Producing elephant commodities for 'conservation hunting' in Namibian communal-area conservancies

Lee John Hewitson,Sian Sullivan

doi:10.2458/jpe.2279

Abstract

Namibia's internationally acclaimed CBNRM program depends to a large extent on revenues generated from the trophy hunting of wild animals. The model is an important example of an increasingly 'neoliberal' global policy framework as applied to biodiversity conservation, its market-based approach and attendant socio-ecological effects having received in-depth engagement and critique from a political ecology perspective.Yet there remains a lack of detailed research concerning how these programs and their value frames are operationalized in practice. The article attempts to advance this literature through an empirical exploration of practices undertaken by diverse actors that work to produce and extract value from 'wild' natures, specifically elephants for 'conservation hunting' in Namibian communal-area conservancies. Conceptually, the article also contributes to an emerging body of work seeking to 'ecologise' political ecology, exploring the co-optation of lively elephants and other beyond-human entities in the production of economic value. 'Following' the elephant's interactions with other living entities, the article reveals the (non)human work and social practices that together 'labor' to produce commodified elephants that can be killed as trophies. We argue that 'undesirable encounters' such as crop raiding by elephants are both indicative of unequal power relations amongst CBNRM stakeholders and central to (re)producing dominant (neoliberal) value frames. The animal's spontaneous activities are co-opted into technocratic governance practices that legitimize the killing of elephants on environmental and economic grounds. In opening up the contested,contingent, and more-than-human nature of these social-ecological relations we also hope to contribute to possibilities for imagining more equitable and ecologically resilient conservation futures.

Highlights

Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM), hunting, and commodifying 'wild' natureIt is plain that commodities cannot go to market and make exchanges of their own account. - Karl Marx, Capital.Trophy hunting of wild animals is central to the conservation and development objectives of many African countries, including Namibia
We argue that 'undesirable encounters' such as crop raiding by elephants are both indicative of unequal power relations amongst CBNRM stakeholders and central toproducing dominant value frames
Adopting a Marxian and critical political ecology lens, the conceptual approach acknowledges a diverse assemblage of more-than-human actors in the production and circulation of capitalized natures

Summary

Introduction

It is plain that commodities cannot go to market and make exchanges of their own account. - Karl Marx, Capital. In recent years tourism enterprises provided the greatest cash income at household level, whilst conservation hunting returned cash directly to conservancies and provided in-kind benefits such as game meat (MET/NACSO, 2020) It should be noted, that recent research for Zambezi Region suggests that only some 20% of value generated by the tourism and hunting sectors is captured at conservancy community level, largely in the form of staff salaries or investments in local infrastructure projects (Kalvelage et al, 2020). Despite the salience of market-based conservation, there remains a lack of detailed research regarding how these programs and their inherent value frames are operationalised in practice In response to this knowledge gap, this article offers an empirical exploration of practices undertaken by diverse actors working to produce and extract value from biophysical 'wild' natures (cf Fredrikson et al, 2014; Bracking et al, 2019) by investigating the production of trophy elephant commodities in conservation hunting in Kwandu Conservancy, Zambezi Region.

The nature of value and commodities

Findings

Conclusions and future research directions