On the Fractured, Fragmented and Disrupted Landscapes of Conservation

Abstract

Since Agenda 21, drawn up after the UN Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the merger of environmentalism and development has been pitched as a ‘win–win’ scenario often coined as ‘conservation-as-development’. By integrating local populations in the environmental projects ‘conservation-as-development’ claim to overcome negative aspects of the nature–culture divide. Using the arguments forwarded by Cortes-Vazquez, Turner, Semedi and Howell in this issue, the article critically discusses the development of these environmentalist efforts, exemplified by the UNESCO Biosphere reserves and the UN-REDD, to suggest that the natureculture divide keep cropping up in new constellations despite the official rhetoric. It is suggested that a solution is to be found in a serious, ethnographic approach that pays attention to the new social networks and material flows that tie local and global worlds together through these forms of environmentalist practices.