Protected Areas and Resettlement: What Scope for Voluntary Relocation?

Abstract

Summary Concern over the possible impacts of physical and economical displacement from protected areas is widespread and growing. Partly as a consequence of this there is now an increasing tendency to promote only voluntary displacement from protected areas. There are, however, good reasons to be cautious before welcoming this policy shift. In the first instance we should note that the extent of past evictions is far from clear, but that the demand for future displacement is likely to rise. Second, it is not always easy to distinguish voluntary from forced displacement. We discuss the difficulty of determining volition in migration and diverse contemporary conservation cases where different forms of pressure can be brought to bear within the bounds of “voluntary” migration. In the main part of this article we discuss in detail a case study of a particularly well known and apparently successful voluntary resettlement from the Korup National Park in Cameroon. We conclude that the many current attributes of protected areas’ policy and history in poorer parts of the world are likely to preclude the possibility of real voluntary resettlement.