From policing to 'social fencing': shifting moral economies of biodiversity conservation in a South Indian Tiger Reserve

Tapoja Chaudhuri

doi:10.2458/v20i1.21752

Abstract

In recent years, scholarly and civil society debates regarding tiger conservation in India have been sharply divided both in favor and against the efficacy of 'fortress' models of conservation that discourage subsistence-level access to resources by the local poor. Such debates have been further intensified since 2005 due to a drastic drop in the wild tiger population – presumably due to illegal poaching – and the passing of a Forest Rights Act that grants forest lands ownership rights to traditional forest-dependent communities. This article analyzes local community-forest collaboration in the Periyar Tiger Reserve in Kerala in Southern India. Periyar Tiger Reserve has been the only 'success story' out of the seven national parks where the India Eco-Development Project was implemented in 1997. The IEDP was funded by the World Bank, the Global Environmental Facility, and the Government of India to solicit the support of forest-adjacent communities in protecting wildlife habitats by offering them market-based livelihood opportunities. Information comes from ethnographic research conducted ten years after the Eco-Development Project was first implemented, and studies of the evolving nature of state-community relationships under the umbrella of a newly formed 'Government Organized Non-Governmental Organization' or GONGO. Theoretically, the article focuses the role of emotions and identity politics in shaping the worldviews of the participating community members, and not on the economic incentives of stakeholders. In doing so, I propose a more nuanced analysis of community-state relationships than is offered by polarized debates amongst conservationists and people's rights advocates in India and elsewhere. I illustrate the sense of ownership and regional pride shared by different social actors, in the context of the continuation of the fortress model of conservation.Keywords: Biodiversity conservation, fortress conservation, eco-development, social fencing, identity politics, indigenous communities, tiger reserve, Kerala, India.

Highlights

On a late afternoon in mid-August 2007 at the Vanashree auditorium of the Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR) in the South Indian state of Kerala, I joined with a group of women from the local village of Kumily
It illustrates changes in the politics of identity and right-based claims, often working against official neoliberal conservation efforts. It is based on an ethnographic account of community-Forest Department engagement in the PTR, charting the move from policing of forest boundaries that kept local communities at a distance, to 'social fencing' with greater collaboration with communities who engage in voluntary surveillance of forest boundaries in exchange of legitimate access to economic and social benefits
During this time I met and interviewed a couple of government officers working in the field of tourism, some prominent environmental activists and NGO workers working on issues of sustainable tourism in Kerala, some of the social scientists involved in the designing and the implementation of eco-development programs in Kumily, and some representatives of the private hospitality and tourism industry in the state

Summary

Introduction

On a late afternoon in mid-August 2007 at the Vanashree auditorium of the Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR) in the South Indian state of Kerala, I joined with a group of women from the local village of Kumily. This article is an account of the shifting moral economies of biodiversity conservation in India It illustrates changes in the politics of identity and right-based claims, often working against official neoliberal conservation efforts. It is based on an ethnographic account of community-Forest Department engagement in the PTR, charting the move from policing of forest boundaries that kept local communities at a distance, to 'social fencing' with greater collaboration with communities who engage in voluntary surveillance of forest boundaries in exchange of legitimate access to economic and social benefits. It describes the emergence of networks of trust and mutual dependence that explain why people from very different socio-economic backgrounds choose to work together when they do, despite legacies of mutual antagonism and conflict

Background

Methodology

Geographical and social context of the field site

Discussion and conclusion