ANTH 206 Lecture 7: 7
8 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
10/5/17
Experiences of Conservation in Maasailand (Kathleen Godfrey Presentation)
• Protected are political, complex socioecological systems. Who gets to make the map? Uneven
distribution.
• Brief History
o Parks without people, Yellowstone model and fortress parks. Displaced people, didn't
actually work for biodiversity.
o 1980s move into participatory approaches- try to include people and create local
empowerment.
▪ Community based conservation, community based natural resource management
o Modern approaches- by local people instead of with local people- decision making on the
community level, neoliberal (sell nature to save it, payment for ecosystem services AKA
carbon offsetting where European companies buy emission tokens, those emissions are
counteracted by planting trees in developing countries)
▪ Economic ideologies and incentives
• Theoretically community-based conservation is participatory, empowering to local communities,
and equally prioritizes the goals of development and conservation
o Does not translate well into practice- no way to measure success (Western et al. measures
success based on total protected areas, number of conservancies. Can define based on
economic factors, biodiversity)
o Not much about the models help the community
▪ Private investors (like tourism companies) come in, communities don't really get
tangible benefits
• Conservation in Kenya
o Maasai pastoralist lands (animal husbandry, raising livestock. Traditional nomadic
pastoralists)
o Colonial roots- nomadic pastoralists are difficult to govern, created group ranches which
Maasai people register as a part of
▪ Only counts as head of households- dominant men
▪ Idea is communally held, arbitrary lines
▪ Maasai people now are comparatively sedentary
▪ Beginnings of conservation and environmentalism were in game reserves
o Relationship to land use strategies prioritized agricultural cultivation, more intensive
livestock production, thought of as more productive
o Economic incentives: tourism to Kenya's GDP is 12%
o Traditionally, pastoralism is seen as unproductive, environmentally degrading, people don't
belong in conserved areas
o Majority of Kenya's wildlife is dispersed out of conservation areas, is in communal lands
• Desertification: somewhat of a myth. Came about in 1970s, belief that the Sahara was
encroaching into the Sahel. Occurred when equilibrium model of ecosystems was the major idea
o Pastoralists were seen as unproductive and environmentally degrading
o Only true when people are confined, traditional methods move enough so as not to degrade
land
• Western Article: attitudes of local people towards wildlife are very important to conservation,
there is no "one size fits all"
o Communities without characteristic megafauna cannot participate in "conservation"
o Human-wildlife conflict: think of poachers, don't think of animals killing people
• Political ecology: people, environment, power, resources, access, globalization, inequality
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