However, despite the general consensus that certain natural areas should be set aside and protected from the threat of urbanization and industrial development, the different methods of implementing such a system are widely disputed. The main processes of localized environmental protection currently under global debate are displacement-based versus place-based conservation. Displacement-based conservation encompasses any form of biodiversity preservation that comes at the cost of evacuating local communities, whereas place-based strategies involve working with local communities in a more human-centered approach. Though both methods have been used in practice and have led to relative protection of the intended areas, the stark contrast between these two techniques leads one to wonder what new problems are being created in the interest of solving another. The largest problem with displacement-based conservation is that although it may be practised with good ecological intentions, proponents of such conservation often fail to see the economic and social impact of displacing human populations. Many of the areas being preserved are poverty-stricken regions where citizens rely on local resources for subsistence living, and it is simply not reasonable to take them from this land in the absence of economic alternatives. A good example of this is the Maasai tribe, who were forced to leave much of the Maasai Mara land between Kenya and Tanzania in which they lived and farmed cattle, even though their agricultural practices are not very ecologically damaging. As someone who has previously volunteered in the Maasai Mara, I can verify that the Maasai live a very ecologically conscious way of life. They have much to teach environmentalists about how human beings can live with ecosystems instead of fencing them off from modern life. The second largest problem with displacement-based conservation is that it does not allow for help or input from locals, who in all likelihood know the biodiversity of the area better than any NGO wishing to preserve it. These issues can be accurately summed up in a statement from Dr. David Barton Bray of the Department of Earth and Environment at Florida International University: “People defend places from which they derive their livelihoods and their identity.” If conservation organizations focused on strategies that educate locals about moderate resource use and alternative incomes, as
well as employing local workers to patrol and manage protected areas, both social and ecological causes would benefit. For example, in southeastern Mexico there is a community-managed forest that has been found to have the lowest land-use change recorded in the region, even lower than “protected” areas, while still producing timber to support the local community economically. In this way, approaches of place-based conservation have the potential to solve localized social and ecological problems at the same time, without the expense of relocating indigenous human populations. Coercive, displacement-based conservation can also be described as a conservation method in which indigenous groups are indirectly politically forced into situations they did not originally want. Usually, this means forcing the populations from their land in an effort to preserve local biodiversity, often creating communities that define themselves as “conservation refugees.” This raises the challenges of finding new lands for such groups, who will undoubtedly attempt to continue the same way of life even in a new space. In addition, these communities are ultimately the groups who know the most about the land in question and how to manage biodiversity in the area, and their opinions and knowledge should be seriously considered in the protection of the land. For example, in the mountain villages of Thailand, many indigenous Thai people have become conservation refugees, when their only offense against local wildlife was engaging in small, rotational agriculture. These people could have aided the entering organizations in their local biodiversity preservation but were not given the opportunity to do so. A community-based approach would have the advantage of not displacing such indigenous groups, as well as enhancing the preservation abilities of the conservation organizations in affected areas. Community-based conservation methods mean that government groups and NGOs will have less control over the area and will have to work more closely with local people to reach consensus, but ultimately the benefits of such approaches outweigh the costs. In an age when biodiversity loss is occurring at alarmingly high rates, it is easy to be swept into believing that ecological protection at any measure is a worthwhile pursuit. However, if we are to work toward an age of greater equality, we cannot manipulate the rights of protected spaces to further the mistreatment of marginalized communities.
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