Abstract
We examined how community–government interaction may promote or hinder the conservation of biocultural diversity. Research was done with the extractive community of the Reserva Extrativista Riozinho da Liberdade, located in the state of Acre, Brazil. The reserve is governed by ICMBio, a Brazilian governmental organisation overseeing reserve policy implementation. This paper describes the interaction between ICMBio and the inhabitants of Riozinho da Liberdade. A Practice-Based Approach was used as a theoretical scope to look at the interaction on a practical level. It was found that ICMBio tried to develop the living standards of community members in various ways, for example, by offering suggestions for the improvement of livelihoods, and by proposing alternatives for consumptive behaviour. Although the relationship between ICMBio and the community was generally valued by community members, this did not always equal compliance with ICMBio’s rules, or responsiveness to ICBMIO’s suggestions for development. Our results show that although compliance was often suboptimal from a government perspective, biocultural diversity may still be reproduced through close interaction between community and government, and thus conserved. As such, our investigation provides counterweight to the abundant empirical evidence on the harmful social consequences of government interference in local nature governance. A main methodological insight of our work is that a Practice-Based Approach enabled us to detect (non-)compliant behaviour that would have otherwise likely gone unnoticed.
Highlights
It is often argued that community practices and traditional ecological knowledge should serve as a starting point for biodiversity conservation [1,2,3]
It is important to keep in mind here that ICMBio is a governmental organisation, and that the local and regional rules that the ICMBio office in Cruzeiro do Sul reproduces are to a large degree pre-set by the national department of ICMBio
Using a Practice-Based Approach (PBA) to focus on people’s behaviours enabled us to detect non-compliant behaviour that might have gone unnoticed if a governmentality lens had been used
Summary
It is often argued that community practices and traditional ecological knowledge should serve as a starting point for biodiversity conservation [1,2,3] This aligns with the notion of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), which, despite severe criticism, has gained traction in recent decades [4,5]. CBNRM arrangements can conceal friction in worldviews, goals, and motives which may not be directly visible from formal agreements between government and community [14] Instead, these frictions may be voiced through daily actions, local practices, and everyday forms of non-compliance with rules regarding the environment [15]. This way, a more complete picture of human–nature interaction arises, and a better understanding of the efficacy and acceptance of conservation interventions
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