Contested Nature: Promoting International Biodiversity with Social Justice in the Twenty-first Century

6. Unmasking the “Local”: Gender, Community, and the Politics of Community-Based Rural Ecotourism in Belize

Community-based conservation has emerged over the last decade in response to critiques that strategies for environmental protection have been developed at the expense of concern for people, especially historically marginalized peoples or the “dispossessed.” The rationale for envisioning local communities as partners in conservation rather than as in the past as passive recipients of the latters ’ design, builds on the assumptions of integrated conservation and development programs (ICDPs). The goal of ICDPs is to increase the economic opportunities of resource-dependent rural communities as a means of increasing nature protection without the social problems caused by strictly protectionist approaches. Within the umbrella of ICDPs, community-based conservation attempts to locate design of local development strategies and management within the community in collaboration with other government and nongovernmental actors. The rationales for community conservation include: that local or resident groups have a strong, vested interest in the sustainable use of natural resources upon which their livelihood or cultural survival rests, that they have experiential knowledge that can assist in the identification and design of environmental management strategies, and that they are more capable of managing local resources than distant state or corporate managers 89 Chapter Six Unmasking the “Local” Gender, Community, and the Politics of Community-Based Rural Ecotourism in Belize JILL M. BELSKY (Rao and Geisler 1990; West and Brechin 1991; Western and Wright 1994). Case studies of long-term community management of forests in Asia (Poffenberger 1990) and in Latin America (Alcorn 1993) have been instrumental in documenting the value of local communities and local knowledge in natural resource management. To date, evaluations of ICDPs have yielded mixed results, especially in reaching significant environmental protection goals (Brandon and Wells 1992). The failure to successfully achieve environmental protection goals has led observers to suggest returning to a more strictly environmental protectionist paradigm (Kramer 1997; Hackel 1999; Robinson 1993). But supporters of integrated conservation and development projects in general, and those that promote community-based and collaborative approaches in particular, claim it is too early to discard them.They strongly caution about returning to what they refer to as a “new protectionist paradigm” and the social injustices as well as practical pitfalls associated with these approaches (Wilshusen et al. 2002). Instead, what they argue as critically needed are deeper and more comprehensive understandings of international biodiversity conservation approaches themselves as social and political process (Zerner 2000; Brechin et al. 2002). Social science scholars and practitioners as well as conservation biologists have been raising important insights into the opportunities and constraints of integrated conservation and development approaches including communitybased efforts. In an insightful article, Brosius et al. (1998) brought attention to the fact that despite similar labels and claims, community-based conservation and natural resource management programs are constituted differently and defended by claims and concepts that are often ill defined and not empirically well grounded. Furthermore, they highlight the problems encountered when advocates and practitioners, while deeply committed to the goals of devolution and community conservation, are unwilling or unable to approach resource management efforts with a nuanced understanding of resource conflicts in their areas. Adams and Hulme (2001) also argue that community conservation is not one thing but many, and is evolving both conceptually and practically. Importantly, these authors conclude that the key questions about community conservation are who sets the objectives on the ground and how trade-offs between the diverse objectives are negotiated. Li (1996) also warns that community conservation efforts are too frequently based on generic models that are neither sufficiently attuned to particular historical contexts and political struggles , nor critical of the multiple meanings and strategic deployment of concepts that guide such efforts. Agrawal and Gibson (1999) in another highly significant work caution that the image of community in conservation historically has vacillated between that of two extremes: either the cooperative and ecologically knowledgeable “enchanted” community or the tradition-bound and ecologically destructive “disenchanted” community. In the former archetype, the one commonly evoked in community conservation efforts, the rural community is 90 JILL M. BELSKY represented as a socially homogenous and conflict-less entity, despite the historic reality of intracommunity divisions, struggles, and conflicts (Agrawal 1997; DuPuis and Vandergeest 1996). Another assumption that is rarely acknowledged or explored in community-level efforts is whether communities can participate and operate successfully in resource management efforts in light of inequities and disincentives for conservation that persist at broader political, economic, and institutional scales (Little 1994...