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Conflict in Crocker: applying ethical analysis to constructive dialogue in a co-managed protected area in Sabah (Malaysia)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2016

LOGAN HAMILTON  and
PAUL JEPSON Open the ORCID record for PAUL JEPSON [Opens in a new window]
LOGAN HAMILTON*
Affiliation:
School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK
PAUL JEPSON
Affiliation:
School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK
*
*Correspondence: Dr. Logan Hamilton e-mail: hamiltloga@gmail.com
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Summary

Over a 10-year period, a valley in Crocker Range Park in Sabah (Malaysia) has witnessed a conflict between a community located inside its boundaries – the Ulu Senagang/Mongool Baru – and the state government's parks department – Sabah Parks. Sabah Parks sought to designate the area as a co-managed community use zone (CUZ) in which sustainable practices are allowed to continue, but disagreement over how the zone was to be governed resulted in a prolonged impasse. This paper assesses whether conflict management tools could overcome the impasse. This study assessed the CUZ conflict via a systematic methodology known as ethical analysis (EA), which aims to reveal stakeholder interests, values and principles and identify barriers and bridges to negotiated settlements. First developed in the medical field and subsequently employed in the analysis of forestry disputes, this is the first time that EA has been utilized in the context of protected area management. The EA revealed significant misalignments between stakeholders’ positions that were sufficient to prevent a perfect win–win solution from emerging. As such, at least one party would have to make compromises in order for the CUZ to be established. The EA revealed that whilst both sides in this conflict were willing to move forwards with negotiations, they had been prevented from doing so by mutual mistrust and a number of misconceptions that had developed during the negotiation process. The EA tool was fit for purpose in identifying the underlying causes of the CUZ conflict, which were determined to be resolvable so long as both sides were willing to make compromises. The study concludes that other co-managements could similarly benefit from the employment of EA, which can be easily incorporated into existing protected area conflict management models and structures. We propose that the utility of EA can be further enhanced in the conservation management context by incorporating assessments of stakeholder priorities and worldviews into its analysis structure.

Keywords

ethical analysisfacilitating conflict resolutioncommunity conserved areasSabahMalaysia
Type
Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 166 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2016 

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Footnotes

Supplementary material can be found online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0376892916000345

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