New geographies of conservation and globalisation: the spatiality of development for conservation in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South Africa

Abstract

This paper analyses spatial conflicts in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park (IWP) in South Africa, a state-led ‘development for conservation’ project and UNESCO World Heritage Site. With inspiration from Henri Lefebvre's theory on the production of space, it examines dialectical processes of the production of conservation space empirically. Two arenas of conflict: fencing and punitive actions against conservation transgressors are discussed in terms of state power in its relational engagement with local space. Spatial conflicts emerge through tensions between the imposed objectives for the conservation of ecological World Heritage – and the subjective space of users and inhabitants. Market-based modernisation and economic growth strategies, which view land as a commodity, rather than as a social-ecological resource for livelihood generation, perpetuate historical insecurities through the alienation of local people from both land and management practices. Other alienating effects include the socially differentiated effects of new rules of governance, the reshaping of old ethnic identities as a result of envisaged benefits from ecotourism and the imposition of new social-ecological values.