False Legitimacies: The Rhetoric of Economic Opportunities in the Expansion of Conservation Areas in Southern Africa

Abstract

The trend to expand conservation areas by creating linking corridors or transfrontier conservation areas has become increasingly prevalent in southern Africa over the last 20 years. In the marketing of these initiatives as the way forward in conservation, strong emphasis is placed on the economic opportunities they allegedly generate for local communities. In addition, many ecologists and conservationists stress the ecological logic of linking conservation areas to allow for the migration of species. Using the example of Madikwe Game Reserve, in South Africa’s North West Province—where a proposed ‘Heritage Park’ initiative aims to create a conservation corridor connecting Madikwe and Pilanesberg game reserves, and eventually to extend the park across the border into Botswana—we explore influences and pressures that fuel and justify this expansionist trend, and discuss the complex repercussions arising from such policies. The chapter focuses on the rhetoric of economic opportunities and poverty alleviation and the perceived logic, on the part of many ecologists and conservationists, that wildlife corridors and the expansion of protected areas are the way forward for conservation. We raise a number of ecological and economic contradictions and we argue that a focus on expansion not only further marginalizes local populations but can also be seen as a way to avoid dealing with the management of wildlife (over)populations.