Fortress conservation is a conservation model based on the belief that biodiversity protection is best achieved by creating protected areas where ecosystems can function in isolation from human disturbance. Its implementation has been criticized for
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
abuses against indigenous inhabitants when creating and maintaining protected areas.
Background
Ecotourism
![Sabi sabi game drive](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Sabi_sabi_game_drive.jpg)
It is argued that money generated from
ecotourism
Ecotourism is a form of tourism involving responsible travel (using sustainable transport) to natural areas, conserving the environment, and improving the well-being of the local people. Its purpose may be to educate the traveler, to provide funds ...
is the motivating factor to drive indigenous inhabitants off the land.
[
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Efficacy
While the fortress conservation model views human as being inherently destructive to the environment, some have argued that the most efficient conservation methods involve transferring rights over land from public domain to its indigenous inhabitants, who have had a stake for millennia in preserving the forests that they depend on. This includes the protection of such rights entitled in existing laws, such as the Forest Rights Act
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, is a key piece of forest legislation passed in India on 18 December 2006. It has also been called the Forest Rights Act, the Tribal Rights Act ...
in India, where concessions to land continue to go mostly to powerful companies.[ The transferring of such rights in ]China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, perhaps the largest land reform
Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...
in modern times, has been argued to have increased forest cover. Granting title of the land has shown to have two or three times less clearing than even state run parks, notably in the Brazilian Amazon. Even while the largest cause of deforestation in the world's second largest rainforest in the Congo is smallholder agriculture and charcoal production, areas with community concessions have significantly less deforestation as communities are incentivized to manage the land sustainably, even reducing poverty. Additionally, evicting inhabitants from protected areas often under the fortress conservation model often leads to more exploitation of the land as the native inhabitants then turn to work for extractive companies to survive.
Militarization
Conservation charities, the biggest of which is the World Wildlife Fund
The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wo ...
have increasingly militarized the campaign against poaching. Such poaching is often by organized criminal gangs that prey on the endangered species and, in 2018, 50 park rangers were killed globally. Veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been recruited to teach forest rangers counterinsurgency techniques and ex–special forces operatives promote their services at wildlife conferences. This has often involved recruiting paramilitary groups who are then supplied with military grade weaponry.[
]
Prevalence
Up to 250,000 people worldwide have been forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for conservation projects since 1990, according to the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples.
Botswana
In Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...
, many of the indigenous San people have been forcibly relocated from their land to reservations. To make them relocate, they were denied access to water on their land and faced arrest if they hunted, which was their primary source of food. The government claims the relocation is to preserve the wildlife and ecosystem, even though the San people have lived sustainably on the land for millennia.[ Additionally, their lands lie in the middle of the world's richest ]diamond
Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the Chemical stability, chemically stable form of car ...
field. On the reservations they struggle to find employment, and alcoholism
Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol (drug), alcohol that results in significant Mental health, mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognize ...
is rampant.[
]
Cameroon
Baka people in Cameroon's Lobéké National Park
Lobéké National Park (alternate: Lake Lobake National Park) is a national park of southeastern Cameroon within the Moloundou Arrondissement of East Province. Located in the Congo Basin, it is bounded on the east by the Sangha River which serve ...
have alleged abuse by park rangers funded by the World Wildlife Fund
The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wo ...
(WWF).[
]
Democratic Republic of the Congo
In national parks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
, such as Kahuzi-Biéga National Park
The Kahuzi-Biega National Park is a protected area near Bukavu town in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is situated near the western bank of Lake Kivu and the Rwandan border. Established in 1970 by the Belgian photographer and conserv ...
, heavily armed park rangers come into deadly conflict with the pygmy inhabitants who often cut the trees down to sell charcoal. The conservation efforts of national parks in the country are often financed by international organizations such as the WWF and often involve removing native inhabitants off the land.
Nepal
The creation of Chitwan National Park
, iucn_category = II
, location = Central Terai of Nepal
, established = 1973
, nearest_city = Bharatpur
, map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#India#South Asia , relief = 1
, label = Chitwan National Park
, label_position = top
, coordina ...
in the 1970s led to tens of thousands of indigenous Tharu people
The Tharu people are an ethnic group indigenous to the Terai in southern Nepal and northern India. They speak Tharu languages. They are recognized as an official nationality by the Government of Nepal. In the Indian Terai, they live foremost i ...
to be evicted. The World Wildlife Fund has been accused of providing high-tech enforcement equipment, cash, and weapons to rangers involved torturing Tharu living near national parks such as Bardiya National Park
;
, iucn_category = II
, photo = Bardiya_02.jpg
, photo_caption =
, photo_alt=
, map_image =
, map_caption = Location in Nepal
, location = Nepal
, map = Nepal
, relief = 1
, coordinates =
, area_km2 = 968
, established = 1988
, go ...
. Nepalese law was changed to give forest rangers the power to investigate wildlife-related crimes, make arrests without a warrant, and retain immunity in cases where an officer had “no alternative” but to shoot the offender while the park's chief warden has the power to hand out 15-year prison terms by themselves.
Republic of the Congo
Forest rangers, known as ecoguards, dressed in paramilitary uniforms and heavily armed with funding from the WWF, are accused of torture, rape and murder of Baka pygmies
The Baka people, known in the Congo as Bayaka (''Bebayaka, Bebayaga, Bibaya''), are an ethnic group inhabiting the southeastern rain forests of Cameroon, northern Republic of the Congo, northern Gabon, and southwestern Central African Republic ...
in the proposed Messok Dja protected area as part of an effort to remove the Baka pygmies from the area.[
]
Tanzania
More than 150,000 Maasai people
The Maasai (; sw, Wamasai) are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting northern, central and southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best-known local populations internationally due to their residence near the many game parks of t ...
face eviction in Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...
with moves to turn their lands into nature reserves for luxury safari tourism and for trophy hunting
Trophy hunting is a form of hunting for sport in which parts of the hunted wild animals are kept and displayed as trophies. The animal being targeted, known as the " game", is typically a mature male specimen from a popular species of collectab ...
in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (, ) is a protected area and a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Ngorongoro District, west of Arusha City in Arusha Region, within the Crater Highlands geological area of northern Tanzania. The area is na ...
, which is a UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
World Heritage Site
A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
, and in Loliondo
Loliondo town situated in northern Ngorongoro District of Arusha Region in Northern Tanzania. Together with neighbouring Wasso village, it hosts the district offices and forms the commercial centre of Loliondo division. Loliondo is the seat of t ...
near the Serengeti National Park
The Serengeti National Park is a large national park in northern Tanzania that stretches over . It is located entirely in eastern Mara Region and north east portion of Simiyu Region and contains over of virgin savanna. The park was established in ...
. Previous attempts to forcefully evict the Maasai have alleged to have included burning their homes.
United States of America
The preservation of Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ar ...
under the advocacy of John Muir
John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...
meant the expulsion of the Miwok
The Miwok (also spelled Miwuk, Mi-Wuk, or Me-Wuk) are members of four linguistically related Native American groups indigenous to what is now Northern California, who traditionally spoke one of the Miwok languages in the Utian family. The word ...
and Paiute
Paiute (; also Piute) refers to three non-contiguous groups of indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Although their languages are related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, these three groups do not form a single set. The term "Paiu ...
Native Americans.
See also
*Ecotourism
Ecotourism is a form of tourism involving responsible travel (using sustainable transport) to natural areas, conserving the environment, and improving the well-being of the local people. Its purpose may be to educate the traveler, to provide funds ...
*Green grabbing
Green grabbing or green colonialism is the foreign land grabbing and appropriation of resources for environmental purposes, resulting in a pattern of unjust development. The purposes of green grabbing are varied; it can be done for ecotourism, con ...
* World Wide Fund for Nature#Human rights abuses by paramilitaries
References
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Ecotourism
Indigenous rights
Nature conservation
Neocolonialism
World Wide Fund for Nature