Resisting Legibility: State and Conservation Boundaries, Pastoralism, and the Risk of Dispossession through Geospatial Surveys in Tanzania

Bluwstein, Jevgeniy

doi:10.16993/rl.53

Cited by 5 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Many conservation landscape initiatives are still developed by people who have little understanding of local realities (Boedhihartono et al 2018). In depth understanding of the landscape context is essential to achieve conservation outcomes; conservation programs need to involve the local communities and interested stakeholders and rightsholders in the sustainability of the landscape, and in understanding their perspectives in light of natural resource use history (Bluwstein 2019;Omoding et al 2020). Landscape ecology can contribute to this in-depth understanding through research, but researchers must, in turn, actively engage in the landscapes where they work.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating landscape ecology into landscape practice in Central African Rainforests

et al. 2021

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Context We describe how large landscape-scale conservation initiatives involving local communities, NGOs and resource managers have engaged with landscape scientists with the goal of achieving landscape sustainability. We focus on two landscapes where local people, practitioners and landscape ecologists have co-produced knowledge to design conservation interventions. Objective We seek to understand how landscape ecology can engage with practical landscape management to contribute to managing landscapes sustainably. Methods We focus on two large tropical landscapes: the Sangha Tri-National landscape (Cameroon, Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic) and the Batéké-Léfini Landscape (Gabon and Republic of Congo). We evaluate (1) a participatory method used in the Sangha Tri-National landscape that embeds interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners within a landscape to apply transdisciplinary learning to landscape conservation and (2) a participatory landscape zoning method where interdisciplinary teams of conservation practitioners analyse local land and resource use in the Batéké-Léfini landscape. Results We find that landscape ecology’s tradition of understanding the historical context of resource use can inform landscape conservation practice and natural resource mapping. We also find that the Sangha Group provides an example for landscape ecology on how to integrate local people and their knowledge to better understand and influence landscape processes. Conclusions Place-based engagement as well as the uptake of co-produced knowledge by policy makers are key in enabling sustainable landscapes. Success occurs when researchers, local communities and resource managers engage directly with landscape processes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating landscape ecology into landscape practice in Central African Rainforests

et al. 2021

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“…19 To recover the corridor from human disturbance, village land used for livestock grazing was appropriated for exclusive ecotourism (Bluwstein, 2017). Drawing on the idea of ancient wildlife corridors, state conservation authorities similarly tried to enrol an extensively farmed, grazed and settled area south of Tarangire -the largely wildlife-free Mkungunero Game Reserve -into the landscape vision of TME (Bluwstein, 2019). Both cases have led to land and resource conflicts that are still unresolved.…”

Section: Landscaping Tarangire Becoming An Ecosystemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Maasai residents east of the park resisted the repeated efforts to landscape their environments for conservation (Igoe andBrockington 1999, Sachedina 2008). In the 2000s, residents living west and southeast of Tarangire have resisted numerous attempts by government authorities to impose a tourism-based conservation regime on their livelihoods (Bluwstein, 2019;Bluwstein, 2018;Bluwstein, 2017;Igoe & Croucher, 2007). Yet, some local groups lent their support to police their environments against unwanted land use activities in line with a conservationist landscape vision.…”

Section: Landscaping Tarangire Becoming An Ecosystemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The above-mentioned example of ecotourism west of Tarangire National Park (in Burunge Wildlife Management Area, Figure 1) exploited intra-village politics to evict an ethnic minority of Barabaig pastoralists with support of local district and village government (Bluwstein, 2017). Within the scope of the conservation initiative called Makame Wildlife Management Area, Maasai pastoralists living southeast of Tarangire embraced a REDD+ project as an opportunity to maintain land control vis-à-vis in-migrating non-Maasai farmers in search for arable land (Bluwstein, 2019). 21 As these different examples illustrate, the landscape vision of Tarangire fed into local land politics of inclusion and exclusion, underpinned by ethnic differences and economic interests.…”

Section: Landscaping Tarangire Becoming An Ecosystemmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Colonizing landscapes/landscaping colonies: from a global history of landscapism to the contemporary landscape approach in nature conservation

Bluwstein

2021

Journal of Political Ecology

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I suggest that to decolonize conservation we must also decolonize our way of seeing land and nature-society relations inscribed in it as landscapes. I proceed in three parts. First, drawing on insights from post- and decolonial studies, critical geography, environmental history and political ecology, I highlight three problems that underpin a landscape way of seeing nature-society relations: depoliticization, simplification/decomplexification, and representation. Second,to illustrate the colonial legacy of the contemporary landscape approach to nature conservation, I revisit the global history of landscapism – the double movement of colonizing landscapes/landscapingcolonies. This double movement began with the internal colonization of European landscapes (autonomous political communities), and continued through the landscaping of (settler-)colonies by Europeans outside of their homelands. Third, through the contemporary case of a landscape conservation initiative in Tanzania (the so-called "Tarangire-Manyara Ecosystem"), I illustrate the implications of the double movement in the colonial present of African conservation. I conclude with a few remarks on what decolonization of conservation would have to entail in scientific research and practice.

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“…As Bluwstein and Lund (2018) have argued, the mapping of space is based on ideas, principles, and abstractions in the representation of space by planners. It has a tendency of overlooking the history, knowledge, interests, and practices that have existed for a long time; and is only based on power and authorities in the presentation and construction of space (Bluwstein, 2019;Bluwstein & Lund, 2018). For instance, the construction of a refugee camp as a territory and a surveillance space, space of exception, exclusion and confinement (Agamben, 1998;Agier, 2014); or as a protected, and sensitive area where interactions are controlled by including and excluding others from accessing it, ignores the existence of interaction between refugees and surrounding communities from the borders (Daley, 2001).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spaces of Interaction Between Protracted Refugees in Nyarugusu Camp and the Surrounding Hosting Communities

Msoka

Kweka

2021

JGAt

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Refugee camps are by essence temporary facilities to provide immediate support to those who have been forced to flee their country. However, the protracted nature of refugees in camps has led to a decline in humanitarian support, creating challenges in accessing sufficient food and other important needs such as energy for cooking. This paper studied everyday interactions between refugees in the Nyarugusu camp and the surrounding host communities in western parts of Tanzania. The fieldwork was conducted between March and December 2020, where a total of 45 semi-structured interviews and 12 FGDs were carried out, with observations being done in the refugee camp, host community villages and different markets where refugees and the host communities interact. Drawing from literature on space. and how spaces are constructed and function over time, particularly on how humanitarian spaces are constructed, the paper argues that encamped refugees’ interaction with host communities has led to the expansion of humanitarian space of support. The expansion of space by the mobility of refugees out of the camp to the host communities’ areas symbolizes power and control of space by refugees, hence proving that the power of space construction does not only end with those in planning authorities and decision-makers, but to different users of space. Despite challenging the formal support to refugees in camps, which is mainly North to South support, and which is increasingly being minimised due to protracted situations, the paper shows that this support is useful to encamped refugees as it helps them interact with host communities by giving refugees something to bargain with.

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Resisting Legibility: State and Conservation Boundaries, Pastoralism, and the Risk of Dispossession through Geospatial Surveys in Tanzania

Abstract: Introduction The introduction of geospatial land surveying technologies has offered new avenues for government administration, land titling and marketization, land and boundary conflict mitigation and resolution, and land use planning (Anthias

Cited by 5 publications

References 44 publications

Integrating landscape ecology into landscape practice in Central African Rainforests

Integrating landscape ecology into landscape practice in Central African Rainforests

Colonizing landscapes/landscaping colonies: from a global history of landscapism to the contemporary landscape approach in nature conservation

Spaces of Interaction Between Protracted Refugees in Nyarugusu Camp and the Surrounding Hosting Communities

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