Paper short abstract:

This talk attends to the (eco)logic and (cosmo)politics of PA conservation in Timorese customary land as self-reproducing and spatially expansionist. Furthermore, it does this in consideration of the varied flows of power and meaning invested in land that is disrupted by state displacement.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation attends to the (eco)logic and (cosmo)politics of protected area conservation in customary managed land as self-reproducing and spatially expansionist.Through political ecology and ontology frameworks I seek to articulate how certain conservation processes not only limit community control of high value bio-material, but temporally diminish it through translocation to sites of state exclusivity. This is done in consideration for multi-natural metabolisms and their ontological politics. I argue communities not only experience greater scarcity of bio-viable environments but also cosmological potency, which both manifest in biological, political and spiritual degradation. Inevitably the outcomes are ecological ruination in areas remaining under community control, and thereby rationalising further managerial intervention by the state. By examining this in Timor-Leste I argue that these material, discursive and ontological changes facilitate the reproduction and ongoing spatial expansion of protected area conservation.