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“Conservation Booms” with Agricultural Growth?: Sustainability and Shifting Environmental Governance in Latin America, 1985–2008 (Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2022
Abstract
Conservation-development interactions intensified as a consequence of environmental and land-use changes in Latin America during the 1985–2008 period. This study examines predominant changes in five countries (Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia). Multifold increase of protected areas for environmental conservation occurred together with agricultural growth and intensification. Conservation and agricultural trends were fraught with conflicts and contradictions, yet they also showed partial compatibility in the search for sustainability. Conservation, indigenous, and social movement organizations operating at multiple scales (local, national, and international) contributed to distinctly configured national conservation “booms” and sustainability discourses in the five countries. Neoliberal governments and global organizations sanctioned protected-area conservation via increased state institutions, national and subnational administrative mechanisms, widely publicized sustainability rationales, expanded territorial management and a property rights focus, spatial devolution, and official multiculturalism—the 1990s were a heyday of these activities. Subsequently Latin American conservation and sustainability efforts have evolved both as a global center of governance through payment for environmental services and under increased and diverse social agendas.
Resumo
La interacción entre las políticas de conservación y de desarrollo se han intensificado como consecuencia de los cambios medioambientales y de uso de la tierra en América Latina durante el periodo 1985–2008. Este estudio examina los cambios más importantes que en ese sentido se han llevado a cabo en cinco países (México, Costa Rica, Brasil, Perú y Bolivia). Al mismo tiempo que ha aumentado la superficie dedicada a agricultura así como su intensificación, ha habido un aumento exponencial de las áreas protegidas por razones medioambientales. Ambas tendencias han estado marcadas por conflictos y contradicciones, si bien también han mostrado cierta compatibilidad a la hora de buscar la sostenibilidad. Organizaciones conservacionistas, indígenas y sociales que operan a escalas distintas (local, nacional e internacional) han contribuido de manera específica a configurar el “boom” conservacionista y los discursos sobre sostenibilidad en los cinco países en discusión. Por su parte, gobiernos de orientación neoliberal y organizaciones globales han establecido áreas protegidas de conservación a través de la creación de mecanismos administrativos de nivel estatal, la adopción de criterios de sostenibilidad y la gestión del territorio al mismo tiempo que se han enfocado en cuestiones de propiedad de la tierra y de devolución de territorios, y han defendido un multiculturalismo oficial, los años 90 fueron el momento cumbre de estas actividades. Subsecuentemente, los esfuerzos a favor de la conservación y la sostenibilidad en América Latina han evolucionado en la dirección de un centro global para el “pago por servicios medioambientales” (PES, por sus siglas en inglés) e influidas por diversas y cada vez mayores agendas sociales.
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- Copyright © 2011 by the University of Texas Press
Footnotes
Institutional support was provided through the Department of Geography and the Environment-Development Research Initiative. Eric Carter, Ryan Galt, Maggie Buck Holland, Ken Young, Blanca León, Bill Durham, Pam Matson, Tom Vale, and Lisa Naughton were important contributors and interlocutors in the initial research phase (2000–2004). Vital groundwork was completed during my Agrarian Studies Fellowship at Yale University in 2004–2005, where the research benefited from interactions with Enrique Mayer, Michael Dove, Gus Speth, Carol Carpenter, Wendy Wolford, Marilda Aparecida de Menezes, Lei Wong, and James Scott. Working versions of this article were presented at key stages as the annual Taafe Lecture in the Department of Geography at Ohio State University (October 4, 2004) and as invited lectures at the Sustainable Agriculture in the Americas Conference at Yale University (April 16, 2004); the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (February 4, 2005); the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean of the Maxwell School of Syracuse University (April 14, 2005); the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City (April 27, 2006); and the MacArthur Foundation-funded Conservation Workshop of the University of Georgia (November 7, 2007). The incentive to prepare this article owes to the welcome invitation I received from Marianne Schmink and José Jouve-Martín in June 2008 to write and present this work in their organized session at the International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) in Río de Janeiro, Brazil (June 11–14, 2009). Both guided my LASA paper expertly. Marianne offered much-needed critical feedback. Contributions to research, engagement with ideas, and feedback on drafts of the article before the Río meeting (2007–2009) are owing to Eric Carter, Martha Bell, Peter Vitousek, Tom Rudel, Liz Shapiro, Pat Kirch, Ashwini Chhatre, Larry Gorenflo, Rodrigo Salcedo Du Bois, Andrea Schwander, Steven McGunegle, Christian Brannstrom, Lisa Campbell, James McCarthy, Stefan Rist, George Woodwell, and Pete Brosius. The anonymous LARR reviewers provided numerous helpful suggestions.
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