India Environment Portal | News, reports, documents, blogs, data, analysis on environment & development | India, South Asia
Published on India Environment Portal | News, reports, documents, blogs, data, analysis on environment & development | India, South Asia (http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in)

Home > Featured Articles > Conservation's ambiguities: Rangers on the periphery of the W Park, Burkina Faso > Conservation's ambiguities: Rangers on the periphery of the W Park, Burkina Faso

Conservation's ambiguities: Rangers on the periphery of the W Park, Burkina Faso [1]

This article demonstrates the central role of ambiguity in the (re)production process of conservation practice. It argues that some current political economy as well as environmentality approaches to research conservation practice fail to capture the complexity of the lived experience of local conservationists. The article focuses on the multiple identities of rangers in interaction with other residents at the periphery of the W Park in Burkina Faso, as rangers are local conservationists who simultaneously submit to and produce conservation practices. Park rangers are village men who are recruited under the banner of community participation in conservation projects and state forestry. On a day-to-day basis, these rangers help the foresters with the management of the natural resources on the one hand, and guide tourists, especially in the hunting concessions, on the other. They occupy ambiguous positions at the crossroads of conservationist, state, political, economic, spiritual, social, and cultural practices, inherent to their conservation occupations at the lowest echelon, where residents have to transform conservation policies into practices. It is precisely this ambiguity that turns out to ensure the conservation implementation.

Publication Date: 
01/10/2012
Julie Poppe [2]
Conservation & Society [3]
10
4
330-343
Tags:
Wildlife [4], Burkina Faso [5], Tourism [6], Hunting [7], Benefit Sharing [8], Protected Area Conservation [9], Forest Personnel [10], Wildlife Tourism [11], Africa [12]
Centre for Science and Environment
National Knowledge Commission Government of India

Technology Partners: MimirTech


India Environment Portal by Centre for Science and Environment is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 India License.


Source URL: http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/feature-article/conservations-ambiguities-rangers-periphery-w-park-burkina-faso

Links:
[1] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/feature-article/conservations-ambiguities-rangers-periphery-w-park-burkina-faso
[2] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/author/julie-poppe
[3] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/journal/conservation-society
[4] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/wildlife
[5] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/burkina-faso
[6] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/tourism
[7] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/hunting
[8] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/benefit-sharing
[9] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/protected-area-conservation
[10] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/forest-personnel
[11] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/wildlife-tourism
[12] http://admin.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/category/thesaurus/africa