Remodeling the Fortress of Conservation? Living Landscapes and the New Technologies of Environmental Governance

Abstract

This essay reflects on paradigm shifts in environmental conservation, to examine elements of the 'fortress conservation' model that still persist in the context of more participatory approaches. Presenting a case study on Sardinia, an Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea, it considers how existing practices for the protection of natural landscapes and biodiversity are ambivalently shaped by both institutional mandates and informal collaborations. Exploring how these are further reconfigured by the implementation of new information and communication systems, it questions implications for autochthonous visions of landscape. It argues that an engaged anthropology of the environment should critically assess how emerging strategies for generating potent expert knowledge about nature also generate issues of inclusion and exclusion.The application of expert knowledge to the problem of biodiversity conservation is one area that has been recognised as deeply problematic by many anthropologists, geographers, historians and indigenous scholars. We have long witnessed, for example, the fraught outcomes of protected areas established in many parts of the global South, based on ideas of 'fortress conservation'. This model of wilderness and wildlife conservation excludes resident peoples from both the lands and the decisionmaking associated with national parks, in favour of institutionalised state management. Dan Brockington (

Convivencia negociada y gobernanza ambiental en áreas naturales protegidas del Perú

“…Por otro, ha surgido una narrativa y énfasis en la participación de comunidades locales -a menudo originarias-en la gobernanza ambiental (Brondizio y Le Tourneau 2016;Reed et al 2020). La convergencia de estas tendencias representa un gran reto tanto en la conceptualización como en la aplicación práctica de la gobernanza ambiental para crear una conservación que sea justa, equitativa y participativa (Liverman 2004;Heatherington 2012;Peterson y Isenhour 2014).…”

Beyond landscape designation

“…The result has been a blurring of the boundary between public and private, a process described by Hodge and Adams (2012b) as 'institutional blending'. These changes in governance, funding and delivery in (statutory and de facto) PAs are manifest in different ways in different places, breaking what Heatherington (2012) has termed (in the context of Sardinia) the 'fortress' of environmental conservation.…”

Community-Based Conservation and Cross-Cultural Relationships

“…With the exclusion of people from the wilderness through fortress conservation, many local communities around the world have been displaced. Moreover, protected areas have reinforced the idea of state management for conservation, which in turn has further increased the marginalisation of displaced communities from natural resource management (Heatherington, 2012). The introduction of protected areas in Aotearoa New Zealand supported Western understandings of nature and conservation (Blue & Blunden, 2010).…”

“…Protected areas have been utilised globally by Western countries to allow for state control of resource management and conservation (Brockington, Igoe, & Schmidt-Soltau, 2006). Heatherington (2012) states that "[t]he displacement of residents from homelands designated as parks has often increased poverty and marginality, escalating social tensions and resource conflicts" (p. 166). In Aotearoa New Zealand many Māori have had to fight for recognition, for land that was taken from them and for their culture that has been marginalised as a result of colonialism (Blue & Blunden, 2010).…”