Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how I found myself participating in the current effort to rescue Okomu National Park in southern Nigeria – an effort that is both quintessentially neoliberal and highly militarised. I reflect on how a number of different, conflicting ethical considerations informed my decisions

Paper long abstract:

In 2019 I returned to my first fieldwork site, Okomu National Park in Edo State, Nigeria, where I had conducted my doctoral research on forest governance in 2001-3. My visit coincided with the formation of a new Okomu National Park Steering Committee, which I was invited to join. Subsequently, with ongoing problems of large-scale illegal logging within the park regularly reported to me by one of the park rangers – my former research assistant and long term friend – I found myself actively participating in the formation of a collaborative effort to ‘rescue’ Okomu National Park – a rescue operation that is not only very much part of a neoliberal, semi-privatised takeover of parts of conservation in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa, but also highly militarised. In this paper I reflect on how I came to take on this role, and on the different ethical considerations and obligations (to friends, elephants, activists) that have informed my decisions as well as created ongoing dilemmas and conflicts. Overall I explore whether ‘Faustian Pacts’ like the one I made are a good option for anthropologists researching conservation.