You cannot just displace indigenous peoples

By Summer Wyatt-Buchan
October 2021

Conservation can be wonderful and is more than necessary. But who pays the price?

Throughout history, conservation has been associated with the human rights violations of indigenous communities. It may be surprising to hear that the factor responsible for displacement of more people than war is wildlife conservation. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is one example of where this is the case. The organisation appears to claim that people are at the centre of their work, but they are falling short where it counts, thoroughly monitoring their conservation initiatives. This results in the exploitation of local and indigenous communities that live nearby to WWF conservation locations.

Conservation Refugees

Over the last decade there has been a growing number of indigenous peoples who identify themselves as conservation refugees. These are individuals, or often entire communities, who have been removed from their rightful land, whether it be through forceful removal or through methods such as soft eviction. It is devastating that alongside many other conservation organisations the WWF have been accused of playing a role in the creation of conservation refugees. Disregarding their commitment to both local and indigenous communities the WWF have displaced indigenous peoples to protect ecosystems and endangered species. This is difficult to rationalise considering that indigenous communities tend to have a very limited negative impact on their environment. These communities are being prevented from living on the land that they have owned for hundreds of years.

Conservation refugees are victims of the Global North's conservation ideal. The ‘western’ notion of conservation being as it is and often implemented unjustly is the reason that so many have been wrongly displaced. It’s important to mention that ‘National Parks’ are part of this problem. They are often stolen land. Stolen land that the ‘rich’ exploit and use for recreational activities. National Parks are protected and conserved for good reason, but there is no justified reason to remove indigenous communities that do no harm. How can the ‘rich’ be so ignorant to put our recreational needs above those of the rightful harmless community.

WWF

The violations of indigenous communities’ human rights by WWF was not as long ago as you would hope to imagine. In just 2019, Buzzfeed exposed the WWF as linked to the abuse of local communities by rangers in the Congo Basin. The abuse was inclusive of both rape and murder. The accusations that Buzzfeed made furthered and supported the evidence found by the Rainforest Foundation earlier the same year. It is no surprise that the WWF investigated these claims internally. The result of such an investigation determined the organisation to be innocent, having no direct involvement with the violence.

Shockingly, it is evident that WWF did nothing to intervene or prevent their rangers from committing such atrocities. The organisation claims that they had no method of effective management in their overseas countries and subsequently had no way to intervene, oversee and monitor the social justice aspect of their conservation projects. I cannot be the only individual to find this unacceptable. This brings to the forefront, what else are WWF missing? How many other conservations related social justice failures are happening in the world today?

The WWF does an admirable job in conserving and protecting species, ecosystems and biodiversity and their contribution to conservation is necessary. However, by no means should ecological justice come at the expense of social justice.

Governments

It is not only NGOs such as the WWF but also Governments that are protecting habitats and species at the expense of indigenous communities. Funding projects that prevent the extinction of a species contribute to increases in ‘conservation refugees. However, there are methods by which indigenous communities can reclaim their stolen land.

Through government treaties, indigenous communities are returning to their land with the title of Indigenous protected areas. For example, the Kakadu National Park located in Australia. Perhaps it has finally come to light that along with legal authority over their land, indigenous populations can curate their own relationships living alongside conservation and do a more successful job than the mainstream “western” notion that is failing so many people.

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