Paper short abstract:

Based on ethnographic research in a Namibian conservancy, I reflect on community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) as attempted temporal fix to the 'nature crisis' opposed to the attempted spatial fix in fortress conservation.

Paper long abstract:

Based on ethnographic research in the Namibian Salambala conservancy, I argue that community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is a temporalized fix for the 'nature crisis' after the spatial fix ('fortress conservation') failed. CBNRM can thus be conceived as a 'timescape' aimed at synchronising people and their environment. In doing so, CBNRM provides the logic for this synchronisation, namely answering 'Why is synchronisation necessary?', 'What should be synchronised?' and 'How should synchronisation be achieved?'.

Temporalized nature conservation should be understood as right step towards convivial nature conservation, as it is aimed at synchronization instead of spatially separating 'nature' and 'culture' and thereby externalising the 'nature crisis'. At least two points remain problematic, however.

First, synchronisation is a political issue. Conservancy members have little power over deciding on the three fundamental questions of synchronisation. Instead of enabling developing their own vision how to synchronize with their environment, Salambala members are nudged towards perceiving wildlife as capitalist resource to be made legible and governable through methods of modern bureaucratic statecraft. Here as elsewhere, Western hegemonic logics are reproduced in the process.

Secondly, synchronisation does not usually proceed without friction, and unintended consequences remain. In the case of Salambala, I encountered much frustration among members who contradicted the official representations as success story. Many were frustrated by a lack of 'development projects', late and insufficient compensation payments and unequal access to conservation benefits. This contributed to a general feeling of being in a state of waiting to catch up with the 'developed' global North.