Paper short abstract:

We posit a conceptualisation of the ‘ecotourism/extraction nexus’ that seeks to bring together concrete lived experiences and abstract political economic power structures in order to problematise and ‘defetishize’ the incommensurability associated with the nexus

Paper long abstract:

The material practices and epistemological underpinnings of ecotourism and resource extraction activities are not as incommensurable as they are habitually made out to be. Instead, this paper argues that they are rendered commensurable within ethnographic lived experiences of people in the sites where both activities occur and within the global political economy of neoliberal capitalism. Taking David Harvey's theory of the uneven geographical development of capitalism as our starting point, we posit a conceptualisation of the 'ecotourism/extraction nexus' that seeks to bring together concrete lived experiences and abstract political economic power structures in order to problematise and 'defetishize' the incommensurability associated with the nexus and related ideas about 'sustainable' and 'unsustainable' development. Indeed, we argue that the abstract power of capital to shape lives and legitimate seemingly endless forms of accumulation and appropriation becomes especially concrete in ostensible contradictions such as the ecotourism/extraction nexus.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how local activists as well as officials use eco-tourism as a strategy to oppose mining in Palawan, the Philippines.

Paper long abstract:

Arriving in Puerto Princesa 'a city in the forest', Palawan, one is welcomed by, first, an enormous picture of Puerto Princesa's Underground River, and, second, a poster that demands 'Justice for Doc. Gery Ortega'. Puerto Princesa's Underground River was elected as one of the Seven Wonders of Nature in November 2011, further establishing Palawan as the capital of ecotourism of the Philippines. Gery Ortega, environmental activist, was killed in January 2011, presumably because of his activism against mining. A killing that supposedly was orchestered by the former governor of the island and reflecting the ongoing struggle of numerous activists against massive resource extraction on the island.

This paper explores how those two images of Palawan come together in local and provincial opposition to mining. Local activists as well as officials present eco-tourism as a viable alternative for mining as a way of constructing sustainable livelihoods. 'Ecotourism' has become an important element in the struggle against massive resource extraction on the island. Opposition to mining can thus not be studied without taking into account the idea of eco-tourism as form of alternative development. As such, I approach the nexus of eco-tourism and extraction as two competing visions of development and the governance of natural resources, going into questions that touch upon issues of the power to decide about what development is and how natural resources should be governed.

Paper short abstract:

Using David Harvey’s concept of “accumulation by dispossession” (2003), this paper explores the seemingly paradoxical linkages between the mining industry and ecotourism development projects in the municipalities of Pedernales and La Ciénaga in the southwestern region of the Dominican Republic.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the seemingly paradoxical linkages between the mining industry and ecotourism in the municipalities of Pedernales and La Ciénaga in the Dominican southwest. The ecological diversity and marginalized economic position of these municipalities has made them the target of ecotourism projects combined with the production of "green" commodities for alternative markets in organic and fair trade foods. At the same time, they are sites of continued extraction of bauxite (in Pedernales) and larimar (in La Ciénaga)—a stone found only in this region. Locals express a desire for development strategies that guarantee local community participation. In contrast, the Dominican state and foreign investors are proposing projects that would require the natural landscape be used as a platform for a more traditional form of tourism, such as beachfront lodges. These projects have been stifled by conflicts over land rights and environmental concerns. Using David Harvey's concept of "accumulation by dispossession" (2003), I explore the relationships between natural resource extraction and ecotourism development. Aside from the possible damages to local ecosystems, globalized extractive industries dispossess local populations of access to natural resources without due credit. As envisioned by the state, an intense form of ecotourism uprooted from adjacent communities would dispossess locals of physical and economic access to these areas, and exclude them from direct participation and benefits. Further, I argue that, with regards to their promotion as ecotourist destinations, bauxite and larimar become part of both the "natural" and "cultural" landscapes of these places. The extractive nature of these activities "greenwashed" through their linkage to ecotourism.

Paper short abstract:

This paper provides an ethnographic example of how two communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon have engaged in what outsiders might see as a paradox: protection of the rainforest for eco-tourism while at the same time seeking employment with foreign oil companies with regards to extraction.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past 30 years, the economy of indigenous communities in the Napo Province of Amazonian Ecuador has shifted from one almost entirely centered on agriculture and hunting to one dependent on cash crops (coffee, cacao, rice, and maize). An explosion in population growth coupled with rising costs of living have led to increased forest clearing and land cultivation, resulting in decreasing tropical forest acreage. These factors have led to concerns about environmental degradation and a number of indigenous communities have turned to eco-tourism as an alternative to commercial agriculture. Issues pertaining to environmental conservation have been further complicated by an increase in exploration and extraction of oil in the Amazon over the past 20 years. However, rather than protesting the introduction of oil extraction, communities have united with regards to negotiation of compensation and the employment of local citizens with the companies. In this paper, I will provide an ethnographic example of how two communities have engaged in what outsiders might see as a paradoxical performance of indigenous identity: seeking to maintain and protect the rainforest for the purposes of eco-tourism while at the same time seeking employment and negotiating with foreign oil companies with regards to extraction and development. To better understand the relationship between environmental conservation, eco-tourism, and natural resource extraction, I will work from a theory of environmental citizenship (with an eye toward agency and self-determination), which considers both calls for environmental justice by indigenous peoples and the role of community in determining developmental priorities.

Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on a convergence of the eco-tourism/extraction nexus by investigating the production and promotion of “diamond tourism” in the Northwest Territories, Canada. Diamond tourism attempts to mediate the contradiction of claims to geological purity on landscapes of industrial ruin.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on a convergence of the eco-tourism/extraction nexus by investigating the production and promotion of "diamond tourism" in the Northwest Territories, Canada. With three global mining firms operating in the region as of 2008, the Territorial government scrambled to find ways for mining activities to benefit local populations. With low royalty regimes generating limited revenues, 'diamond tourism' promised to diversify the local economy and multiply benefits of mining. Previous attempts to develop local tourism focused on natural phenomenon like aurora borealis, unspoiled wilderness and traditional Aboriginal culture. These efforts largely failed as the materiality of northern resource extraction challenges tourism's narratives of natural and cultural 'purity'. On the outskirts of the capital city, three abandoned gold mines sit quarantined behind chain link fences and most Aboriginal people in the area have been directly involved with industry as labour for over three generations.

This paper explores how "diamond tourism" attempts to mediate the contradiction of claims to purity on landscapes of industrial ruin. Marketed as "pure ice", Canadian diamonds draw on images of the natural to make ethical claims about the stones' production. Diamond tourism attempts to extend and integrate the manufactured purity of stones with that of the natural landscape. As a result, narratives of local culture and history have been reframed in public spaces (museums, street signs) as to emphasize and celebrate the region's long record of resource extraction; all of which stands in paradoxical relation to eco-tourist desires.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the contradictory development of ecotourism and the industrial exploitation of natural resources – mining, hydroelectricity and forestry – in Swedish Lapland. This region comprises indigenous lands of the Saami people, wholly used as reindeer herding pastures, adding another layer of complexity to the situation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the contradictory development of ecotourism and industrial exploitation of natural resources - mining, hydroelectricity and forestry - in Swedish Lapland.

The area studied covers the municipalities of Jokkmokk and Gällivare, located in the northernmost county of Sweden, above the Arctic Circle. A large proportion of this territory is protected as National Parks and Nature Reserves, which have been partly incorporated in a mixed (natural and cultural) UNESCO World Heritage site - Laponia - created in 1996. Within this area, wilderness and nature-based tourism share the same land as reindeer herding. Industrial exploitation of natural resources occurs just outside the borders of these protected areas: two mines (copper and iron ore) create huge economic income for the Gällivare municipality, and the opening of a third is currently being discussed in Jokkmokk. The river system has been used for almost a century for hydroelectricity production and the boreal forest is intensively exploited.

This communication questions the development of such contradictory activities in a relatively limited territory, where the old borders of protected areas seem to have essentially become walls separating completely antagonistic development interests. A second but significant level of contradiction will be discussed here: the entire territory is an indigenous land where Saami people have herded reindeer for over a thousand years. They still use continuously this land (from protected to non protected areas regardless borders) which offers them various kinds of pasture, from forests in the east to mountains in the west.

Paper short abstract:

Intag, a cloud forest region in northwest Ecuador, stands out for mega-biodiversity and the recent environmental movement. However, at the same time Rafael Correra’s government promotes extractive development as ‘sustainable’ and necessary to fund social transfers, which have large and popular support

Paper long abstract:

Intag, a cloud forest region in northwest Ecuador, stands out for mega-biodiversity and the recent environmental movement. However, at the same time Rafael Correra's government promotes extractive development as 'sustainable' and necessary to fund social transfers, which have large and popular support. Within the 1800 km2 area, lie magnificent forests, steep topography, six parish seats, multiple hamlets, homesteads and a few dirt roads. Multicultural residents make their livelihoods principally out of their surroundings, and are eager for income-generating activities. The majority is aligned with an ecological justice agenda and successfully organized to keep two transnational open-pit copper mining projects out of the community of Junín in the Toisán Range. Nevertheless, others illegally extract timber, and a gold mine exists adjacent to the community of Rió Verde that employs forty men. These seemingly incongruous discourses sometimes pit neighbors against neighbors, but also create opportunities for alternative political alliances and broadened imaginations about economic justice during Correra's post-neoliberal era.

Paper short abstract:

The presentation argues that the opposition between conservation and extraction is at the same time real and false and thus perpetuates critical social conditions. Ecotourism in Luang Namtha Province, Lao PDR, is analysed by tracing this productive contrariness through the levels of social organisation, from the global to the individual.

Paper long abstract:

Rubber concessions on the site of Laos' official example for best-practice ecotourism - how can that be possible? From a perspective that assumes crisis-ridden social nature relations (Görg 2003), I examine the nature of the conservation/extraction divide. Supposing that current social relations are at least partly structured by the 'factual constraint' of an environmental crisis fundamental to the dominant economic system, it is argued that this contradiction is not a logical one (as conservation of 'resources' is, effectively, their exploitation) but nevertheless it is real. Re-/produced through social practice, the divide is (pro)creative: it facilitates the long-term viability of potentially self-destructive capitalist exploitation and social domination.

The (pro)creativity of this 'false alternative' (Adorno) is not unidirectional but diverse, encompassing a variety of actors, institutions and practices on many levels of social organisation. Although ubiquitous, the profit principle is being pursued and resisted in multiple, tangled ways on the ground. Similarly, the current logic of functionalising conservation for exploitation purposes is a result of and produces specific but manifold in- and exclusions, affiliations and identities. Social anthropology is useful to closely explore these relations and such practices that trouble the conservation/extraction divide. Exploitation, not as moral judgement but as an analytical concept, can be a tool in order to trace the power and productiveness of this contradiction through different dimensions of society. Laos paradigmatically displays the problem in question and the global-local nexus implied. The presentation aims to spur discussion over theoretical, methodological and practical research questions rather than provide definitive answers.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the changing historical dynamics of the nexus between quarry mining and ecological tourism in Karelia, and the effects of this nexus on the indigenous Northern Veps living near Onezhskoe Lake, as both industries shifted from being managed by the state to being privatized and deregulated.

Paper long abstract:

For centuries Karelia has been exploited for its natural resources and venerated for its pristine nature at the same time. This paper uses ethnohistorical and ethnographic data to trace how the region of Karelia around the Onezhskoee Lake, home to the indigenous Northern Veps, was simultaneously a site of quarry mining of elite, rare dimension stones and a land of ecological and health resorts during the Russian and the Soviet eras, and how how those twin industries have become transformed in the post-Soviet context of the privatization of nature. During the Tsarist and the Soviet era, both resource extraction and "nature vacations" were state-driven enterprises, experienced by the local Veps as environmentally balanced, fairly managed industries associated with financial compensation and cultural capital. Today the shores of Onezhskoe Lake are the sites of aggressive logging operations, and multiple quarries, run by foreign companies whose identities are opaque to the Veps, who experience these new incarnations of these industries as environmentally unbalanced and economically unjust. At the same time, the "pristine" remnants of the lakeshore property, minutes away from the quarries, are bought up by private ecoresort developers and effectively removed from local use, compounding the Veps' experience of dispossession. Using ethnographic data from Vepsian villages, this paper endeavors to articulate the dynamics of the nexus between resource extraction and ecotourism where for centuries "good old days of mining" coexisted with prefigurative versions of modern ecotourism, and where now deregulated mining coexists with private-sector ecotourism.