Governing Nature and Ethiopia: Struggles around World Heritage, Nation-Building and Ecologies (1963–2012)

Through an analysis of sources produced from the 1960s to the present by the managers of the Ethiopian Simien mountains national park, this article examines the origins, manifestations, and outcomes of a struggle rooted in the transnational shaping of a “natural” landscape. On the one hand, representatives of international institutions of conservation sought to protect the vestiges of an African Eden threatened by its inhabitants. On the other hand, Ethiopian state leaders used this Western ecological ethic to gain international recognition and through it, to better enforce their power over the national territory. Thus, at the local level this governance of nature resulted in the use of both material and symbolic violence against the resident populations, who were found guilty of degrading a “National Park” classified as “World Heritage.”