Paper short abstract:

Through ethnographic research with Maasai peoples and scientists at Oldupai Gorge and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (Tanzania), I show that Maasai and scientists enacted different versions of drought. While the legitimisation of scientific ontologies has been important, Maasai drought remains.

Paper long abstract:

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) is a protected area in Tanzania that is home to Maasai peoples. UNESCO has deemed the NCA a World Heritage Site, significantly because of its rich biodiversity and because it contains Oldupai (Olduvai) Gorge, which is a renowned site for paleoanthropological research into human evolution and human origins. Resultingly, scientists (both conservationists and palaeoanthropologists) also have great interest in the Oldupai/NCA landscape. In this paper, I draw on Annemarie Mol’s concept of enacting multiple versions of reality, along with my own long-term ethnographic research at Oldupai Gorge, to compare daily life and realities for Maasai peoples and for scientists. I demonstrate that Maasai and scientists made large excavations in Oldupai Gorge as they enacted different versions of drought, which thereby multiplied reality and ontologies. Whereas Maasai excavated buried water as they enacted and countered contemporary drought, researchers excavated traces of ancient ecosystems as they recreated and enacted ancient drought that they said played a significant role in humanity’s evolutionary emergence. Ultimately, while the pursuit of scientific drought (and the legitimisation of scientific ontologies/realities) in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area has been a well-intentioned and important endeavour, Maasai drought unfortunately remains – and few resources have been mobilised to address it. I conclude by exploring the implications of the simultaneous existence of different (and differentially legitimised) realities and versions of drought within a Conservation Area that certain designations (as a “World Heritage Site” and as a “Cradle of Humankind”) portray as shared amongst all humanity.

Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes the transforming relationship between the Peruvian State and indigenous Amazonian leaders through the analysis of a participatory mechanism for conservation in protected areas in the Amazon: the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve’s co-management regime.

Paper long abstract:

This paper analyzes the transforming relationship between the Peruvian State and indigenous Amazonian leaders through the creation of the co-management regime for Communal Reserves, a participatory mechanism for conservation. This presentation is based on research with the key stakeholders to the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve (ACR) in the southern Peruvian Amazon and expands on previous analysis (Palacios and Sarmiento 2021). We focus on the internal dynamics of the ACR’s co-management, which is co-managed by ECA-Amarakaeri, an organization representing the ten indigenous communities in the Reserve’s buffer zone, and SERNANP, Peru’s protected areas service.

The presentation examines a seemingly contradictory process at play in the ACR. The reserve’s co-management has rendered its management ‘technical’, moulding indigenous leaders into Indios permitidos who manage the territory through apolitical conservation agendas that do not always match those of the communities they represent. However, this is not a unilinear process without contradictions as in incorporating green language in their political practice, indigenous peoples are pushing for the formation of a type of Estado permitido that not only recognizes their cultural rights but also their role as authorities with the same political legitimacy as the State in the ACR’s co-management. In this sense, we argue that although the current status of ACR’s co-management shows an apparent depoliticization in the indigenous governance of the territory through a "successful" participatory mechanism, there is also a re-politicization of indigenous Amazon leaders by using this space and its alliances to insert themselves politically in broader technical and political negotiation arenas.

Paper long abstract:

The Amarakaeri Communal Reserve is a sacred traditional territory of the Harakmbut culture located in the Peruvian Amazon. The management and planning processes in the reserve have been based traditionally on community and participatory processes. However, current trends and the processes of hydrocarbon exploitation are turning these traditional management systems into marginalized processes with low interest and involvement from the relevant governmental institutions. We evaluate the situation from a theoretical, practical and institutional point of view. We then propose a holistic perspective to approach this urgent subject in order to develop and implement management processes that avoid detrimental impacts on the community and the ecosystems in the area.