Download Klataske Anthropology Brown Bag Oct 22

Anthropology Brown Bag Series
Friday, October 22, 2010
Noon to 1PM
Room 106C McDonnell Hall
Presentation Title:
The Political Ecology of Conservation,
Conservancies and Private Land in Namibia
Presenter:
Ryan T. Klataske, PhD Student, Department of Anthropology
& Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior Program,
Michigan State University
The relationships between private land, conservation and the environment have important
implications for both ecological sustainability and rural livelihoods in and beyond
Southern Africa. Building on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this research
examines collaborative and cooperative land use and conservation in Namibia known as
private, commercial, or freehold conservancies. These are locally planned and
collectively managed areas of private land in which landholders intend to pool their
resources for purposes of collective wildlife management and utilization, environmental
conservation and tourism—often with expectations of increased rights and control over
wildlife and resource management. In addition to highlighting some of the experiences
and perspectives of conservancy members and leaders, this discussion addresses some of
the relationships between the variety of groups and individuals (i.e. ranchers, NGOs, farm
workers, tourists) and environmental actors (i.e. cheetahs, invasive woody plants, cattle)
that contribute to contestations over landscape, ecology and conservation in
conservancies and throughout rural Namibia. Furthermore, this research relates
conservancies to broader contexts, complexities and debates, including issues of land
reform, inequality and the distribution of land, as well as the privatization of wildlife and
approaches to conservation.