A novel human-based nature-conservation paradigm in Guatemala paves the way for overcoming the metabolic rift

Abstract

Nature-conservation practices in the Global South are fraught with uncertainty due to fragile environmental governance and conflict stemming from their subaltern position in global capitalism, given the tension between human needs and habitat integrity. This article hinges on a recent effort spear-headed by the Centre of Conservation Studies at University of San Carlos in Guatemala, to discuss how a counterhegemonic narrative offers fertile grounds for a decolonized reading of the metabolic rift. I use my notes from eight workshops held in 2018 as the empirical body for a discourse analysis where the emerging categories have been singled out and problematized in the light of ethnoecological theory and David Harvey’s moments for the transition towards a post-Capitalist society vis-à-vis a prevailing environmental regime characterized by its verticality, lack of scientific substantiation, and proclivity to privilege exchange value at the expense of widening the metabolic rift. This regime arguably spawns several ecological rifts, namely the following: (1) between conventional scientific parlance and traditional ecological knowledge; (2) between utility-inspired natural resource management and local land husbandry practices; and (3) between nature as a reservoir of resources and nature as the sustenance for life. In addition, I present a case study where local advocacy in a peripheral community managed to bring about a relevant shift in the correlation of political powers by seizing the national legislation to achieve a transfer of property rights that enabled the inception of a brand-new nature reserve. The new conservation paradigm in question, this case seems to suggest, dovetails adequately with civil society’s efforts to foster nature-conservation practices, in line with human well-being and sound environmental governance. The latter provides some evidence for a principle of hope – à la Ernst Bloch – whereby, dissident groups are paving the way for a grassroots-oriented conservation science that eventually could bridge the metabolic rift.