Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality,
and to see the links to virtual rooms.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Désirée Gmür
(University of Bern)
Babatunde Owolodun (Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute)
Selina Felber (Institute of Social Anthropology University of Bern)
Send message to Convenors
- Discussant:
-
Tobias Haller
(University of Bern)
- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 26 October, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel focuses on conservation and it impacts on food systems, food security, food consumption, health, resilience and gender when local resource management and food production systems are altered by changes in resource use institutions due to protected areas and other conservation initiatives.
Long Abstract:
In Africa, and elsewhere, local groups had established common property institutions for the management of common pool resources (CPR) before colonial times. These commons regimes linked all CPR (water, pastures, fisheries, wildlife, non-timber forest products etc.) found in local cultural landscape ecosystems. These were important for food production in local food systems and lowered vulnerability in times of crises. During colonial and post-colonial times CPR management was fragmented and common property was increasingly turned into state and private property and got out of local control. This led to green grabbing processes to establish protected conservation areas. This often involves resettlement of local communities and/or the introduction of new regulations concerning resource use, which frequently disrupts local food production and security systems. However, some conservation initiatives (CI) also claim to be participatory and pay attention to the request of decolonializing processes.
The Panel welcomes interdisciplinary contributions that focus on:
- The influence of CI on local food systems and food security and on resilience capacity of local communities in times of crises.
- The impact of CI on food consumption, nutrition and health.
- The reactions to and emic perceptions (of local people and implementers (development and conservation community)) of these green enclosures and coping strategies to cushion possible negative effects of conservation initiatives.
- Protected areas/CI and the criminalization of local livelihoods
- Impacts on gender relations and marginalized groups
- The conflict between cultural heritage and conservation
- The changes in reciprocal arrangements and social security due to conservation
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 26 October, 2021, -Désirée Gmür (University of Bern)
Paper short abstract:
This paper contributes to the debate on anthropology and conservation with a special focus on how conservation initiatives impact on local food production systems, food sustainability and resilience using the example of Ndiael Special Reserve and Senhuile agricultural investment in Senegal.
Paper long abstract:
In 2011 20’000ha of land in the former forest and nature protected area Ndiael was leased to the company called Senhuile with by president Wade using two decrees that dissolved the protected status of the forest (forêt classé). Because of this status agriculture was prohibited before in the forest, only pastoralism was allowed. The 20’000ha are in the three communities Ronkh, Diama and Gnith. Senhouile aimed first at planting sunflowers for the production of oil, but then changed to the production of rice, maize and peanuts for the local market. The rice production is marketed as part of the development programme autosufficance en riz of the Senegelase government which aims at supplying Senegal with rice without imports. From the beginning the project sparked conflicts, especially with semi-nomadic pastoralists. The acquired land is in an area that was used as pasture before. The project threathens the food sovereignty of the affected communities. The project inhibits villagers in grazing, water and firewood collection activities. Conservation organisations hold Senhuile responsible for withdrawing water from the Reserve driyng out the wetlands and thus negatively impacting on the flora and fauna of the Reserve and negatively impacting on the food and water security of the communities depending on the many goods and services provided by the wetlands. The paper looks at changed access to land and related CPR and how this impacts on local food systems and related food consumption patterns, food diversity, food security and resilience and at coping strategies to secure food security.
Lisa Alvarado (University of Bern) Tobias Haller (University of Bern) Ariane Zangger (Institute of Socialanthropology) Samuel Weissman (Institute of Social Anthropology)
Paper short abstract:
This paper presents the constitutionality approach as a possibly sustainable solution for conflicts surrounding conservation strategies which have deteriorated local resilience by imposing new institutions in order to implement global conservation initiatives.
Paper long abstract:
“Convivial Constitutionality” is a SNFS-funded research project at the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Bern. The project focuses on three examples of human-predator interrelations, including the jaguar in Ecuador, the wolf in Romania and the lion in Kenya. Theoretically based on the constitutionality approach, convivial constitutionality explores the possibility that bottom-up institution-building processes could be sustainable coping strategies to achieve a co-existence of predators and humans. It questions the often-assumed human-predator conflict and proposes that rather, it should be considered a human-human conflict due to different understandings of conservation within a heterogeneous field of actors (e.g., conservationists, researchers, state officials, local people…). These conflicts often include the prioritization of protected areas over local food systems and cultural landscapes. Therefore, conservation initiatives often lack acceptance on the local level. The constitutionality approach tackles these conflicts by analyzing the necessary conditions for successful bottom-up institution building processes, which in the end will be accepted both by local and national/global actors. This often includes adapting former common-pool resource management institutions and strategies to current contexts, also affecting local food systems. Thus, “Convivial Constitutionality” is a new approach which supports the interplay between conservation, wildlife management and coping strategies on a local level while suggesting that the establishment or change of local institutions based on participative processes, local knowledge systems and historically grown experiences would foster local resilience and hence be more sustainable than top-down initiatives because they are defined, accepted and owned by local people.
Babatunde Owolodun (Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute)
Paper short abstract:
Achieving food security is a major global concern, specifically in the rural areas where many protected areas (PAs) are located. This paper contributes to the debate on how forest plays a role in diets and nutrition security using the example of wild fruit(Baobab) found in the Boundou Nature Reserve
Paper long abstract:
An important contribution of forests to food security is in the form of the direct provision of wild foods such as edible plants or wild meat. The Boundou Community Nature Reserve (RNC), created in 2009, is located to the east of the Tambacounda Region in Senegal and it is dominated by vast shrub savannas. The RNC is rich in biodiversity and natural resources that the inhabitants of Boundou intend to protect. Wild edible fruits such as baobab (Adansonia digitata L., Malvaceae) hold great potential for improving human diets, especially in agricultural societies like Senegal. In the Boundou RNC, the impact of conservation has been seen to be positive because the access to pick this wild fruit is free to everybody in the community. The collection of these wild foods from the reserve contributes to food security by allowing the population to access these nutrition foods when they may not have other sources of sustenance. Although there are rules guiding the picking of baobab in the RNC, for instance, the use of axe for any kind of activities is prohibited in the reserve. Wild products often constitute security options, for example, in the Boundou community during the dry season when there are shortfalls in agricultural crop production, majority of the population depends on the gathering and processing of baobab fruits from woodlands and the reserve. The sale of this wild fruits brings essential cash income to many households, this income can be used to purchase food which then improves food security.
Danya Nadar (Institute of Development Policy (IOB))
Paper short abstract:
This paper draws on four interrelated axes in the use of food as a weapon in settler colonialism's quest to control and eradicate local (I)ndigenous populations in occupied Palestine and the Americas.
Paper long abstract:
Settler colonialism uses various techniques to occupy a people and their land. In this paper I argue in the occupation of Palestinian and Indigenous peoples’ in the Americas occupying states use food as a weapon is to sever (I)ndigenous populations though (1) dispossession and control of (I)ndigenous access to land, water, seeds, traditional foods and crops through the use of conservation initiatives, laws and markets; (2) extinction of the foods indigenous peoples rely on on the one hand (i.e. of traditional crops, fisheries and animal or hunting practices) leading to food systems collapse, starvation to control the indigenous population and physically sequester them (onto reserves or Bantustans) to remove them from the land. (3) (I)ndigenous populations are thus placed in dependency regimes with the colonial state either in the adopting modern techniques of agriculture or in food aid with very little nutrients, leading to communities' deterioration in their health and nutrition. Finally, settler colonialism (4) appropriates (I)ndigenous traditional knowledges, foods, seeds, language, culture while erasing any trace of these knowledges as (I)ndigenous histories, time and space of the populations' existence prior to European settlement. I draw parallels between the experiences between Palestinians and the Indigenous peoples across the Americas in how they define their right to self-determination and sovereignty over their food choices and traditional knowledges on the one hand, and by studying settler colonialism’s historical and ongoing attempts at using food as a weapon to succeed in Israel and the Americas' colonial projects on the other.
Selina Felber (Institute of Social Anthropology University of Bern)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the effects of local people’s limited awareness of access rights to natural resources on food systems and social capital. It analyzes the conflicts due to conservation policies of the UNESCO-recognized Niokolo-Koba National Park in Senegal and the Bedik cultural landscape.
Paper long abstract:
The Niokolo-Koba National Park covers almost 1 million ha and is located along the Gambia River. It contains all the unique ecosystems of the Sudanese bioclimatic zone and was therefore recognized by UNESCO in 1981. It was later added to the list of World Heritage in Danger with poaching being a major factor. This created a conflict of interests between different actors. The Bedik living on the park’s periphery were not directly affected by eviction due to conservation purposes but remain subject to natural resource management restrictions. Despite the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, bushmeat remains an important protein source and contributes to local food security. Furthermore, hunting has been shown to be an important component of various traditional festivities, which is a criterion for inclusion of the Bedik cultural landscape in the World Heritage List. This highlights the difficulty of a conflict-free coexistence of the two World Heritage Sites. Exclusion of the local community from natural resource management despite their respectful and sustainable interaction with a vulnerable environment, as highlighted by UNESCO, complicates the coexistence. Moreover, there is a lack of comprehensive information on park legislation, including natural resource access rights. This opens up an opportunity for corruption which fosters insecurity among communities about their rights. Consequences may be a criminal behavior out of necessity or unconscientiousness and impacts on the social capital. Based on this paradoxical scenario the study focuses on transitions on the local food system and their impacts on food security and food culture.