocking of species actually benefits from an overall decline of charismatic species. As the number of charismatic species declines across the continent, it increases the value of well-stocked, privately conserved lands, providing their owners with unique sources of profit and revenue. The result is an intensification of uneven wildlife geographies across Africa.