Abstract
Despite decades of critique concerning violent conservation practices, ‘green’ violence and militarization for the protection of biodiversity are on the rise. This paper engages with the question of how and why these violent and militaristic dynamics unfold in relation to Transboundary Protected Areas in particular, which, paradoxically, are widely promoted as an instrument of peacebuilding. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork within the intended transboundary Virunga Conservation Area between the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda, I introduce a novel analysis of the instrumental role of fear into the conservation debate. Inspired by frameworks from emotional geographies and critical geopolitics, I examine fear discourses that are perceived, reproduced and enacted in everyday realities of individuals living within this violent geography. My analysis focuses on the narratives of park rangers who are trained and deployed as parastatal conservation actors by their respective governments. Rangers’ perceptions reflect a discursively constructed ‘geography of fear’ informing their understanding and implementation of violent and militaristic measures as ‘necessity’ for the protection of national and park borders. Their fear narratives further point to governmental interests in political sovereignty and territorial integrity undermining transboundary collaboration efforts. Ultimately, I argue that the analyses of fear can advance conservation studies by generating a deeper understanding of the persistence of ‘green’ violence and militarization. On that account, I advocate to include the voices of those who feel and perform these problematic practices in their everyday lives to create alternative, non-violent pathways in the future.
Highlights
Critical scholars have contested violent practices under taken in the name of conservation for decades (Neumann, 1998; Peluso and Watts, 2001; Shiva, 1990), an alarming increase in “green milita rization” (Lunstrum, 2014) - the adaption of militaristic methods, tactics and equipment for protection of flora and fauna - has been widely documented in recent years (Adams, 2019; Bocajero and Ojeda, 2016; Duffy, 2014)
To fill this research gap, this paper explores the case of the intended transboundary Virunga Conservation Area,1 composed by Virunga Na tional Park (PNVi) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Volcanoes National Park (VNP) in Rwanda, and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park (MGNP) in Uganda
The incident fuelling ‘Othering’ amongst Uganda Wildlife Au thority (UWA) rangers in MGNP refers to a supposedly Hutu-affiliated militia killing of eight tourists and four park rangers on the borderland between the DRC and MGNP’s neighbouring Bwindi Impenetrable National Park (BINP) in Uganda in 1999
Summary
Critical scholars have contested violent practices under taken in the name of conservation for decades (Neumann, 1998; Peluso and Watts, 2001; Shiva, 1990), an alarming increase in “green milita rization” (Lunstrum, 2014) - the adaption of militaristic methods, tactics and equipment for protection of flora and fauna - has been widely documented in recent years (Adams, 2019; Bocajero and Ojeda, 2016; Duffy, 2014). Placing emphasis on individual emotions, some scholars highlight the instrumentalization of fear by governmental discourses wherein geopolitical threat narratives are promoted to legitimize state-sanctioned violence in the name of national security (Cowen and Gilbert, 2008; Huysmans, 2006) Inspired by this approach, I propose to ground the analysis of green violence within transnational conservation efforts on the local scale in order to illumi nate how fear is experienced and negotiated by actors charged with carrying out state-mandated conservation directives. I outline the historical context of the Virunga region before turning to the analysis of three dominant fear narratives and their underlying governmental interests that inform rangers’ everyday realities Based on this discussion, I argue that rangers’ perception of a ‘geography of fear’ serves to legiti mize militarization of the Virungas in the name of conservation, thereby undermining the transboundary collaboration efforts. I reiterate how the analysis of fear discourses can benefit critical con servation studies by highlighting the concealed geopolitics in everyday conservation work on the ground
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