Reclaiming relations, conviviality and (human and nonhuman) well-being in the Anthropocene
The proponents of parks and reserves claim that parks and reserves are a success story that needs to be further replicated in more areas, as Wilson’s Half-Earth project attests. The archetypal model of “wilderness” conservation, Yosemite National Park, as mentioned earlier, emerged as a necessary action to stop possible destruction of the beautiful and unique landscape, while making a profit. This led to the separation between people and nature, specifically, the expulsion of Indians living in the area.
In Mozambique conservation areas are to be managed through a combination of private forces and state regulation, removing from the equation indigenous modes of knowing and relating, which are assumed to be symptomatic of a commons mode of living that is doomed to bring about ruin. This DNA of conservation areas is yet to undergo a radical transformational change beyond state and market centrality. In Mozambique, conservation areas were imposed during the colonial period in which racially produced spaces pushed black people into precarity. Conservation areas still share the violence and the divide between parks, reserves owners, managers and villagers, which constitutes what became known as “green violence” inflicted upon people, occurring simultaneously with other kinds of state and market violence. “Ironically, conservation is losing the war to protect nature despite winning one of its hardest fought battles -- the fight to create parks, game preserves, and wilderness areas.”[1]
Proponents of conservation within this setting could be working under the assumption that “injustice is preferable to total ruin”.[2] Hardin who sounded the alarm about the “tragedy of the commons” insisted that only through private forces or state regulation could depletion of natural resources be avoided. Speaking, for example, about the pollution problem, the author stated that “the tragedy of the commons as a food basket is averted by private property, or something formally like it. But the air and waters surrounding us cannot be readily fenced, and so the tragedy of the commons as a cesspool must be prevented by different means, by coercive laws or taxing devices that make it cheaper for the polluter to treat his pollutants than to discharge them untreated.[3] For Hardin, the tragedy of the commons can be tackled through the redefinition of property rights in a combination of private and state forces (legislation), never the commons. It is through “mutually agreed coercion”[4] that the destruction of the commons can be halted.
However, the violence and failure of conservation areas have led some scholars to devise transformative ways of conserving (or relating to) nature, which are not driven by market forces or state regulation.[5] Weston and Bollier suggest what they call “green governance”,[6] whereas Bram Büscher suggests “convivial conservation”.[7] This essays contributes to this debate on the need to open room for these alternative configurations of human and nonhuman relations that are not predicated upon private property, market forces or state regulation to emerge and fulfil their potential to bring about the well-being of humans and nonhumans in contexts characterized by poverty, abandonment, and intense capital incursion.
The fact that Mount Mabo is still a pristine area when discovered by the RBG Kew in 2005, suggests that the regime through which the villagers have been relating to the mountain, works. Hence, the thesis looks deep into the relations that villagers establish with the mountains, river, animals, forest, and matoa to highlight how conviviality based on ori’a (respect) shapes the links between humans and nonhumans. Breaking this moral precept, according to the villagers, may fragilize community ties. In the villages, there are living and non-living actants with power to enforce this precept. If these relations are discontinued through the work of parks or reserves, another loss is imminent: that of the world of the villagers, who might soon become poachers or squatters, hence reproducing the cycle of green violence.
Fig.1. A group meeting to talk about the work of the Association of Nangaze, and allocation of funds
This does not mean that the work of scientists and conservationists is to be discontinued. In my fieldwork, villagers insisted on the importance of passear (literally, to have a walk), as an instance of becoming with. I learned that saber passear (know how to have a walk) is necessary to grow personally and socially. Passear in Nangaze and Nvava is an exchange of ideas; it is a conversation that also extends to Mount Mabo, River Múgue and Mount Muriba.
In Nangaze when you walk with someone you talk with that person. This is a clear awareness of partial connectedness. For example, when Calisto, my field assistant was angry and frustrated with the attitude of the mwene (local leader) and the royal family (see chapter three) he told me: “here what it is difficult is to have an idea, you have an idea and you want to advise them [the mwene] but they do not understand, because the first problem is illiteracy, you see, second thing they do not know how to walk, they do not have experiences, experiences from other people, you see, because people never grow alone. Growing up is with others, it is to share with others, to talk to others, when you hear ideas from other people you start to grow, you see, but also to grow is not just about the age because you were a child, and you start to grow, ideas make you grow but that is not what's happening here, even if you're right, and you advise them, look what's happening, you should follow this path, so we should move like this, so we're going to go over the situation, they will not understand.”[8] What emerges is a form of learning based on conviviality.
Notes
[1] Marvier, Kareiva, and Lalasz 2011. Conservation in the Anthropocene: Beyond solitude and fragility. The breakthrough. 2. accessed June 27, 2019, available at https://thebreakthrough.org/journal/issue-2/conservation-in-the-anthropocene#foot17
[2] Hardin, G. 1968. The tragedy of the commons. Science 162(3859) 1243-1248at 1247
[3] Hardin 1968 at 1245
[4] Hardin 1968 at 1247
[5] See for example, Ostrom, E. 1990. Governing the commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Matose, F. 2009. Knowledge, power, livelihoods and commons practices in Dwesa-Cwebe, South Africa, Development Southern Africa, 26(4) 627-637, Weston, B., and Bollier, D. 2013. Green Governance: Ecological Survival, Human Rights, and Law of the Commons, Cambridge; New York; Melbourne; Madrid; Cape Town; Singapore; São Paulo; Delhi; Mexico City: Cambridge University Press, Büscher, B. 2018. From Biopower to Ontopower? Violent Responses to Wildlife Crime and the New Geographies of Conservation. Conservation and Society 16(2) 157-169.
[6] Weston, B., and Bollier, D. 2013. Green Governance: Ecological Survival, Human Rights, and Law of the Commons, Cambridge; New York; Melbourne; Madrid; Cape Town; Singapore; São Paulo; Delhi; Mexico City: Cambridge University Press
[7] This proposal still privileges market or state-centric approaches if they are in line with communities living in or near conservation areas. The case of Mount Mabo requires that the commons regime be taken seriously and understanding how different actants are knit through local practices and institutions so much that the mountain remained pristine even without the presence of market or state actors, who are making their way to the area, and already talking about possible destruction, a result of the ghost of the “tragedy of the commons” suggested by Hardin (1968)
[8] Calisto, Nangaze, pers.com. December 22, 2017
[9] With this argument, I attempt to break loose from the all-size-fits-all approach. This mode of dealing with difference and violence takes shape according to specific configurations of the area. Mount Mabo is yet to become a conservation area and it might not, scientists come and go, so do conservationists, which means violent response from villagers is still unwarranted. A more dialogical approach could yield better results in these specific configurations. All the work in this thesis follows a similar approach, while trying to reach out for global debates it takes the speaks mostly from these specific configurations and seeks to inform action in contexts where similar configurations emerge.
