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- Convenors:
-
Jack Jenkins Hill
(University College London)
Oliver Springate-Baginski (University of East Anglia)
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- Chair:
-
Robin Roth
(University of Guelph)
- Discussant:
-
Paul Sein Twa
(Salween Peace Park)
- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Monday 25 October, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel brings together indigenous leaders, local and international scholars together to discuss indigenous led-conservation as revolutionary world-making practices, presenting opportunities for food, cultural and territorial sovereignty in a context of violence, dispossession and exploitation.
Long Abstract:
Myanmar possesses a huge biological diversity, from tropical evergreen forests in the south to snow-capped mountains in north. A vast majority of Myanmar's rich forests and biodiversity are located in the ethnic borderlands; areas that have been scarred by decades of armed conflict, displacement, and resource exploitation. Conservation across this landscape has been used to territorialise ethnic regions, entangled in processes of violence, dispossession and accumulation. Indigenous communities across Myanmar's borderlands present alternative visions of conservation, deploying local knowledge, collective action, and ancestral territorial claims to protect biodiversity, livelihoods and sovereignty. Examples such as the Salween Peace Park in the forests of Karen State to Mount Saramati in the Naga Hills have shown how effective indigenous environmental stewardship can be in the fight to protect biodiversity, as well as opening up new windows of opportunity for peace and self-determination. In the wake of the recent military coup in Myanmar, which spells yet more threats to Myanmar's ethnic minority populations and forest landscapes within which they reside, this panel brings together indigenous and international scholars, activists and conservation experts to assess the challenges and opportunities for conservation. It assesses whether conservation in Myanmar can escape legacies of conflict, militarisation and resource exploitation, and present new spaces of refuge in which environmental, food and cultural sovereignty can be attained. The panel will also look at what lessons this holds for conservation more broadly; can conservation support rather than hinder local struggles for sovereignty? Can conservation contribute to peace rather than to conflict?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 25 October, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This article charts the conflicting legacies of conservation in Myanmar, both local experiences of large-scale protected areas in conflict ridden ethnic territories, and emergent conservation initiatives instigated by ethnic administrations and civil society groups.
Paper long abstract:
A growing literature exists on role of transnational conservation initiatives in state territorialization of contested resources, dispossession of local communities, and the militarization of biodiversity (Peluso, 1995 Duffy, 2014, Argawal et.al 2009). Less explored have been alternative modalities of conservation led by local communities, ethnic administrations and civil society groups, and the possibilities these open for a radical reimagination of land and resource politics. Drawing on research collected from across Myanmar, this article charts the conflicting legacies of conservation, looking both at local experiences of large-scale protected areas in conflict ridden ethnic territories established under successive military and quasi-civilian governments, and emergent conservation initiatives instigated by ethnic administrations and civil society groups. While we agree that conservation is a deeply political practice, we argue that beyond exclusionary protected areas, there are opportunities for biodiveristy conservation to contribute to local struggles for self-determination, tenure security and peace.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines Indigenous conservation politics on the border between Thailand and Burma (Myanmar). Engaging Indigenous scholarship on politics of recognition, resurgence, and refusal, we highlight the potential for Indigenous-declared protected areas to advance self-determination.
Paper long abstract:
States have long used protected areas to consolidate control over Indigenous Peoples' territories, undermining community-based governance and access to resources. Despite this history, Indigenous Peoples around the world are increasingly designating their own protected areas to defend ancestral territories and assert self-determination. This paper examines Indigenous conservation politics in the Salween Peace Park in the autonomous Karen territory of Kawthoolei on the border between Thailand and Burma (Myanmar). Local villagers and the Karen National Union envision the park as a grassroots initiative to build peace in an area that has suffered decades of armed conflict between the Burmese military and the Karen movement for self-determination. Using the Salween Peace Park as a case study, we engage Indigenous scholarship on the politics of recognition, resurgence, and refusal. We explore intersections and tensions between these three political strategies, highlighting ways that Indigenous-declared protected areas mobilize different forms of power to advance self-determination.
Paper short abstract:
Outside efforts to manage economically and ecologically valuable species have been central to indigenous dispossession and livelihood deprivation in northern Myanmar for more than a century. This paper draws on local conservation traditions to explore paths to indigenous biodiversity sovereignty.
Paper long abstract:
Indigenous sovereignty often appears as a struggle over territory and lands. Yet in Myanmar’s northern forests, outside efforts to manage commercially and ecologically valuable species have long been at the center of indigenous dispossession and livelihood deprivation. This paper reconsiders indigenous sovereignty in terms of control over—and access to—traditionally important species, exploring pathways to indigenous biodiversity sovereignty. From Colonial Burma’s first teak and big game reserves to present-day Myanmar’s largest mass of national parks including the controversial Hukaung Tiger Sanctuary, the exploitation and conservation of specific species has often entailed the confiscation of indigenous lands and the prohibition of traditional subsistence strategies. Moreover, indigenous interactions with species that have served as medicines, foods, and sources of trade income for centuries have been disrupted by inter/national efforts to regulate the traffic in endangered biodiversity (CITES) and cartels who seek to manage these emerging black-to-gray market trades. Drawing on Kramer’s ethnographic fieldwork and Sønwal’s experiences in community-based research and advocacy in the region, this paper first offers a remapping of the stakeholders and agencies involved in the struggle over species in northern Myanmar. Second, it draws on local traditions of resource management to consider the different ways in which indigenous communities can collaborate to reassert biodiversity sovereignty and reclaim access to, and control over, traditionally important species. Lastly, it considers how efforts to regain biodiversity sovereignty can integrate with indigenous land activism and the broader ICCA movement as well as the ongoing work of inter/national conservation agencies.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines how ethnic Karen farmers in Myanmar mobilize forest conservation as a means to defend sovereignty in a region haunted by armed conflict. It will be argued that local conceptualizations of conservation are at odds with those held by international conservation organizations.
Paper long abstract:
In 2016, amid concerns that a state sponsored conservation project, the Tanintharyi Nature Reserve Park (TNRP), would enforce restrictions on local forest access and that its jurisdiction would encroach upon their own customary zones of use, ethnic Karen inhabitants of the Kamoethway Valley in Southern Myanmar inaugurated a community forest conservation project of their own. In declaring their own conservation zone, in direct opposition to the TNRP, which they understand as a threat to their livelihoods, the villagers argued that it was not the activities of farmers such as themselves that posed a threat to local biodiversity, but rather that the forest was threatened by the very forces of well-financed development encouraged by the government . In this paper, I seek to understand how this configuration of circumstances came to be, firstly, by situating it within the history of armed conflict that haunts the region, and, secondly, by examining how the inhabitants of the Kamoethway River Valley think about and engage with forests and the materials that constitute them. Specifically, I seek to comprehend how the people of this valley mobilize the concept of forest conservation as a form of social action to achieve territorial sovereignty. Of particular interest is how the everyday livelihood practices of Karen villagers inform and shape those conservation strategies. The central question here will be: to what degree can an ethic of conservation that springs from practical skilled engagement with a particular place, a specific lived environment, inform actions that expand political futures?
Paper short abstract:
This paper asserts that the Salween Peace Park is an embodiment of positive peace that Indigenous Karen people have envisioned and mobilized through conservation. This positive, lasting and everyday peace that Karen people and leaders in the Salween Peace Park are working toward goes beyond the absence of war, fighting and conflicts in their homeland.
Paper long abstract:
This paper asserts that the Salween Peace Park is an embodiment of positive peace that Indigenous Karen people have envisioned and mobilized through conservation. This positive, lasting and everyday peace that Karen people and leaders in the Salween Peace Park are working toward goes beyond the absence of war, fighting and conflicts in their homeland. Rather, it entails justice that guarantees fundamental freedom, equality and rights to self-determination for Karen people as a nation. Positive peace as ‘presence of justice’ fundamentally addresses the root causes of longstanding conflicts in the country and guarantees the safety and opportunities for displaced people and refugees from Karen state to return and rebuild their livelihoods and cultures lost during conflicts and civil war. This paper details three core aspects of positive peace embodied in the Salween Peace Park: (1) the protection of Indigenous Karen land, territory and resource governance system against widespread land and water grab and state territorialization; (2) the affirmation of Karen identity and position in the Mutraw district as peace builders in the changing political context of Burma/Myanmar’s ceasefire and peace-making process; and (3) the preservation of Karen cultural traditions and identity against an increasing threat of ‘Burmanization’ and centralized state control over Karen autonomous territory and everyday life.