The Will to Conserve? Environmentality, Translation, and Politics of Conservation in Southern Belize

Transcription

1 The Will to Conserve? Environmentality, Translation, and Politics of Conservation in Southern Belize by James Stinson A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Anthropology University of Toronto Copyright by James Stinson 2017

2 The Will to Conserve? Environmentality, Translation, and Politics of Conservation in Southern Belize James Stinson Doctor of Philosophy Anthropology University of Toronto 2017 Abstract Over the last 20 years, community-based conservation (CBC) emerged as a dominant global regime of natural resource management, promoted as a means of reconciling diverse interests around a shared goal of biodiversity conservation. In recent years, however, there has been a backlash against CBC, with some calling for a return to more exclusionary and protectionist forms of conservation. This dissertation explores the rise and fall of community-based conservation. It does this through a detailed analysis of the co-management of the Sarstoon-Temash National Park (STNP) in southern Belize. Despite being unilaterally imposed on surrounding indigenous communities in 1994, the STNP was later recognized as one of the most participatory, innovative and effectively managed protected areas in Belize and promoted internationally as a model for balancing the goals of biodiversity conservation with the interests of indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, in 2008 the Government of Belize terminated the management regime governing the park amidst growing conflict with surrounding communities over oil ii

3 exploration and indigenous land rights. The key question addressed by this dissertation is not whether community-based conservation succeeds or fails, but how the success and failure of CBC is produced. In doing this, this dissertation examines how diverse actors and groups are enrolled in the project of CBC; how the rationality of CBC (the will to conserve) is translated into specific projects and technologies of government; and how variously positioned social actors and organizations experience, interpret and respond to CBC s effects. The central argument of this dissertation is the following: Communitybased conservation does not work by reconciling the interests of diverse actors around a shared will to conserve ; nor does it operate as by simply displacing or concealing politics through the promotion of technical and bureaucratic interventions. Rather, community-based conservation is assembled through political acts of translation, processes of representation and interpretation through which actors construct meaningful linkages between their own individual or collective interests and the rationality of particular projects. As a result, projects do not fail when they do not meet their stated objectives, but when practices of translation fail to produce interpretations that engender political support. iii

4 Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the invaluable contributions of a myriad of individuals and groups. At the University of Toronto, I would like to recognize the work and dedication of my PhD committee, and especially my supervisor, Sandra Bamford, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for her unwavering support and constant encouragement. I cannot adequately express how much it has meant. I would also like to sincerely thank the other members of my dissertation committee, including Tania Li and Lena Mortensen, for their insightful comments on, and critiques of, my writing throughout this process. In her role as facilitator of the Department of Anthropology s dissertation writing workshop, Tania Li was particularly influential in directing and guiding me through the early stages of writing this thesis. I would also like to make special mention of the late Krystyna Sieciechowicz, who served as my cosupervisor and was a valued and influential mentor. Krystyna played a particularly key role in preparing me for fieldwork, and helping me organize my thoughts after I returned from Belize. Finally, the thoughtful review and comments provided by Laurie Medina, who graciously served as the external examiner, were very appreciated. In addition to my committee, the administrative staff of the Department of Anthropology has played an important role in helping me complete this project. I would particularly like to thank Dr. David Begun and Natalia Krencil for their invaluable support and assistance, particularly in helping me navigate the intricacies of university bureaucracy over the years. This project would not have been completed without their assistance. Finally, I would like to thank the wonderful group of colleagues and friends I have been privileged to work with iv

5 at U of T, including Kori Allen, Kirsten Brown, Lauren Classen, Saul Cohen, Mieke DeGelder, Sheri Gibbings, Aaron Kappeler, Janet McLaughlin, Hollis Moore, Shaylih Muehlmann, Laura Sikstrom, Alyson Stone, Jessica Taylor and Zoe Wool. Recognition and thanks are also owed to everyone in Belize who provided support and friendship while I was conducting the fieldwork for this project. First and foremost, I would like to thank the staff of the Sarstoon-Temash Institute for Indigenous Management in Punta Gorda, including Greg Ch oc, Lynette Gomez, Saleem Chan, Peter Shol, David Itch and Acela Cho, for providing logistical support. I am also deeply indebted to the Q eqchi and Garifuna villagers of Barranco, Conejo, Crique Sarco, Midway and Sunday Wood, who graciously shared their time and knowledge with me. I would particularly like to recognize Anasario Cal, Lydia Keh, Juan Pop, Santa Pop, Jose Coy, Andres Bo, Josiah Bo, Juan Choc, Enrique Makin, Thomas Ishim, Luis Ishim, and Egbert Valencio. Special mention must also go to Cristina Coc of the Julian Cho Society, for her friendship and willingness to share her knowledge and experience. Her dedication to the cause of Indigenous Rights is truly an inspiration. Josh Lichenstein and Alicia Ybarra, and their sons, Isaac and Che, welcomed us into their home and became close friends. Other members of the Punta Gorda community who provided assistance and friendship included Marchilio Ack, Bartolo Teul, Victor Cal, Nicolas Wicks, Larry and Carol Smith, Will Maheia, Rick and Darla Mallory, Bruno Kuppinger, and the Peace Corps crew (Patty, Sean, Evan, Dwight, Judy, Emily and Alyssa). I was also fortunate to meet a number of fellow academics in the field who I am now happy to call my friends, including Dave and Ellie Buck, Sean and Heather Downey, Liza Grandia, Rick Wilk, Becky Zarger, Maia Campbell, James Anaya, and Shoshi Parks. I must also acknowledge v

6 the sources of financial support that made this work possible, including a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada, a Doctoral Research Award from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to express my deepest and most heartfelt thanks and gratitude to my friends and family for their love, support, and most of all, patience, throughout this long journey. While academic research is incredibly fulfilling and rewarding, writing a PhD dissertation can also be an isolating and lonely experience. I would therefore like to thank my friends and family, both for giving me the time and space to pursue such a self-indulgent project, and for being there to offer love, support and encouragement when it was needed most. There are truly too many people to mention, but I would be remiss not to recognize Tiiu and Tyler, Karine and Doug, Jenny and Iain, Steve Sloot, Andrea Padvaiskas, Iain Duncan, and Tommy Mo for their friendship, and good times over the years. Special mention must go to my mom, Dianne Collins, for her unconditional love and support, despite my decision to pursue my interest in the strange field of anthropology, and all the members of the Stinson-Collins-Dieleman clan. I must also thank the Bennett family, especially Linda, Trevor, Kelsey, and Louise De La Gorgendiere, for welcoming me into their family and supporting me as I travelled down this path. Most of all, my wife Megan, has given and sacrificed more than anyone to help me complete this project. Thank you. Your patience, encouragement, prodding, and love has been astonishing, and can never be repaid. Finally, I would like to dedicate this work to my girls, Eden and Elora, who came into the world in the middle of this process. Thank you for your laughter and joy and for inspiring me to get this done! vi

7 Table of Contents Abstract...ii Acknowledgements...iv List of Tables...ix List of Figures... x Chapter 1: Introduction...1 Governmentalities and The Will to Conserve...5 Reviewing the Literature Assembling A Framework: Environmentalities and the Politics of Translation Methods and Data Collection Structure of the Dissertation Chapter 2: Governing the Maya Forest s-1780s: Ungovernable Wretches s-1880s: Establishing Sovereignty s 1950s Disciplining the Maya Forest Cultivating Bio-Power Present Neoliberal Environmentality Chapter 3: Assembling the Sarstoon-Temash National Park Introduction: Assembling the Sarstoon-Temash National Park Assembling the Stakeholders The Stakeholder Workshop Toward Co-Management Conclusion: Chapter 4: Translating Community into Conservation Introduction: From Milpa Farmers to Bureaucrats The Community Managed Sarstoon Temash Conservation Project Rendering the Socio-Nature of the STNP Visible vii

8 The STNP Management Plan Conclusion Chapter 5: Cultivating Environmental Subjectivities Introduction Environmental Subjects and the Will to Conserve? Cultivating Environmental Subjects around the STNP The Nature of Q eqchi Maya Subjectivity Translating Neoliberal Conservation Conclusion: Chapter 6: The Will to Conserve? Introduction: The Lure of Black Gold Neoliberal Subjects and the Will to Conserve? From Neoliberal Nature to Indigenous Land Conclusion: Chapter 7: Conclusion Bibliography viii

9 List of Tables Table 1: Types of Environmental Government and Governmentality Table 2: Establishment of Forest Reserves in Belize Table 3: Protected Areas Created Under National Patks Systems Act ( ) Table 4: Sarstoon Temash National Park Co-Management Agreement Table 5: COMSTEC Project Outcomes and Indicators Table 6: Support for Conservation Table 7: Oil Production in Belize ix

10 List of Figures Figure 1: Map of Study Area Figure 2: Historical Expansion of Logging in Belize Figure 3: Map of Proposed Maya Homeland Figure 4: Map of Protected Areas Figure 5: Organizational Structure of SATIIM Figure 6: Map of Transects for Rapid Ecological Assessment Figure 7: Ecosystems of the Sarstoon-Temash Region Figure 8: Conejo Village Land-Use Map Figure 9: Park Zoning Plan Figure 10: Q'eqchi' Youth in Park Resource Centre Figure 11: Map of Oil Concession and Proposed Seismic Lines and Drill Sites Figure 12: Conejo Village Boundary Map x

11 Chapter 1: Introduction In effect, between a relationship of power and a strategy of struggle there is a reciprocal appeal, a perpetual linking and a perpetual reversal. At every moment the relationship of power may become a confrontation between two adversaries. Equally, the relationship between adversaries in society may, at every moment, give place to the putting into operation of mechanisms of power. (Foucault 1982:794). In the mid-1990s, a decision by the government of Belize to grant a large logging concession to a transnational corporation in the Columbia River Forest Reserve in the Toledo District of southern Belize became the catalyst for the ignition of Maya activism and mobilization to secure indigenous land rights. 1 Maya activists and their international allies mobilized Maya communities throughout the district to protest logging concessions and other development plans, and instigated a district-wide project to map the lands and resources used and occupied by Maya peoples. 2 Through this new Maya Movement, a political vision was forcefully articulated in which the preservation of indigenous Maya 1 This new Maya movement evolved out of what was previously termed the Toledo Maya Indian Movement that had formed in the 1970s in response to government efforts to establish national village councils and promote land privatization and agricultural development in Maya communities (see IWGIA 1986). 2 Another major project targeted by the Maya movement was a plan to pave the southern highway, the only road linking Toledo to the rest of the country. Opposition to upgrading the road stemmed from fears that doing so would unleash a wave of land privatization and dispossession of rural Maya villagers. 1

12 identity and culture was intimately linked to the protection of Maya lands and the creation of a semi-autonomous Maya Homeland (Medina 1998; Van Ausdal 2001; TMCC and TAA 1997; Wainwright 2008; Wainwright and Bryan 2009). A decade later, I was in Belize conducting fieldwork for my MA thesis on ecotourism at Monkey Bay Wildlife Sanctuary in central Belize (Stinson 2004). During this period I was invited to travel to the southern Toledo District with Peter Eltringham author of the travel guidebook Rough Guide to Belize (Eltringham 2001) to learn about and experience first-hand a number of emerging indigenous-led ecotourism and conservation projects. What I noticed when I arrived in Toledo was that the political situation had changed dramatically. Even though a Maya Homeland had not been created and the status of indigenous land rights remained unresolved, the Maya Movement had seemingly disappeared. 3 Moreover, the protests and community mobilization of the 1990s had dissipated, and seemingly been displaced by new discourses of development, conservation, participation and co-management. Indigenous advocacy organizations such as The Toledo Maya Cultural Council had become defunct, and in their place a number of technical development and conservation NGOs had emerged. These new organizations included the Aguacaliente Management Team (AMT), Belize Indigenous Training Institute (BITI), Maya Women s Council, Rio Blanco Maya Association (RBMA), Sarstoon-Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM), Toledo Association for Sustainable Tourism and Empowerment, Toledo Cacao Growers Association (TCGA), Toledo Ecotourism Association (TEA), Toledo Institute for 3 It must be noted, however, that efforts to secure Maya land rights were not abandoned. The movement had simply changed in character from a highly politicized and public process of community mobilization and protest to a more bureaucratized and legal process that involved a relatively small number of key Maya leaders, consultants, and government officials. See Wainwright and Bryan (2009) for an account of this process. 2

13 Environment and Development (TIDE), Tumul K in Centre of Learning, and the Yaxche Conservation Trust (YCT), among many others. Acronyms were proliferating, new statecommunity partnerships and co-management agreements were being forged, and funding was flowing in to southern Belize from international lenders and NGOs. Intrigued by how a politicized indigenous land-rights movement had seemingly been tamed by and transformed into a bureaucratic will to conserve, I retuned to Toledo in the spring of 2006 to commence fourteen months of doctoral research on community-based conservation. The goal of my project was to explore how processes of community-based conservation and protected area co-management had changed Mayastate relations, social relations within Maya communities, and Maya conceptions of and relations to the natural environment. The focus of my research was the Sarstoon Temash National Park (STNP) in Toledo. Since 2003, the STNP had been co-managed by the Sarstoon-Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM), an NGO formed by members of several indigenous communities bordering the park. Moreover, the STNP had been hailed as one of the most innovative, participatory, and effectively managed protected areas in Belize, and a model of reconciling biodiversity conservation with the rights and needs of indigenous peoples (Caddy et al. 2000; Walker and Walker 2009). Just as I arrived in Toledo to begin my fieldwork exploring the co-management of the Sarstoon-Temash National Park, however, a heated conflict erupted between SATIIM and the Government of Belize. The dispute was instigated by a government decision to grant a permit to an American oil company to conduct seismic testing inside the national park, a decision that was vigorously contested by SATIIM. State-community conflict surrounding the efforts of Maya peoples to block oil exploration in the STNP therefore 3

14 became the spark that re-ignited an explicitly politicized Maya movement that contested oil exploration and made renewed demands for state recognition and respect of indigenous land rights. It was in this context the Government of Belize terminated the comanagement regime governing the park and SATIIM emerged as one of the most vocal indigenous organizations leading a re-invigorated Maya Movement. This dissertation explores the rise and fall of community-based conservation. It does this through a detailed analysis of the Sarstoon-Temash National Park (STNP) in southern Belize. In doing this, this dissertation critically examines the conditions of possibility that allowed for community-based conservation to emerge in Belize; how diverse actors and groups are enrolled in the project of CBC; how the rationality of CBC (the will to conserve) is translated into specific projects and technologies of government; and how variously positioned social actors and organizations experience, interpret and respond to CBC s effects. The key question addressed by this dissertation is, therefore, not whether community-based conservation succeeds or fails as a particular manifestation of environmental governance, but how (under what conditions and through what practices) the success and failure of CBC is produced. The central argument of this dissertation is the following: Community-based conservation does not work by reconciling the interests of diverse actors around a shared will to conserve ; nor does it operate as an anti-politics machine that displaces or conceals politics through the promotion of technical and bureaucratic interventions. Rather, community-based conservation is assembled and ultimately contested through political acts of translation, processes of representation and interpretation through which actors construct meaningful linkages between their own individual and/or collective 4

15 interests and the rationality and effects of particular projects. As a result, projects do not fail when they do not meet their stated objectives, but when practices of translation fail to produce interpretations capable of engendering and sustaining political support. Governmentalities and The Will to Conserve As a rational attempt to manage human interaction with and exploitation of the natural environment, the will to conserve operates in the field of power Michel Foucault termed government (Foucault 1982, 1991, 2007). However, while a large and growing body of literature explores conservation through the lens of governmentality (Agrawal 2005a, 2005b; Braun 2000; Bryant 2000, 2002; Cepek 2011; Dressler 2014; Gregory and Vaccaro 2015; Fletcher 2010; Forsyth and Walker 2014; Goldman 2001, 2006; Haggerty 2007; Hanson 2007; Hart 2011; Li 2007a, 2007b; Luke 1995, 1999; Rutherford 2007; Segi 2013; Singh 2013; Snodgrass et al. 2008; Vaccaro 2005; Watts 2003), there remains ambiguity over the meaning and application of the conception of the governmentality concept (see Fletcher 2010). The aim of this section is therefore to outline how this dissertation situates conservation in relation to Foucault s conceptions of government and governmentality. Foucault first described his concept of governmentality during a February 1, 1978 lecture that was part of his lecture series at the Collège de France on the theme of Security, Territory and Population (Foucault 1991, 2007). Indeed, Foucault described the aim of the lecture series as an effort to undertake a history of governmentality (Foucault 1991: 102), by which he meant an outline of the historical emergence in eighteenth century Europe of a distinct mode of rule in which the state as an ensemble of institutions increasingly became concerned not only with the 5

16 problematics of sovereignty and discipline, but with government. Thus, Foucault s original description of government portrayed it as a historically specific mentality of rule that was distinct from the rationalities of sovereignty and discipline. As Dean (1999:105) explains, In Western European societies from the Middle Ages, sovereignty is principally conceived as a transcendent form of authority exercised over subjects within a definite territory. Its principle instruments are laws, decrees and regulation backed by coercive sanctions ultimately grounded in the right of death of the sovereign. Dean goes on to explain that sovereignty therefore functions as a deductive form of rule that relies on technologies of subtraction levied on subjects: It subtracts products, money, wealth, goods, services, labour and blood. Sovereignty in this sense is a specific form of rule over things. It seizes them, whether they are goods, time, bodies or ultimately life itself (Dean 1999:105). Foucault therefore asserts that what characterizes the end of sovereignty is in sum nothing other than submission to sovereignty. This means that the end of sovereignty is circular: the end of sovereignty is the exercise of sovereignty (1991: 95). Disciplinary power, in contrast, did not depend on exercising the state s ultimate power over life and death, but it operated by inducing normalized conduct from those subjected to continuous surveillance and precisely measured regulation (Demeritt 2001: 437). With its origins in monastic, military and educational institutions and practices, discipline concerns the exercise of power over and through the individual, the body and its forces and capacities, and the composition of aggregates of human individuals (classes, armies, etc.) (Dean 1999: 19). Thus, according to Foucault, the emergence of government involved the historical transition in Europe from the feudal state of justice concerned with the 6

17 maintenance of sovereignty (control over territory and subjects), to the administrative state preoccupied with the discipling and regulation of territory and subjects (as in schools, workhouses, hospitals, prisons, reservations and reserves), to the governmental state in the eighteenth century (Foucault 1991: ). One key feature that distinguished the governmental state from previous regimes was the concern for the welfare of populations, an objective that Foucault would term biopower, or biopolitics (Dean 1999: 99). As Foucault states, In contrast to sovereignty, government has as its purpose not the act of government itself, but the welfare of the population, the improvement of its condition, the increase of its wealth, longevity, health etc... (Foucault 1991: 100). As noted by Dean (1999: 99): [Biopolitics] is concerned with matters of life and death, with birth and propagation, with health and illness, both physical and mental, and with processes that sustain or retard the optimization of the life of the population. Biopolitics must then concern the social, cultural, environmental, economic, geographic conditions under which humans live, procreate, become ill, maintain health or become healthy, and die. From this perspective bio-politics is concerned with the family, with housing, living and working conditions, with what we call lifestyle, with public health issues, patterns of migration, levels of economic growth and the standards of living. It is concerned with the bio-sphere in which humans live. For Foucault, the transition to bio-political government therefore implied not a single governmental objective, but a plurality of specific aims that sought not the common 7

18 good, but ends that were convenient for each of the things that are to be governed (Foucault 1991: 95). A second key feature of governmental rationality was an emphasis on governing liberally, or economically, by securing and governing through the natural processes of the economy and the population (Dean 1999:117; Gordon 1991: 17). In this sense, what governmentality entails is: The setting in place of mechanism of security mechanisms or modes of state intervention whose function is to assure the security of those natural phenomena, economic processes and intrinsic processes of population: this is what becomes the basic objective of governmental rationality. Hence liberty is registered not only as the right of individuals legitimately to oppose the power, the abuses and usurptions of the sovereign, but also now as an indispensable element of governmental rationality itself. (Gordon 1991:19-20). Accordingly, administrators in the governmental state came to argue that to govern properly it is necessary to respect the liberty of the governed so that the natural processes of the economy and the population might function effectively (Dean 1999:117). In this new rationality of government, a condition of governing well is that freedom, or certain forms of freedom, are really respected. Failing to respect freedom is not only an abuse of rights with regard to the law, it is above all ignorance of how to 8

19 govern properly (Foucault 2007:353). 4 Emblematic of this is the classical liberal, or laissez-faire call for governments to respect the invisible hand of the market, through which the self-interested choices of free and rational individuals (homo economicus) are thought to ultimately serve the greater good (Gordon 1991: 15). In sum, rather than governing directly through force or coercion, governmentality was originally characterized as a liberal form of government through freedom (Rose 1999). This original equation of government as a form of liberal biopower has led to a tendancy in much of the scholarly literature to define government and governmentality rather narrowly as a form of indirect or limited rule concerned with the welfare of populations. For example, in The Will to Improve, Li (2007a:5), asserts that distinct from discipline, which seeks to reform designated groups through detailed supervision in confined quarters (prisons, asylums, schools), the concern of government is the well-being of populations at large. Moreover, rather than being imposed, programs of government: Operate at a distance. They structure a field of possible actions. They modify processes. They entice and induce. They make certain courses of action easier or more difficult. Many schemes appear not as external imposition, but as the natural expression of the everyday interactions of individuals and groups. (Li 2007a:5) Similarly, Medina (2015:274) contrasts the indirect rule of government to the 4 As Dean (1999: 51) explains, liberalism is an ethos first of review under which it is always necessary to suspect that one is governing too much. 9

20 direct rule of sovereignty : Foucault differentiates between sovereignty, in which state power is exercised directly on subjects through law or violence, and government, which involves management of a population through indirect mechanisms. Government shapes conduct by arranging conditions in ways that channel individuals choices. However, while in his original lecture on governmentality Foucault did describe government as a form of indirect rule characteristic of liberalism, in his subsequent lectures and works the concept progressively shifts from a precise, historically determinate sense, to a more general and abstract meaning (Senallart 2007:387-88). Thus, in contrast to the limited reading of governmentality above, Foucault s own use of the governmentality concept reflected a slippage from the historically specific emergence of bio-politics and liberal political economy in eighteenth century Europe to a much more general term denoting any planned and rational attempt to govern. As Senallart explains in his summary of Foucault s lectures, From 1979, the word [governmentality] no longer only designates the governmental practices constitutive of a particular regime of power (police state or liberal minimum government), but the way in which one conducts people s conduct, thus serving as an analytical perspective for relations of power in general (Senallart 2007: 388). In this regard, while Foucault stated in his February 1, 1978 lecture that We live in the era of governmentality, first discovered in the eighteenth century (Foucault 1991:103), in his final lecture on April 5, 1978, this was no longer his position. Rather than contrasting earlier regimes of sovereignty and discipline to eighteenth century governmentality, Foucault began to describe sovereignty, discipline and liberalism as distinct governmental rationalities. In other words, Foucault had moved from a history of 10

21 governmentality to an analysis of governmentalities. In the final lecture of the series (April 5, 1978), for example, Foucault states: Economic reason does not replace raison d État, but it gives it a new content and so gives new forms to state rationality. A new governmentality is born with the économistes more than a century after the appearance of that other governmentality in the seventeenth century. The governmentality of the politiques gives us police, and the governmentality of the économistes introduces us, I think, to some of the fundamental lines of modern and contemporary governmentality. (Foucault 2007:348) Moreover, in his Birth of biopolitics lectures, Foucault moves on to explore the characteristics of another form of governmentality: neoliberalism (Foucault 2008). In contrast with classical liberalism, which had as its goal the well-being of the population (which Foucault terms biopower ), the primary rationality of neoliberal government is economic growth. Indeed, Foucault referred to economic growth as neoliberalism s one true and fundamental social policy (Fletcher 2010:175). Thus, according to neoliberal logic, economic growth is the chief mechanism through which the aims of biopower are pursued. Limiting economic growth is implicitly construed as a threat to human life, and thus to the exercise of biopower as well (Fletcher 2010:175). Moreover, another key feature of neoliberalism is that it seeks to extend market rationality into all realms of society including the state itself. In other words, neoliberalism promotes the expansion of market rationality as the most appropriate mechanism to govern all aspects of life 11

22 (including biodiversity conservation). Significantly, neoliberalism differed from laissezfaire in that the market was no longer understood as a natural phenomenon, but as an artificial construct that had to be actively created and constantly maintained through diverse forms of intervention (Fletcher 2010:173). Thus, Foucault claims, Neoliberalism should not be identified with laissez-faire, but rather with permanent vigilance, activity and intervention (2008: 132). Similarly, humans were no longer seen as free subjects with rights, interests, and desires that needed to be respected and secured by government, but as rational and competitive actors whose choices and decisions could and should be manipulated by governors through the deployment of economic incentives (Fletcher 2010:174; Medina 2010:247; Medina 2015). The distinctions drawn between the different modes of governmentality outlined above can serve as a useful framework for thinking through the features of different manifestations of the will to conserve. In this sense, we could conceptually trace the origins of a sovereign environmentality to colonial era processes of state territorialization, most notably the creation of political forests aimed at protecting forests from unregulated exploitation (Agrawal 2005a; Barton 2001; Grove 1992; Peluso and Vandergeest 2001). In accordance, a disciplinary environmentality could be traced to the emergence of scientific forestry, through which forests were subjected to detailed monitoring, surveillance and regulation (Demeritt 2001; Scott 1998). Next, the transition from a disciplinary environmentality to liberal environmentality concerned with biopower could be seen in the the nineteenth century debates between American conservationists and preservationists (Cronon 1996; Gissible et al. 2012; Nadasdy 2005). In this sense, preservationists called for nature to preserved in its natural state (e.g. 12

23 wilderness), and advocated for the institution of national parks and wilderness reserves. Community-based conservation, on the other hand, can be understood as a form of (neo)liberal governance (Corson 2010; MacDonald 2010; Mcarthy and Prudham 2004). It is liberal in that it emerged out of critiques of the morality and efficacy of coercive and top-down forms of fortress conservation. In this respect, many conservationists began to assert that restrictions could be harmful to local social and material well-being, thus fueling individual and collective resistance which undermined conservation objectives (Dressler et al. 2010:5). At the same time, community-based conservation often incorporates the promotion of economic incentives as mechanisms to encourage participation (Medina 2010, 2015). Table 1: Types of Environmental Government and Governmentality Governmentality Rationality Technologies Environmentality Sovereignty Control over Violence, law, Fortress Conservation, territory territoriality Fences and Fines, Discipline Cultivation of Surveillance, Scientific Forestry, docile subjects regulation, education Environmental Education, Environmental Monitoring Liberalism The welfare of Political economy, National Parks, populations mechanisms of Wilderness Reserves (biopower) security, indirect rule 13

24 Neoliberalism Economic Economic incentives, Community-based growth privatization, conservation, ICDPs commoditization etc. Reviewing the Literature Concurrent with the growth of community-based conservation has been an academic literature that has sought to critically examine emerging strategies of integrated conservation and development (Belsky 1999, 2000, 2003; Walley 2004; Neumann 1997; Duffy 2005; Johnson 1998; Fairhead and Leach 2003). A central theme running through this literature is the notion that community-based conservation is embedded with a specific understanding of nature that is rooted firmly in the western conception of nature as something separate and distinct from humans (and the notion of culture). This natureculture dichotomy, which has its roots in the scientific revolution of the sixteenth century and the rise of industrial capitalism (Escobar 1999; Ingold 2000; Gray 2002), finds its most powerful current incarnation in the idea of wilderness as an uninhabited place separate from human civilization (Cronon 1996; Grove 1995; Turner 2002). Within conservationist thought, this nature-culture dichotomy is reflected through the idea that the realm of authentic nature/wildness is threatened by the destructive and corruptive forces of civilization. As a result of this perception, western conservationist thought and practices tend to dictate that the only acceptable role for humans in the wilderness is as an observer (Turner 2002); a notion that is understood by scholars to be reproduced through community-based conservation and imposed on host destinations in several ways. 14

25 Drawing on the ideas of Ferguson (1994), Escobar (1995, 1998) and others, several studies argue that the primary way that western ideas and values are reproduced through community-based conservation is through bureaucratic structures which privilege expert and often scientific methods of interpreting nature (cf. Gray 2002; Walley 2002, 2004; Belsky 1999, 2000; Johnson 1998; Van Ausdal 2001; Fairhead and Leach 2003). In this sense, community-based conservation can be understood as the latest incarnation of the anti-politics machine, a structure that creates an aura of technical neutrality that diverts attention away from underlying political issues (Ferguson 1994). In her study of the Mafia Island Marine Park in Tanzania, for example, Walley (2004) explains how bureaucratic structures privileged expert knowledge and allowed the formally trained and educated to participate in the project while simultaneously excluding the popular knowledge of local residents (often derived from personal experience and expressed orally) that the project claimed to incorporate. Within the context of Belize, similar findings have been reported by Johnson (1998) in the case of community conservation in Crooked Tree village, Belsky (1999, 2000), who examined community-based conservation in the village of Gales Point Manatee, and Van Ausdal (2001: ) in the case of an agriculture improvement project in Toledo. 5 An important manifestation of this process can be seen in the articulation of community-based conservation with conservation science (Fairhead and Leach 2003; Duffy 2005). As systems of natural resource management based on the knowledge of conservation biology, protected areas have become prominent symbols of human-free 5 This privileging of expert knowledge is not understood as a result of conscious efforts by NGO workers, the policies of environmental organizations, or even the accuracy or usefulness of information. Instead, the key factor proves to be whether information is accessible in a format easily recognizable and digestible by scientifically and managerially oriented bureaucracies (Walley 2002: ). 15

26 wilderness that have privileged the interests of the state, conservation organizations, and the tourism industry while simultaneously restricting competing forms of resource use (such as agriculture, logging, hunting and mining). As a result, community-based conservation may replicate more coercive forms of conservation by facilitating the expansion of state authority and international environmental regimes into remote rural areas while local populations particularly those living in and around protected areas see their access to natural resources diminished (Neumann 1997; Luke 1995, 1997; Duffy 2005; Sutherland 1998; Belsky 1999, 2000; Johnson 1998; Fairhead and Leach 2003). Scholars have also critically examined the role of tourism in the context of CBC, arguing that the image of pristine nature as a people-free landscape (except for a few tourists and knowledge guides) is reproduced and promoted in order to satisfy the desires of ecotourists (Braun 2002; Vivanco 2001; Urry 1992; Mowforth and Munt 1998). As images of pristine environments gain economic value through the tourism, the preferences of tourists are translated into political power, as states and communities that fail to cater to these tastes risk losing out on lucrative revenues (West and Carrier 2004:485). According to several studies, the power relations at play in this scenario lead toward a tendency for community-based conservation to create landscapes that conform to western idealizations of pristine wilderness through a market-oriented nature politics (Urry 1992; Stronza 2000, 2005; Braun 2002; West and Carrier 2004; Vivanco 2001). 6 The importance of highlighting the political nature of community-based conservation lies in the reality that in practice, it has tended to benefit certain individuals 6 This point is closely related to a school of thought within tourism studies which argues that stereotypes are transmitted to locals through what Urry (1992) calls the tourist gaze. A simplistic rendering of this idea is that tourists wield power in the way they gaze at locals and expect them to appear and behave. In turn, locals acquiesce to the gaze by acting in ways they hope will please tourists. 16

27 and groups while marginalizing others (cf. Fairhead and Leach 2003:126; Walley 2004; Johnson 1998; Stinson 2004; Belsky 1999, 2000, 2003; Neumann 1997; Stonich 2000). In this respect, national and local level elites have been the primary beneficiaries of community-based conservation (Walley 2002, 2004; Belsky 1999, 2000; Stonich 2000; Stinson 2004). Indeed, it has often been elites who have been able to pay for tour guide licenses, rent rooms in their homes that are of acceptable standards to international tourists, and that speak English, the primary language of the tourism industry (Belsky 1999; Stonich 2000). Moreover, Walley asserts that the strongest proponents of the authority of science and the lack of knowledge of rural residents in Tanzania are not western experts, but national elites (government officials and scientific/technical experts) who rely heavily upon scientific knowledge and other cultural markers to buttress their social position in relation to rural villagers (Walley 2002:280). Similarly, Johnson (1998) argues that in Belize, class distinctions impact how people construct and relate to the natural world, and ultimately, how they participate in community-based conservation and conservation planning processes: Thus, for middle class Belizeans, understanding nature as something fundamentally distinct from humans is not a difficult task. The nature that underwrites transnational conservation efforts is one with which middle class Belizeans can be quite comfortable. It seems then, that a primary effect of community-based conservation has been to reproduce existing class positions within local and national landscapes, a process which 17

28 ironically runs counter to the principle of incorporating indigenous knowledge and community participation exposed by community-based conservation projects. 7 Another important contribution of this literature is its examination of the limitations and boundaries of environmental governance by illustrating the ways that local activities have subverted and challenged the implementation of community-based conservation projects in various local contexts (cf. Belsky 1999, 2000; Johnson 1998; Fairhead and Leach 2003; Duffy 2005). While community-based conservation plans routinely iconize the negative effects of agricultural and hunting practices on environments and wildlife species, for example, some communities have contested these notions by drawing on their own local knowledge of environmental dynamics (Fairhead and Leach 2003:134). In Trinidad farmers argue that rather than having negative environmental impacts, their farming practices produce a diverse landscape which is attractive to endangered birds. Moreover, using what Fairhead and Leach (2003:134) define as citizen-science, local hunters have contested the findings of conservation biologists by arguing that there has not been a reduction in the population of hunted species, an argument based on tracking wildlife populations through a set of practices and theories that they have developed through experience (similar findings are reported by Johnson 1998). 8 The significance of contestations such as these, according to 7 In contrast, tourism has been demonstrated to have very different effects along gendered and ethnic lines. In terms of gender, tourism has been seen as increasing to position of women vis-à-vis men by providing them with cash incomes (cf. Belsky 2003; Little 2004; Nash 1993). In Maya communities the status of women has increased due to the way international tourism has favoured Maya women as subjects (Little 2004:164). In terms of ethnicity, Medina (1999, 2003) has shown how tourism has served to elevate the status of Maya identity within the ethnic hierarchy of Belizean identity politics. 8 The hunters argue that the diameter of the circle in which a hunted animal runs when chased by hunting dogs can be used as a gauge of its territory and hence, population levels, with a smaller circle suggesting smaller territory and higher population. Hunters observe how the correlation varies not only by species but also by terrain and other factors. Notably, this method of tracking animal populations depends on the use of animals for its application (Fairhead and Leach 2003:134). 18

29 Fairhead and Leach (2003:135), is that they extend beyond the content and methods of science to highlight the production of different and competing constructions of the natural world. What this literature review reveals is that anthropological research of environment and development has provided critical insights into the nature of community-based conservation and its role in natural resource management. Of particular significance to my proposed research is how this literature illuminates the political and contested nature of community-based conservation and the role of power/knowledge, particularly as it structures people s access to, and use of natural resources. Such research has clearly shown community-based conservation to be a contested process and has highlighted the need to critically analyze how concepts like community, participation and nature are perceived and deployed by diverse social actors. In this respect, community-based conservation can be understood as another arena in which classic social conflicts, such as those between elite and poor, state and community, outsiders and locals, and/or competing knowledge systems (e.g. science vs. local knowledge), unfold. At the same time, however, this literature has been constrained by a focus on contestation and conflict and its reliance on theoretical models of domination and resistance. Power in these studies is understood as a zero-sum game between adversaries. In this sense, the promotion of community-based conservation is tied to the interests of powerful social actors (e.g. states, NGOs and elites) that seek to impose communitybased conservation on relatively powerless and disadvantaged local actors. Within this framework, agency is only accorded to people in local communities in instances when they actively resist community-based conservation and its associated practices (cf. 19

30 Sutherland 1998; Belsky 1999; Johnson 1998; Duffy 2000, 2005; Key 2002). As a result, we know very little about the circumstances in which local actors may choose to participate in community-based conservation, let alone how they may understand or rationalize such decisions (Stronza 2001). 9 Moreover, since western conceptions of nature have either been portrayed as being imposed on powerless local communities or resisted by autonomous actors defending their freedom, we know little about how competing views of the natural world interact and may change as a result of interaction. Assembling A Framework: Environmentalities and the Politics of Translation Theoretically, this dissertation draws on and contributes to a field of scholarship commonly referred as green governmentality, eco-governmentality or environmentality (Agrawal 2005a, 2005b; Braun 2000; Bryant 2000, 2002; Cepek 2011; Dressler 2014; Fairhead and Leach 2003; Fletcher 2010; Forsyth and Walker 2014; Goldman 2001; Haggerty 2007; Hanson 2007; Hart 2011; Li 2007a, 2007b; Luke 1995, 1999; Rutherford 2007; Segi 2013; Singh 2013; Snodgrass et al. 2008; Vaccaro 2005; Watts 2003). In doing this, it follows a trend in studies of conservation and development by incorporating analytical perspectives and insights from the related frameworks of governmentality, political ecology, and Actor Network Theory, to explore how emerging forms of transnational environmental governance produce new relations of power and authority between diverse social actors, organizations and institutions, create new regulatory regimes to manage human-nature relations, and cultivate new forms of 9 Notable exceptions to this is include Johnson (1998), Walley (2004) and West (2006). 20

31 environmental subjectivities (Büscher 2010; Fairhead and Leach 2003; Lewis and Mosse 2006; Li 2005, 2007a, 2007b; Moore 2005; Mosse 2004, 2005; Walley 2004; West 2006). Analytics of Governmentality As a conceptual approach, Rose (1999:5) explains that analytics of governmentality focus on the various incarnations of what one might term the will to govern, as it is enacted in a multitude of programmes, strategies, tactics, devices, calculations, negotiations, intrigues, persuasions and seductions aimed at the conduct of the conduct of individuals, groups, populations and indeed oneself. To analyze government, then, is to analyze those practices that try to shape, sculpt, mobilize and work through the choices, desires, aspirations, needs, wants and lifestyles of individuals and groups. This is a perspective, then, that seeks to connect questions of government, politics and administration to the space of bodies, lives and persons (Dean 1999:12). Perhaps more than anything else, governmentality reflects a priority given to how questions (Dean 1999:28). In this respect, the approach is concerned with how regimes of government are thought into being and translated into programmatic form, how the practitioners of rule ask themselves the question of how best to govern, what forms of knowledge and technologies of visibility they invent or deploy to render their subjects legible in certain ways, and how government constantly reforms itself in light of failures and evaluations (Rose 1999). In other words, analytics of governmentality are focused on exploring how we govern and are governed within different regimes, and the conditions under which such regimes emerge, continue to operate, and are transformed 21

32 (Dean 1999:23). As Dean explains: An analytics of a particular regime of practices, at a minimum, seeks to identify the emergence of that regime, examine the multiple sources of the elements that constitute it, and follow the diverse processes and relations by which these elements are assembled into relatively stable forms of organization and institutional practice. It examines how such a regime gives rise to and depends upon particular forms of knowledge, and how, as a consequence of this, it becomes the target of various programmes of reform and change. It considers how the regime has a technical or technological dimension and analyses the characteristic techniques, instrumentalities and mechanisms through which such practices operate, by which they attempt to realize their goals, and through which they have a range of effects. (Dean 1999: 21). In sum then, an analytic of governmentality prioritizes the following areas of focus: 1. Analysis of the problematization of government - the calling into question of how we shape or direct our own and others conduct. Such problematizations can include challenges by the governed for different forms of government, or include instances of self-government in which individuals question their own conduct so as to govern more effectively. 2. Attention to how targets of government are rendered visible the forms of knowledge and truth that that constitute the ontology of the fields that government seeks to act upon. 22

33 3. Technologies attention to the specific techniques and technologies through which governmentalalities are manifested and put into action. 4. Identities and subjectivities attention to the forms of individual and collective identity and subjectivity through which governing operates and which specific programmes of government aim to cultivate. Political Ecology However, while many studies employing Foucault s concept of governmentality examine how and for what purpose(s) specific interventions seek to direct and shape the conduct of human populations (Cruikshank 1999; Dean 1999; Gordon 1991; Rose 1999), many of these works and the work of Foucault himself have largely disregarded the category of nature. Indeed, as Braun (2000:13) states, In Foucault s work territory merely contained a set of pre-given things. In turn, the modern state was seen to devise instruments like property and taxation regimes which regulated the relation of people to these things. One of the fundamental axioms of political ecology, however, is that nature has never been simply natural (Castree 2001:5) and that in reality, all there is is socionature (Castree 2001:13). Here, it is important to note that the concept of social nature (or socionature) is not a denial of the biological reality of the material environment, but: an insistence that the physical opportunities and constraints nature presents societies with [i.e. its affordances] can only be defined relative to specific sets of economic, cultural, and technical relations and capacities. In other words, the same chunk of nature say the Amazon rainforest will have different physical 23

34 attributes and implications for societies, depending on how those societies use it. In this sense, the physical characteristics of nature are contingent on social practices: they are not fixed (Castree 2001:13). As Escobar elaborates, political ecology highlights that for humans, nature is always constructed by our meaning-giving and discursive processes, so that what we perceive as natural is also cultural and social; said differently, nature is simultaneously real, collective, and discursive fact, power, and discourse and needs to naturalized, sociologized and deconstructed accordingly (Escobar 1999:2). In responding to these insights, studies of environmentality explore how governmental interventions seek to manage the relationship between populations and the environment (Agrawal 2005; Braun 2000; Bryant 2002; Fletcher 2010; Luke 1995). Work by Braun (2000), for example, demonstrates that what counts as nature is not fixed and predetermined, but is socially and historically contingent, and that forms of governmentality hinge on nature s intelligibility. To illustrate this, Braun shows how the development of geology in late-nineteenth century Canada transformed a primarily agricultural landscape into a territory that had depth. However, in order for state officials to optimize these newly legible spaces, it was necessary that the inhabitants of the state be remade as geological subjects. In other words, along with the geologization of the state s territory, the eyes of its inhabitants needed to be trained to see the inner architecture of the earth (Braun 2000:29); a process achieved through the dissemination of geological knowledge in journals, newspapers, museums, schools, and libraries (Braun 24

35 2000:29-31). The significance of this, according to Braun, is not simply that geology came to exist, but as a regime of knowledge and practices shaping the visibility of nature and the formation of subjects, geology rendered the space of the Canadian state vertical, and allowed this space to be incorporated into new forms of political and economic rationalities (Braun 2000: 28). Actor Network Theory Actor Network Theory is an analytical approach closely associated with Latour s (1996, 2000) work in the field of science studies that is concerned with the ways in which scientists are continually engaged in the assemblage of the social contexts in which they work, through enrolling and juxtaposing a diverse range of elements such as laboratory equipment, colleagues, scientific papers, and research grants in ways that link the natural and the social worlds (Lewis and Mosse 2006: 14). Braun (2006), for example, provides an overview of how technological innovations, trade agreements, scientific knowledge, economic policies, the local-global practices of environmental groups, and the lively materiality of the non-human stuff of nature are being combined to create new global assemblages of socionature in the contemporary world. Similarly, Tania Li (2007b) employs an analytic of assemblage to examine the ways that diverse social actors, institutions, discourses, forms of knowledge, legal mechanisms and administrative procedures are brought together in the realm of community-based natural resource management. The main concern of this approach is not simply describing the characteristics of various socio-natural assemblages, but exploring how and why specific nature-culture assemblages are produced (Braun 2006: 645). Building on this approach, I 25

36 argue that an analytic of assemblage can be usefully applied to assist us in understanding the rise and fall of the Sarstoon-Temash National Park for several reasons. First, rather than highlighting the end result (the regime, technology institutional arrangement etc ), the approach directs attention to the practices of assemblage; the work involved in bringing particular forms of governance and socionature into existence (Li 2007b: 264). 10 While this approach is attentive to the role of agency in bringing together and forging governmental assemblages, it is, at the same time, a de-centred perspective that does not aim to identify and/or attribute the emergence of a program to the actions of any one subject or master plan (O Malley et al. 1997: ). As Rose (1999: 52) asserts, [governmental interventions] have no essence. And they are never simply a realization of a programme, strategy or intention: whilst the will to govern traverses them, they are not simply realizations of any simple will. Rather than being imposed, governmental interventions work by inspiring the cooperation of, and compromise between, key social actors (Li 1999). In this respect, the notion of assemblage helps to move beyond oppositional frameworks in which the interests of a powerful individual/group/institution (e.g. the state, the governors) are either imposed or resisted by weaker social actors (e.g. the community, the subaltern, the governed). In contrast, a de-centred perspective provides a productive means to problematize the key constituencies involved in [environmental governance], by critically examining how complex and shifting political alliances both within and between groups are forged (Moore 1998: 379). In many ways, the assemblage of community-based conservation can be 10 Li (2007b:265) identifies six practices that are crucial to assemblage, including 1) forging alignments, 2) rendering technical, 3) authorizing knowledge, 4) managing failures and contradictions, 5) anti-politics, and 6) re-assembling. 26

37 conceptualized as being very similar to what Conlkin and Graham (1995) describe as a middle ground. As Conklin and Graham explain: in diverse arenas where indigenous peoples and environmentally concerned outsiders interact, we see the mergence of what historian Richard White calls a middle ground the construction of a mutually comprehensible world characterized by new systems of meaning and exchange (1991: ix). White developed the middle ground concept to describe Indian-white relations in North America s Great Lakes region in the 17 th to 19 th centuries. Through processes of confrontation, negotiation, and creative innovation, Indians and non-indians (fur traders, soldiers, clerics, colonial officials) developed systems of communication and exchange through which both sides perceived their goals could be achieved. White argues that these middle grounds were pragmatic, mutually constructed accommodations that do not fit a simple rubric of domination, subordination, and acculturation. (Conklin and Graham 1995: 695) As will be highlighted throughout this dissertation, a key component of the work of assemblage includes process and practices of translation. As Rose (1999: 48) explains, governmental policies and programs are not simply realized in any given location, but are assembled through processes of translation that link the calculations and strategies of diverse actors and organizations across time and space. As Rose explains: 27

38 In the dynamics of translation, alignments are forged between the objectives of authorities wishing to govern and the personal projects of those organizations, groups, and individuals who are the subjects of government. It is through translation processes of various sorts that linkages are assembled between political agencies, public bodies, economic, legal, medical, social and technical authorities, and the aspirations, judgments and ambitions of formally autonomous entities, be these firms, factories, pressure groups, families or individuals. (Rose 1999: 48). In practical terms, the concept of translation is therefore used throughout this dissertation to refer to the cultural and political processes through which actors interpret the meaning and significance of, and position themselves and others in relation to, specific conservation interventions. Elaborating on such process, Rose and Miller (1992: 184) explain that it is through translation processes of various kinds that actors are linked together into mobile and loosely affiliated networks. As they explain: Shared interests are constructed in and through political discourses, persuasions, negotiations and bargains. Common modes of perception are formed, in which certain events and entities come to be visualized according to particular rhetoric s of image and speech. Relations are established between the nature, character and causes of problems facing various individuals and groups producers, shopkeepers, doctors and patients such that the problems of one and those of another seem intrinsically linked in their basis and their solution. 28

39 (Rose and Miller 1992: 184) From this perspective, the analytic concern becomes not how actors operate and strategize within existing arrangements of development (or between its institutions and society), but how development and conservation projects always unforeseeable become real through the work of generating and translating interests, creating context by tying in supporters and so sustaining interpretations (Mosse and Lewis 2006: 13). Throughout this dissertation, we will see instances in which various actors work to frame conservation in ways that appeal to the perceived interests of other actors and groups. In Belize, for example, biologists have worked to sell conservation to state officials and local communities through a neoliberal discourse that emphasizes jobs, revenue and economic growth. At the same time, biologists have promoted participation in conservation to indigenous rights and community activists as a means to maintain control over and access to natural resources. Moreover, as we will see in Chapter 4, indigenous rights activists have strategically framed community-based conservation in ways that align with the longstanding interest of international development and conservation organizations in eliminating shifting slash and burn agriculture (e.g. Van Ausdal 2001; Wainwright 2001). Here it is important to note, however, that translation does not always involve an accurate, honest or objective interpretation or representation of interests or reality, but can be based on assumptions, misperceptions and strategic misrepresentations (Conklin and Graham 1995). Conklin and Graham (1995), for example, show that in the Amazon, collaboration between Western environmentalists and Amazonian indigenous peoples to 29

40 save the rainforest and was based on the ill fated assumption that indigenous views of nature were consistent with Western conservationist principles (the image of the ecologically noble savage ). 11 Throughout this dissertation we will see several examples that illustrate how assumptions, misperceptions and strategic misrepresentations work to influence how actors perceive each other and the goals of community-based conservation. One prime example is presented in Chapter 4, which explores how expert biologists (mis)interpreted Maya people s values of the forest. Finally, an analytic of assemblage draws our attention to the contingency of governmental interventions, both in terms of their historical formation and their eventual outcomes. Rather than being inevitable and stable forms of social organization, governmental assemblages are subject to innumerable pressures and distortions: it is not a process in which rule extends itself unproblematically across a territory, but a matter of fragile relays, contested locales and fissiparous affiliations (Rose 1999: 51). In reality, the formation of governmental assemblages, and the compromises inherent within them, are ultimately dependent upon the sedimented histories, contemporary social forces, and international resource flows configuring a particular national arena (Li 1999: 299). In southern Belize, the emergence of co-management arrangements between government agencies and Maya communities in the area of natural resource management has emerged out of a particular history of conflict and struggle both between Maya communities and state agencies. As we will see, the assemblage of community-based conservation can only remain stable as long as actors are able to maintain anti-political representations that facilitate cooperation and compromise around the goal of neoliberal conservation. 11 Bücsher (2010), O Malley (1996), Nadasdy (2005), Walley (2004) and West (2005, 2006) provide similar accounts of strategic representations, assumptions and cross-cultural misunderstandings in the context of the participation of indigenous peoples in conservation and development. 30

41 Methods and Data Collection Data for this research project was collected over a 14 month period from April 2006-June The STNP was created in 1994 and is 41,898 acres, the second largest National Park in Belize. The STNP was created to protect the watersheds of the Sarstoon and Temash Rivers as they flow from the interior of country to the coast, and contains the oldest and largest area of red mangrove forest vegetation in Belize, as well as extensive wetlands and an outstanding diversity of bird species, amphibians, fish and reptiles. In addition, there are five indigenous communities located close to the border of the Sarstoon-Temash National Park that have traditionally used, interacted and depended upon the natural resources located within it: the four inland Q eqchi Mayan villages of Midway, Conejo, Sunday Wood and Crique Sarco, and the coastal Garifuna community of Barranco. These communities had a total population of 986 at the time of the 2000 census. 31

42 Figure 1: Map of Study Area Source: Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management In terms of the actual research process, upon commencing fieldwork in April 2006, my first activity was the collection and review of documents related to the STNP and SATIIM. This was done during the first 2 months of fieldwork and provided me with an understanding of the history of the STNP, SATIIM, and the indigenous communities buffering the park. Important documents reviewed included the STNP comanagement agreement, STNP management plan, various project proposals and reports, STNP ranger reports ( ), socio-economic assessments of the STNP buffer communities, and SATIIM s study of traditional ecological knowledge and resource use 32

43 of the STNP buffer communities. While many documents were collected and reviewed at SATIIM s office in Punta Gorda, I complemented this with archival research in the national capital, Belmopan, were I collected more general information on the history of the Toledo District, and specifically, development and conservation initiatives in the region. In addition to the review of documents and secondary sources, my primary research activity was participant-observation. This involved participating in and observing the daily activities of SATIIM staff members as they worked with indigenous communities, government departments, and international organizations, to manage the STNP. Specific attention was paid to how SATIIM strategically networked and collaborated with organizations at the national and international level in order to promote the interests of the organization and the rights of indigenous communities around the STNP. This work was ongoing throughout the entire period of my field research, and was carried out primarily in SATIIM s office in the district capital, Punta Gorda, as well as in the buffer communities around the STNP, and various other locations around the country. Other sites of participant-observation included the buffer communities around the STNP where I spent approximately seven months immersing myself in the daily life of the villages. This work helped me to appreciate and understand the way of life of the STNP buffer communities, village economics and social structure, as well as the relationship of the communities to SATIIM, the STNP, and their surrounding environment. Another site of participant-observation included a tour guide training course in Punta Gorda. This course was attended by local community members from villages throughout the Toledo District. Attending this course provided me with insights 33

44 into the way tour guides are trained to interpret Belize s natural environment, culture, and history. I also conducted 75 in-depth qualitative interviews with SATIIM staff members, STNP buffer community members, as well as technical experts who were working for NGOs and government agencies in the areas of conservation and development. Interviews lasted from minutes, were open-ended and focused on a variety of topics including traditional ecological knowledge, natural resource use, environmental threats, government-ngo-community relations, protected area management, SATIIM, and the STNP. These interviews provided valuable qualitative data for this project, particularly in terms of the relationship between conservation science, park management, and the traditional ecological knowledge, worldview, and way of life of the indigenous community members buffering the STNP. Another aspect of my fieldwork was the collection of quantitative survey data. In this respect, a household survey was implemented with a total of 80 households in two of the STNP buffer communities in order to gather quantitative data on village kinship, economics, and social networks, and natural resource use, as well as information on villagers perceptions of development, SATIIM, and the STNP. 12 A short survey was also conducted with 30 technical experts working for NGOs and government agencies in the areas of conservation and development. This survey provided data on experts perceptions of environmental threats, factors contributing to poverty, and the shifting agricultural system employed by the majority of Maya villagers, in the Toledo District. 12 Parts of the household survey were conducted collaboratively with Sean Downey, a doctoral study at the University of Arizona. 34

45 Structure of the Dissertation The remainder of this dissertation is divided into five major chapters. Chapter 2 presents a genealogy of community-based conservation in Belize. Here, the term genealogy is used to indicate an intention to construct a history of the present (Peluso and Vandergeest 2001:763), tracing the historic evolution and application of the will to conserve that ultimately led to the emergence of community-based conservation in Belize. This includes the assertion of state sovereignty over territory through force and law, attempts to turn people and forests into docile subjects through disciplinary technologies of surveillance and control (e.g. scientific forestry), and efforts to govern through bio-politics to enhance the welfare of populations. In Chapter 3, I commence a detailed case study of the Sarstoon-Temash National Park in the Toledo District of southern Belize. In doing this, the chapter traces the politics of translation involved in historical efforts to generate support for the establishment of a protected area in the Sarstoon-Temash region, the cultivation of stakeholders willing to take on the responsibility for managing the Sarstoon Temash National Park, and the negotiations leading to the signing of an official co-management agreement for the park. As this chapter demonstrates, the assemblage of community-based conservation hinges on the politics of translation through which the different interests and objectives of diverse actors and organizations are seemingly whisked away and superseded by a unified will to conserve. Chapter 4 moves on to explore how the will to conserve the Sarstoon Temash National Park was translated from an objective into specific policies and projects. It explores the production of knowledge by examining how the ecology and indigenous 35

46 communities in and around the park were rendered visible in particular ways, and how such knowledge was (or was not) incorporated into the Sarstoon Temash National Park management plan. Here, the scientific production of knowledge through rapid ecological assessment, the collection of traditional ecological knowledge and socio-economic surveys are not seen as revealing an objective socio-ecological reality, but as political practices of representation and translation aimed at making some forms of action seem more rational and appropriate than others. Moreover, rather than simply integrating communities into conservation, CBC had the effect of significantly bureaucratizing social and human-environment relations. Chapters 5 looks at how Q eqchi Maya villagers living in STNP buffer communities understand and interpret the discourse and practices of community-based conservation. Rather than simply resisting the discourse of community-based conservation, or being passive recipients of an external discourse, Q eqchi villagers work to translate the will to conserve in ways that render it meaningful and compatible with their sedimented situated practices. Finally, in Chapter 6, I explore the breakdown of community-based conservation in the context of renewed state-community conflict over oil exploration and indigenous land rights. Ironically, this chapter demonstrates that it was those actors who most completely internalize the rationality of neoliberal conservation that were most likely to support oil exploration in the STNP. The chapter also demonstrates that it is not only communities that are regulated through CBC. In the case of the STNP, Maya communities were able to use SATIIM to effectively regulate the actions of the state, even if in limited ways. 36

47 Chapter 2: Governing the Maya Forest This chapter presents a genealogy of community-based conservation in Belize. Here, the term genealogy is used to indicate an intention to construct a history of the present (Peluso and Vandergeest 2001:763) by tracing the evolution and application of the will to conserve through different historical periods, ultimately leading to the emergence of community-based conservation in Belize. In doing this, the chapter shows how the the will to conserve emerged alongside the gradual assertion of British sovereignty over the territory of British Honduras to the emergence of neoliberal community-based conservation. 1600s- 1780s: Ungovernable Wretches The territory now referred to as Belize was comprised of three distinct Maya regions: The Chetumal province and Dzuluinicob provinces of north and central Belize respectively, which were largely occupied by Yucatecan Maya peoples, and a region in the south between the Monkey and Sarstoon Rivers occupied by Manche Chol Maya peoples. While the north and central regions of Belize were officially governed by the Spanish from the Yucantan through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (despite continual Maya resistance and rebellion), the southern region of Belize largely remained an ungoverned frontier. As Grant Jones explains: For the Maya the south became a symbol of resistance against Spanish control and in some cases the actual headquarters of Maya autonomy movements From 37

48 the sixteenth century onward, Spaniards demonstrated little sustained motivation or ability to bring their troublesome frontier under permanent control, due both to the perceived unhealthy, remote, unproductive and ungovernable characteristics of the region and to the lack of economic and human resources to carry out major conquests in such territory. (Shoman 2000: 6). While Spanish priests worked throughout the region to pacify the region by congregating Maya peoples into settled communities, Spanish wood-cutters were operating along the coast, having been cutting and exporting logwood from the Campeche Bay and Mosquito Coast regions since the mid-sixteenth century. Logwood (Haematoxylum campechianum), a tree native to southern Mexico and northern Central America, was highly valued as a source of dye used in European textile manufacturing. As the value of logwood rose throughout the 17 th century, however, so too did an emerging presence of British pirates and buccaneers operating along the Caribbean coast of Mexico and Central America. In this endeavor, the protected inlets and cayes scattered along the coast of the Bay of Honduras served as convenient bases from which British pirates could attack and plunder Spanish vessels and convoys. 13 While piracy was the original impetus for British presence in what was then often referred to simply as Honduras and later British Honduras (Shoman 2000:22), the raison d être of permanent British settlement in the region was the timber trade, and specifically 13 Despite a lack of historical specificity, several accounts claim that British sailors first settled in the area of present-day Belize early as the 1630s (Bolland and Shoman 1977: 25; Weaver and Sabido 1997). As Shoman (2000:21) notes, the British settlement of Belize was greatly facilitated by the British conquest of Jamaica in

49 the extraction of logwood. 14 The historian Nigel Bolland, for example, states that for most of its history, [Belize] could be simply but not inaccurately described as a trading post attached to a timber reserve (Bolland 2003: 22). The cause of the shift to the timber trade was the official suppression of piracy agreed to by Britain and Spain under the terms of the Treaties of Madrid (1667 and 1670). In these treaties, Britain agreed to outlaw piracy in the Caribbean in exchange for Spanish recognition of British settlements in the region, such as Jamaica, which had been captured by the British in Here it should be noted that at this time the British settlement in the Bay of Honduras was not an official settlement and British presence in the area was contested by Spain. Nevertheless, as piracy was suppressed, British sailors, or Baymen as they came to be called, set their sights inland to the extraction of logwood, and records suggest that by the 1660s it was being cut in Belize on a relatively permanent basis (Berkey 1994: 6). By 1670, the Governor of Jamaica noted there were about a dozen logwood vessels formerly privateers, selling the wood at 25 and 50 a ton and making great profit (Bolland and Shoman 1975: 3). While British sailors began to settle in the Bay of Honduras in the mid seventeenth century, their engagement with the natural environment and its indigenous Maya inhabitants would remain extremely limited for quite some time. As Shoman (2000:22) notes, the settlement in the Bay of Honduras was for a long time just a few huts at what is now Belize City, with the cutters moving up and down the coast and up the rivers setting up temporary camps. Several factors contributed to the Baymen s limited engagement with and understanding of the natural environment of British 14 Research by Grant Jones (1998) has indicated the capturing and selling of Maya people as slaves was also a common economic pursuit of early British pirates and settlers in the region. 39

50 Honduras. One key factor was the nature of the settlers themselves. Most of the Baymen, for example, had little prior experience in, or knowledge of, forests, let alone tropical environments. As Wilk (2005:4) asserts, The Buccaneers and sailors who became logwood cutters on the shores of Honduras Bay in the 17 th century knew next to nothing about the indigenous people and natural environment they encountered. The primary reason for this, according to Wilk (2005:4), was the fact that: Most of the Buccaneers and early logwood cutters had been sailors before joining the marginal world of outlaws and scavengers. Many would have been indentured workers in the Caribbean islands who finished their terms, or escaped. Drawn from British prisons and poorhouses, most were unskilled members of the urban poor, or displaced rural people driven off farms by enclosure and poverty... None could be expected to have any prior experience living for any period in a wilderness or forest, much less a tropical rainforest teeming with non-european plants, animals, insects and fish. Captain Nathaniel Uring, a military officer who was shipwrecked and forced to live with the British settlers for several months in 1765 (100 years after its establishment), recorded a vivid description of the settlement: The Wood Cutters are generally a rude and drunken Crew, some of which have been Pirates, and most of them Sailors; their chief Delight is in Drinking; they do most of their Work when they have no strong Drink, for while Liquor is moving 40

51 they don t care to leave it.i had but little Comfort living among these Crew of ungovernable Wretches, where was little else to be heard but Blasphemy, Cursing and Swearing. (Shoman 2000:22). Within this socio-economic context, Wilk (2005:5) asserts that: nature as we define the term today did not exist for most of Belizean history. Instead of nature, Belize had the bush or backabush, terms which combine geographic and cultural meanings. The bush, or bushy can refer to people and kinds of food, music behavior, as well as to wild animals, wild places, and the forest. In the colonial geography of Belize, the bush was at one end of a continuum, and the city at the other. The bush was wild and primitive while the city was considered civilized by virtue of its closeness to European ordered space, and the Europeans and European institutions based there. Thus, the combined lack of familiarity British settlers had with tropical environments, combined with the negative connotations they commonly attached to the bush, worked to limit their engagement with the natural environment of British Honduras. Another reason the scope of early colonial engagement with and understanding of nature in the Bay of Honduras was so limited was the economic logic that served as the rational for settlement. In this respect, the dominant environmentality driving British colonization of the region was almost entirely utilitarian and extractive. Indeed, for the 41

52 Baymen as for other early colonists throughout the Americas (see Cronon 1983) nature was laregly perceived as a limitless storehouse of goods and commodities. As Wilk (2005: 5) states: Europeans saw the rainforest solely as a source of wealth to be extracted. Nature was an untapped cabinet of materials which could be turned into money through trade. The early visitors were not settling in to make a living, but to extract resources which could be turned into commodities. Whether it was a logwood tree, a manatee or a green sea turtle, made very little difference. As Wilk (2005: 6) elaborates: The notion that the landscape could be ruined or wildlife exhausted by hunters was not of concern to the first bands of European adventurers, freebooters, sailors, merchants and privateers who came ashore in the Caribbean islands and the Caribbean shores of Central America. They brought with them the attitudes of toward local wildlife which developed on long, hungry ocean voyages during which they subsisted on weevily biscuits and smelly tough salted meat and fish. They were looking for something to eat, and after that for something they could seize or steal or sell. This limited understanding of the natural environment was exacerbated by the fact that as their business became more established and profitable early in the 18 th century, they 42

53 [the Baymen] chose to find others to do their work for them (Bolland 2003:22). Thus, while Europeans derived their daily living from the products of the forest, they rarely spent time there. Instead, it was African and indigenous slaves that did most of work of timber extraction. 15 As a result, long after African slaves and their descendants had learned a great deal about the wild plants and animals of Belize, Europeans continued to have a very impoverished and crude understanding of nature in Belize (Wilk 2005:5). A third factor shaping early colonial relations to the environment and indigenous inhabitants of British Honduras was the nature of logwood, the species of primary economic interest to the Baymen. Logwood trees were found in abundance growing clustered in dense stands in swampy, brackish waters along the coast and along the banks of rivers. Moreover, because the trees are relatively small, about two feet in girth and about 20 feet in height, and were harvested for dye not timber, they could be cut into small pieces and easily removed by small groups of workers. Extraction was therefore relatively simple, and merely involved setting up temporary shelters for a camp, cutting the most easily available trees, and rolling them down the river bank to be floated to the ships (Bolland 2003:24). Thus, as a result of logwood s abundance in coastal areas and the ease of its extraction, British settlement and logging activities primarily remained along the coast and the banks of a few major rivers up until the mid-eighteenth century. As Bolland attests: The nature of timber extraction also led to the existence of many timber works, large in area but small in personnel, that dotted the rivers of Belize, while the vast 15 Bolland (2003:24) notes that earliest presence of African slaves in British Honduras is often traced to the year 1722 or

54 intervening spaces remained untouched bush. The slaves worked in small, more or less temporary and isolated camps in the middle of an uncultivated and essentially uninhabited forest. (Bolland 1997:58). Significantly, because early logging activity was limited to the coast, the Baymen had little interaction with Maya peoples living in the area. Indeed, A British record dated 1779 stated the Indians who live near the English are so inconsiderable that it is unnecessary to take any notice of them (Shoman 2000:27). The final factor that significantly impacted early British environmentality in the Bay of Honduras was the ambiguous and contested nature of the territory itself. Prior to 1763, the presence of British settlers in the region was exceedingly tenuous due to the region falling within the borders of territory claimed by Spain. 16 Indeed, constant harassment of the early settlement by the Spaniards provided little security (Bolland 2003: 102), and Spanish attacks, including in 1716, 1724, 1733, 1747, 1751, 1754, 1779, and 1798, often resulted in British woodcutters temporarily abandoning the area (Shoman 1994: 28-31). Because the presence of British settlers in the territory was contested by Spain, there was little ability or will by British colonial authorities to formally govern land use and resource extraction in the area (Bolland and Shoman 1977:9). Instead, the settlers were left to govern themselves. Within this context, and as early as 1665, British loggers had established norms and conventions that loosely regulated the extraction of logwood throughout the region. A settler could claim a limited area of land for use, such a claim being known as a location or logwood works, and when the timber in that 16 Here it should be noted that the Spanish claim to sovereignty over the territory was itself rather dubious, as the indigenous Maya population never agreed to Spanish sovereignty, and the Spanish never had effective political control over the region (Berkey 1994: 6). 44

55 area was exhausted, he could move on to fresh territory. As Weaver and Sabido (1997: 10) explain: When a logger found a logwood site along a river, he would build a hut. On the river shoreline, his property encompassed the area 1,000 paces on either side of the hut. The property also extended from the river to the water divide. Other loggers respected his claim. 17 Moreover, Bolland and Shoman (1977:9) note that a rudimentary system of administration was eventually established whereby the prominent settlers gathered together in Public Meetings and passed resolutions, which they deemed to have the force of law, and yearly elected magistrates who acted as semi-judicial and semiexecutive officers. Through the 1763 Treaty of Paris, Great Britain officially obtained from Spain limited usufruct rights for British subjects to cut, load and carry away logwood in the Bay of Honduras. Significantly, no firm boundaries for British logging operations were assigned, and Spain retained its claim to sovereignty over the territory (Bolland and Shoman 1977:9). In order to implement the terms of the Treaty, in 1765 the British government sent Vice-Admiral Sir William Burnaby to the settlement to attempt to bring some order and regulation to what must have been a greedy scrambling for the natural resources (Bolland 2003:23). In consultation with settlers, Burnaby instituted a set of regulations referred to as Burnaby s Code, which formalized and granted 17 Weaver and Sabido (1997:10) also note that by 1684, similar informal agreements existed for the extraction of mahogany. 45

56 legitimacy to the settlers preexisting form of governance based the Public Meeting in which elite settlers passed resolutions deemed to have the force of law (Bolland and Shoman 1977: 9). 18 As Bolland explains, however, the lack of any permanent police meant that Burnaby s Cody was largely unenforceable. In 1768, for example, Rear Admiral Parry wrote to colonial authorities that the Bay-men at Honduras have shook off all subjection to the Magistrates, have resisted their power, and that all is riot and confusion in these parts (Bolland 2003: 25). Later the same year, Parry described the settlers in British Honduras as a most notorious lawless set of Miscreants [who] pursue their licentious conduct with impunity (Bolland 2003: 25). An outbreak of war between Britain and Spain in 1779 led to a Spanish attack on the British settlement in the Bay of Honduras, and the evacuation of the settlement until the Peace of 1783 (Bolland and Shoman 1977:11). The Treaty of Versailles, signed by Britain and Spain September 3, 1783, re-instated the rights of British settlers to the Cutting, Loading, and Carrying away Logwood in the Bay of Honduras, but limited the boundaries of the settlement to a specific area located between the Belize and Hondo Rivers (an area currently located in northern Belize). The treaty also mandated that all British citizens outside the boundaries of the settlement were required to move to the defined area within 18 months (Berkey 1994:7). The settlers, however, found the terms of the treaty unacceptable for two reasons. First, the logwood trade was entering a period of depression. As production of logwood increased, prices had declined drastically from a high of 50 per ton in 1670 to a low of 5 or less in By the 1770s, logwood cutters 18 Specific resolutions relating to the regulation of logwood works termed location laws, were passed on April 10, 1765 which required a person to locate a piece of land with growing logwood or mahogany trees and stake his claim on the basis of the respective resolutions. These lands were then referred to as locations or works, and were regularly treated by settlers as freehold property, despite the terms of Treaties that officially granted loggers only usufruct rights (Bolland and Shoman 1975: 9-10, 17). 46

57 were operating on a basis of marginal profitability (Bolland and Shoman 1977:11). At the same time, however, demand for mahogany fueled by the English luxury furniture industry was rising, and mahogany extraction had already supplanted logwood as the settler s primary source of profit. As Bolland and Shoman (1977:11) explain, as early as 1765, mahogany accounted for about a quarter of the total value of exports from British Honduras, and by the 1770s it was by far the most important export even though its extraction was not officially permitted under British treaties with Spain. Moreover, timber was already being cut in an area that exceeded the territorial limits set out in the new treaty. Since the 1763 Treaty had not specified the boundaries of the settlement, the settlers argued that the territorial limits set in 1783 amounted to a curtailment, as they had already been cutting as far south as the Sibun River (about the mid-point of present-day Belize). These concerns were somewhat abated by the Convention of London between Britain and Spain, signed on 14 July, 1786, in which Spain agreed to expand the borders of the settlement in the Bay of Honduras south to the Sibun River, and to officially permit the extraction of mahogany, in return for the British abandonment of other settlements on the mainland of Central America, including the Mosquito Coast of Honduras (Bolland Shoman 1977:12-13). In order to supervise the implementation of the terms of the 1783 and 1786 Treaties, King George III made the first official British appointment for internal governance of the Settlement in 1784, appointing Lt. Colonel Edward Marcus Despard as Superintendent of the Settlement, where he arrived in

58 1780s- 1880s: Establishing Sovereignty While the previous era ( s) was characterized by relative lawlessness and unregulated exploitation of nature, the next hundred years (1780s-1880s) would give rise to the gradual assertion of British sovereignty over the territory that would become Belize. In many ways, the assertion of British sovereignty was tied directly to the shift from logwood to mahogany extraction, a transition that had significant implications for the history and governance of the settlement. As will be illustrated below, efforts by colonial authorities to assert sovereignty over the territory of British Honduras were directly connected to an emerging recognition of the need to govern the conduct of both British loggers and Maya peoples, particularly in relation to their use and exploitation of mahogany. In this regard, it could be argued that the biological nature of mahogany itself played a key role in shaping the history of environmentality in Belize (Shoman 2000:25). In contrast with logwood, which is relatively small and grows clustered in stands, mahogany is a very large tree (the average commercial tree being about seven feet in girth, but ranging from six to 17 feet) and the height rises to between 70 and 100 feet. Moreover, mahogany grows in a much more scattered manner than logwood, and is often found on higher, more fertile soils. It therefore tends to grow in areas further from the coast than logwood, and while logwood was cut into chunks for shipment, mahogany was shipped in the form of large logs, which made it considerably more difficult and expensive to bring to the coast for shipment. All of these factors made mahogany cutting a much larger operation than logwood cutting, and required more slaves, more capital, and more land (Shoman 2000:25). 48

59 A major issue created by the shift to mahogany extraction was therefore a growing concentration of landownership in the hands of a small number of wealthy logging barons (Bolland and Shoman 1977: 15). At the same time, however, Article XIII of the 1786 Convention between Britain and Spain had made the evacuation of the Mosquito Shore of Honduras and Nicaragua a condition of the extension of the territorial limits in the Bay Settlement south to the Sibun River. Accordingly, Superintendent Despard was directed by colonial authorities to prioritize the distribution of lands in the new limits of the Bay settlement to British settlers arriving in the colony from the recently evacuated Mosquito Coast. Mosquito Shore evacuees were said to outnumber the people of the Bay by five to one. The total number of evacuees that carne to Belize in 1787 was 2,214, three-quarters of whom were slaves (Bolland and Shoman 1977:14). Despard s attempts to carry out this mandate, however, brought him into direct conflict with the wealthiest and most powerful Baymen, a conflict that was exacerbated by the illdefined nature of his own authority. Thus, due to their recognition of Spanish sovereignty, British colonial officials were reluctant to give authority to their representative that could be interpreted as the creation of formal government. Moreover, the Baymen continued to claim the right to govern themselves through their Public Meetings and elected Magistracy. The result was that the Superintendent lacked the power to put into effect the instructions he had received (Bolland and Shoman 1977: 14-15) and the wealthiest settlers, through their control of the Public Meetings and Magistracy, succeeded in maintaining their control over land distribution. By the end of 1787, just twelve of the wealthiest settlers claimed four-fifths of the land available in 49

60 both the old and the new limits of the settlement (Bolland and Shoman 1977: 19). 19 This control of land in turn served to reinforce their power vis-a-vis the Superintendent and the other inhabitants. By 1816, however, British authorities would move to assert more direct control of settlement s territory. As a result of various petitions to colonial authorities, in 1817 Superintendent Arthur (who had replaced Despard as Superintendent in 1814) was finally given the authority to deny any occupation of Land at Honduras without the Sanction of the Superintendent being previously and formally obtained under his written authority specifying the extent and situation of the Land to be occupied (Bolland Shoman 1977: 35). 20 According to Bolland and Shoman (1977:35): The effect of this was to deny the authority assumed by the Public Meeting on 24 July 1787, when it had declared that the inhabitants of this country are adequate to the division of the lands, works, or other emoluments and privileges granted to them by the definitive treaty or convention, and to make all lands vest in the Crown, with the Crown having sole power to dispose of lands. This was a very significant step, since it assumed British sovereignty over the land, in defiance of the treaties with Spain. Thus, from 1817 onward, the British government asserted control over all unclaimed land 19 Since the entire area encompassed by the Treaties consisted of about 2,500 square miles, the handful of old settlers who claimed four-fifths of the area were holding about 2,000 square miles between them (Bolland and Shoman 1977:20). 20 In 1816 Superintendent George Arthur had written colonial governors to express his concern about a monopoly on the part of the monied cutters, to the almost entire exclusion of the poorer class of His Majesty's Subjects and his desire to prevent any undue advantage being taken by the opulent over the poorer Class of settlers (Bolland and Shoman 1977: 35). 50

61 within the limits of the Treaties between Britain and Spain (from the Hondo River in the north, to the Sibun in the south), and gave the Superintendent the authority to govern land distribution in the area (Bolland and Shoman 1977:35-36). As Bolland and Shoman (1975:36) note, an important aspect of this proclamation was that it amounted to a de facto assertion of British sovereignty over the territory, even though Britain did not formally declare such sovereignty for many more years (until 1862). Despite treaties officially limiting timber extraction to an area between the Hondo and Sibun Rivers, British loggers continually expanded their operations beyond these limits in search of mahogany. By 1799, loggers had gone as far south as Deep River and Stan Creek and by 1806, loggers had reached the Rio Grande, just north of present day Punta Gorda, Toledo (Bolland and Shoman 1977: 13-14). By 1824, the unofficial limits of logging activity in the settlement extended as far south as the Sarstoon River, the present day southern boundary of Belize. However, since no official land grants could be made south of the Sibun, and since title could no longer simply be acquired through location after 1817, the result was that the logging activities to the south of the treaty limits was unregulated, and timber was being indiscriminately exploited by a few of the settlers without any regulation as to title (Bolland and Shoman 1977:47). In perhaps the earliest instance of a colonial administrator demonstrating an explicit concern to protect natural resources from over-exploitation, Superintendent Cockburn wrote to British authorities in 1835 complaining that the Mahogany on the extensive Tracts to the Southward of the Sibun...has been subjected to great waste and devastation (Bolland and Shoman 1977: 47). In response, by 1937 colonial officials had granted the Superintendent the authority to grant lands as far south as the Sarstoon River. 51

62 Finally, in 1862 the British Government officially declared British Honduras a colony, and the question of sovereignty was formally settled. Thereafter this question no longer affected land tenure in Belize, although the delayed assertion of sovereignty played a key role in establishing the system unequal of land distribution that still exists today. While the assertion of colonial control over unclaimed land therefore did little to break up the pre-established monopoly of land ownership in the north of the settlement, it did however, serve to invest large areas of land under the control of the Crown in the southern half of the territory. The significance of this is still visible today, as the vast majority of Belizean protected areas would be created in this area. 52

63 Figure 2: Historical Expansion of Logging in Belize Source: Weaver and Sabido (1997: 7) This map shows the earliest logging areas from the 1670s to early 1700s (dark shaded areas), lands granted for logging under the Treaty of Versailles in 1763 (horizontal lines) and lands granted for logging under the Convention of London in 1786 (vertical lines). Dates indicate the advancement of loggers throughout the region. 53

64 The assertion of British sovereignty over the territory of Belize, however, was not only an effort to regulate the practices of British loggers, but the Maya inhabitants of the region as well. As the frontier of British logging operations expanded, the Maya responded to British encroachments upon their territory with vigorous military action (Bolland 2003:103). In turn, colonial authorities responded by exercising the ultimate power of sovereignty: the right to take life. As Bolland notes, the British, whose sole concern was the extraction of timber, perceived the Maya s swidden agriculture as a threat to the forest, while the Maya doubtless viewed British expansionism as a threat to their territory and independence (2003: 131). In 1788, for example, an attack of the Wild Indians was reported as having occurred on the New River, and in 1802, a detachment of troops was requested to be sent up river to punish the Indians who are committing depredations upon the Mahogany works (Bolland 2003: 103). In 1807 there was a further request for arms and ammunition for gangs who have been attacked by Indians (Bolland 2003: 103). Capt. George Henderson, stationed in British Honduras with the fifth West India Regiment in the early nineteenth century, reported to colonial authorities: not many years past, numerous tribes of hostile Indians often left their recesses in the woods for the purpose of plunder. This they often accomplished; and if resistance was offered, not infrequently committed the most sanguinary murders. The habitations of these people have never been traced. Their dispositions are peculiarly ferocious the dread of the military, whom it has been found expedient 54

65 frequently to dispatch in pursuit of these fugitives, has latterly operated as an effective check (Bolland 2003:103). However, while the British military may have helped to limit Maya resistance, it certainly did not stop it. In 1817, for example, Superintendent Arthur expressed concern to colonial governors about the exposed and unprotected state of the settlers, surrounded by vast hordes of Indians who are in the constant habit of breaking in upon their works and who occasionally commit great depredations upon the cutters (Bolland 2003:103). Conflict between Maya peoples and British loggers was further exacerbated by the outbreak of the Caste War in the Yucantán in 1847, which resulted in large numbers of Maya people moving south from the Yucatan into British Honduras. Several attacks on British logging camps were reported in 1947 and 1948 (Bolland 2003:105). More raids were reported in 1956 and 1957 (Bolland 2003: ). In September of 1856, for example, the mahogany works of the Young, Toledo and Company were raided at Blue Creek, and the Maya demanded ransom for prisoners and rent for cutting on their territory (Bolland 2003: 106). On May 15, 1857, Superintendent Seymour reported: 8000 individuals, forsaking the neighbouring province of Yucatán have immigrated to our side of the Hondo where they are employed in burning & otherwise destroying bush & mahogany trees with a view to the cultivation of the soil, contemplating permanent occupation (Bolland 2003:107). In his report, Superintendent Seymour made a point of insisting that the Maya must not be allowed to destroy the trees which alone give value to the land on which they are squatted (Bolland 2003: 112). 55

66 With immigrants and refugees moving into northern Belize as a result of hostilities in Yucatan, colonial administrators took measures to control and subject the Maya to colonial authority. In 1858, for example, Superintendent Seymour addressed the Legislative Assembly and outlined a strategy of indirect rule that would incorporate Maya alcaldes as agents of the colonial state: You are aware that many congregations of houses and huts have sprung up, and are still springing up, at wide spread intervals over the country. In such cases, where the inhabitants are of Yucatecan or Indian race, and accustomed to Spanish polity, my predecessors have allowed the people to elect and present to them certain individuals for appointment to a vague and indeterminate authority, with the title of Alcalde. The office is as unknown to our laws as the designation is to our language but unquestionable benefit has been derived from the unpaid services of these gentlemen to whom the title of Alcalde will be continued. (Bolland 2003: ) But this first attempt at indirect rule broke down in In December, the combined forces of several alcades routed 446 British troops on December 21 st What is particularly significant about this incident is that the various alcaldes of these Maya villages, in this confrontational situation, ignored their oaths allegiance and joined the rebels against the British (Bolland 2003:138). After the arrival of reinforcements in 1867, British troops destroyed several Maya villages in northern Belize, including San Pedro, Santa Teresa, San José, Naranjal, Cerro, Santa Cruz, and Chumbal-ché, burning 56

67 the adjacent corn and provision grounds and the granaries, in order to drive the Maya out of the district (Bolland 2003:109). The Maya returned, however, and in April 1870, a group of Maya marched into Corozal, one of the largest towns in northern British Honduras, and occupied the town. Following this attack, and as a result of the growing costs of military expeditions against the Maya, the Legislative Assembly moved to convert British Honduras into an official crown colony, for greater security against Maya hostility and so that the imperial government would bear more of the burdens of defense. In April 1871,the new colonial constitution was inaugurated. The following year (1872), the Maya were defeated in what would be the last serious attack in the colony, and the state instituted the Crown Lands Ordinance that set out the principles governing the disposition of Crown lands. This new legal framework set the stage for a more careful disciplining of the Maya forest and Maya peoples of Belize (Bolland 2003: 139). 1880s 1950s Disciplining the Maya Forest As the British formalized their claim to sovereignty over the territory of British Honduras, the priorities of governors shifted toward other problems of government: namely the disciplining of the territory s people and resources. Significantly, however, it was not just the Maya that would be disciplined by colonial authorities in British Honduras, but forests as well. In this respect, efforts map and quantify the Maya Forest and its indigenous inhabitants went hand in hand with efforts to turn both trees and people into docile and governable subjects. Central to the process would be the colonial institutions of plantation agriculture, Indian reservations and forest reserves. In 1880, German businessman Bernard Cramer bought large parcels of land on the Sarstoon, Moho and Temash Rivers in Toledo from the struggling young, Toledo and 57

68 Company. In 1881, Bernard s son Herman Cramer decided to establish a plantation on the Sarstoon River, and arranged for Q eqchi workers to be brought into Toledo from the region of Verapaz in Guatemala. By 1891, 254 people had settled at San Pedro Sarstoon in the southwestern corner of the colony. Over time, the Cramer Estates grew into the third largest settlement in Toledo, and produced coffee and cacao shaded by rubber, plantains and bananas. As Wilk (2001:61) explains, Cramer supplied all the colony s coffee but his major success was with cacao, exporting a peak of 42,800 pounds in Following the breakout of WWI, however, the plantations were abandoned and closed down. The most lasting effect of the Cramer plantations was the initiation of a wave of Q eqchi and Mopan immigration from Guatemala into Toledo. At this time, land and labour laws in Guatemala were liberalized to allow for privatization and the expansion of plantation agriculture, a process that caused a widespread displacement of Maya peoples from the land. The Verapaz region of Guatemala, to the southwest of Toledo, was particularly affected, causing thousands of Q eqchi and Mopan Maya to flee north into the Peten, and northeast into British Honduras (Wainwright 2008:44). Thus, while the Cramers brought some Q eqchi workers to their plantation on the Sarstoon River, others followed of their own accord and began settling the sparsely populated region (Wilk 20001:61). After the closing of the Cramer Estate, the former Q eqchi workers dispersed to establish new settlements, including the villages of Crique Sarco and Conejo that border the present-day Sarstoon Temash National Park. In 1910, for example, German loggers built a steam-powered sawmill on the Temash River, and this may have attracted the Q eqchi settlers that would comprise the core of the village of Crique Sarco (Wilk 58

69 1997:61, also see Downey 2015; Schackt 1986). In 1886, over 100 Mopan Maya settlers from the Guatemalan town of San Luís migrated into Toledo and established Pueblo Viejo, and later moving east to San Antonio. According to Wainwright (2008: 44), by the 1880s, approximately 1500 Maya people (comprised of Q eqchi, Mopan and Manche Chol-speaking Mayas) were living in the region that is now Toledo. As increasing numbers of Maya settlers moved into the territory of southern Belize, colonial authorities A Crown Lands Ordinance passed in 1886, for example, provided for the creation of Indian reserves for the use and benefit of the Indian inhabitants. In 1893, the first Indian reservation was established, being 1,260 acres around the Mopan village of San Antonio, Toledo District. Maya living on the reservations were responsible for paying a nominal occupation fee, and land was distributed according to Maya custom. By the 1960s, ten reservations had been created encompassing sixteen communities and 70,000 acres of the Toledo (DeVries et a. 2003:50). Within these reserves, village alcaldes were again formally enlisted and officially incorporated as political officers of the colonial state. In 1887, Secretary Fowler expressed most clearly the principle on which the new policy of indirect rule through alcaldes was based, namely the principle, that the best way to manage the natives was through their own Chiefs and according to their own customs subject to supervision by an officer of the Government (Bolland 2003: 146). According to Folwer, the benefits of such a system included: That the Government will have a responsible agent in each native village, with magisterial and police supervision provided at a cheap rate. 59

70 That the natives would appreciate a jurisdiction exercised over them according to their native customs That the natives can by the proposed means be brought under the legitmate influence and control of this Government and be converted from passive and indifferent subjects into loyal and willing settlers. (Bolland 2003: 146) Thus, the re-institution of the alcalde system was specifically rationalized at this time as a disciplinary technology aimed at transforming Maya settlers from from passive and indifferent subjects into loyal and willing settlers (Bolland 2003: 146). In this respect, efforts to discipline the people and forests of British Honduras brought the region under the influence of the emerging transnational regime of scientific forestry (Richardson 2004). As Richardson (2004: 78) explains, by the mid-nineteenth century, scientific forestry had: evolved into one of the mightiest institutions of colonial rule. Its agents were scientifically trained and well-traveled field practitioners whose knowledge of the latest in tropical botany was augmented with such practical considerations as horticulture, land clearance, soil conservation, and reboisement. It was not unusual for men of the forestry service to have field experience in different 60

71 tropical locales, applying what they had learned in, say, West Africa, to problems that arose in Burma. If they lacked direct field experience in particular places or specific problems, they could consult the growing fund of published knowledge that was now being circulated worldwide by various London government offices. The first instance of the emerging influence of scientific forestry in British Honduras occurred in late 1882, when Daniel Morris, then the Director of Public Gardens and Plantations in Jamaica, was invited to British Honduras to place, in as clear and as impartial a manner as possible, the circumstances which at present obtain in the colony, and, starting from a consideration of its soil, climate, and vegetable productions, to indicate in what directions it is capable of being gradually developed and enriched (Morris 1883:vi). 22 In other words, Morris work was an attempt to give some account of the resources of the colony, and to supply a few practical hints to those who are, or about to be, engage in developing them (Morris 1883:vi). In this respect, his account of the resources of the colony was not exhaustive, but limited in scope to an evaluation of the status and use of plants of economic significance. At the same time, Morris made special note of the need for conservation, arguing that 200 years of logging had taken a toll on the region s forests, and stressed that he was: too deeply sensible of the results which usually follow the extensive and reckless 22 According to Richardson (2004:78), Morris was the prototypical botanist/forester serving in the British Empire at the end of the nineteenth century. Educated in the natural sciences in Britain, his first overseas assignment dealt with investigating a coffee leaf blight in Ceylon in His posting as director of public gardens and plantations in Jamaica later that year began a distinguished agricultural career in the Caribbean. 61

72 cutting down of tropical forests, to advocate a wholesale denudation of crown lands in British Honduras. I trust, therefore, the question of retaining in permanent forest the chief watersheds of the country, as well as wooded belts in the neighbourhood of streams and springs, will receive the earnest and careful attention of the legislature. (Morris 1883:vi). Morris study was followed up by the first thorough examination of the status of forests in British Honduras in 1886 by E. D. M. Hooper, an official of the Indian Forest Department at Madras. This undertaking was stimulated by complaints emanating from Jamaica about the environmental destruction caused by small holders on the island, the problems of deforestation in India, the prodding of colonial officials stationed in the Caribbean colonies as well as the imperial desire to derive greater economic benefit from the colonies forests (Pemberton 2012: 187). Over a period of ten months, Hooper visited and assessed the forests of Jamaica, Tobago, Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Antigua, and British Honduras. Each of Hooper s reports included an assessment of the natural environment as well as the local institutions and laws intended to protect forested areas (Richardson 2004: 80). In the case of British Honduras, Hooper cautioned that the system of private mahogany operators that monopolized land ownership and dominated the timber industry tended to extirpate mahogany wherever accessible and expressed concerns that some of them would cut undersized wood to the detriment of the industry (Hooper 1887:12-13). In accordance, he recommended the introduction of forest conservation strategies, the establishment of a department of Forestry and the 62

73 implementation of forest regulations. No action was taken on Hooper s recommendations, however, and his report lapsed into the oblivion shared by many similar efforts in the early days of British Forestry (Oliphant 1925: 40). Decades later, another Empire Forester, H. E. Hummel, conducted the most influential study of the forests in British Honduras in Hummel whose wide experience of tropical forestry was acquired in the East examined and reported exhaustively on the forest resources of the Colony (Oliphant 1925: 40). According to Hummel (1925: 6): A much more thorough investigation than Mr. Hooper had been able to make 35 years ago was desired this time, and it was decided that it should extend over a period of twelve months. This time the investigations had to be made not only in the interest of the local Government, but also in the interest of the Imperial Government, with the object in view of taking stock of the still unexplored natural resources of the Empire. In taking stock of the forests of British Honduras, Hummel s report, would paint a very different picture than that of the early settlers. Rather than a forest of unlimited abundance, Hummel described a forest characterized by growing scarcity. Hummel s report lamented, for example, that the valuable forests have never been under any professional or systematic management, with the result that a large portion of the original capital stock has been removed and lost for good. It has not been sufficiently replaced by reproduction and, therewith, the whole country, has to a very serious extent been made poorer (Hummel 1925: 4). Following the submission of his report, Hummel was appointed conservator of Forests in British Honduras, and tasked with instituting the country s Forest Department in The creation of the Forest Department facilitated a more structured approach to 63

74 forest management by working from firm forest policy guidelines and represented a determined attempt to create a modern industry. Thus, Hummel set out to discipline the forests of British Honduras in order to improve present conditions so that the cost of exploiting the forests will gradually become smaller and To make competition with other countries in the world market easier (Hummel 1925: 24). The key to this, according to Hummel, was To concentrate gradually the growth of mahogany on favouably situated areas, to increase its stock and also the output and to get a much greater share of the world s trade in mahogany, which grows here under favouable natural conditions and in very good quality (Hummel 1925: 24). Accordingly, various pieces of legislation were enacted specifically aimed at promoting sustainability and preventing overexploitation. The Forest Ordinance of 1927, for example, established a legal basis for the creation of protected areas, legitimizing public Forest Reserves and calling for conservation to coincide with development of the forestry industry (Platt 1998: ). 23 These Reserves would become spaces were the forests of Belize would subjected to and re-shaped by the expert and quantifying gaze of scientific forestry. Table 2: Establishment of Forest Reserves in Belize Year Established Site Name Size (ha) 1922/1944 Silk Grass and Commerce Bight Forest Reserves 4,151 (complex) 1924 Sibun Forest Reserve 43, Freshwater Creek Forest Reserve 24, The establishment of the Forest Reserves, as part of the drive towards modernization of the forest industry in the 1920s, marks the beginning of the protected area network in Belize (NARMAP 1995: 28). 64

75 1941 Deep River Forest Reserve 31, Grants Work Forest Reserve (complex) 4, Columbia River Forest Reserve 39, Chiquibul Forest Reserve 76, Mantatee Forest Reserve 42, Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve 51, Machaca Forest Reserve 1, Mango Creek Forest Reserve (complex) 14, Maya Mountains Forest Reserve (including Trio) 51, Sittee River Forest Reserve 38, Swasey-Bladen Forest Reserve 5, Vaca Forest Reserve 21, Terra Nova 2,365 Source: NARMAP (1995:39-40) One of the principle means of disciplining forests in these new reserves was through the practice of taungya forestry (Stevenson 1927). Taungya was a system of forestry first developed by Empire Foresters in India and Burma, in which farmers would sign promising to plant trees in exchange for free but temporary use of land to plant crops (Bryant 1996:174). During the 1940s and 50s, taungya systems were used to establish mahogany plantations on a large scale in Belize, and elsewhere in the Caribbean. (Ennion 2003: 363). Standley and Record (1936: 27) note, for example, that mahogany improvement included: 65

76 Taungya work, where shifting cultivation areas are planted with Mahogany. The Toledo Indians have taken up this work, doing all the seed collection, nursery work, and transplanting of seedlings in return for the use of the land rent free. While data is scarce, records indicate Maya villagers were cultivating taungya plantations as early as the 1930s in Toledo (see Oliphant 1928; Record 1930, Standley and Record 1936: 27). Furthermore, Ennion (2003) reports that from 1955 to 1964, 591 ha of mahogany were planted by the Forest Department through the taungya system in an area adjacent to the southern boundary of the Columbia River Forest Reserve in Toledo with eleven permanent plots established (Ennion 2003). Thus, by converting potential agricultural land into permanent tree plantations, taungya served as a technology to discipline and control both the Maya forest and the Maya people. Over time, the forest department would take on a more active role in the disciplining of the Maya. As a 1941 colonial report on the status of the Maya states: The district forest officer has been in close touch with the Indians in Toledo since 1926, and since 1931, has been liaison officer between the Indians and the government departments (ICMW 1941: 8). The same report goes on to explain that: The Forestry Department since 1925 has mapped most of the trails and all of the areas of Indian occupation in Toledo and, in an attempt to stop the widespread encroachment of unlawful shifting cultivation, took an agricultural census in This was revised in 1936 and 1939, and the data so obtained is the most complete record of the population, movements, land usage, etc., of any one group 66

77 of people in the Colony. (ICMW 1941:7) 24 Thus, the institution of scientific forestry was deployed in Toledo to discipline and regulate both the forest and the growing number of Maya settlers that had migrating into the region Cultivating Bio- Power In the 1960s, a series of political changes took place in Belize. In 1964, the country gained the right to internal self-government, marking the way to independence (in 1981) and stimulating a movement towards economic diversification in order to reduce economic dependence on a single market (timber). Importantly, this period also witnessed the beginnings of both organized local concern for nature conservation and of the interest and influence of the international environmental NGO community in Belize. 25 This was exemplified through the creation of the first Belizean conservation NGO, the Belize Audubon Society (BAS) - first as a member of the Florida Chapter and then as an independent organization in In contrast to the earlier disciplinary regime of scientific forestry (and agricultural improvement), the environmental rationality driving this movement was the protection and preservation of Belizean biodiversity. Throughout the 1960s and 70s the Belize Audubon Society played an active role, for example, in promoting environmental conservation in Belize, particularly through the use of the 24 The original report on this subject was submitted in February 1932, and made recommendations for the more complete reservation and control of the Maya Indian shifting cultivation of Toledo and for the betterment of their conditions. 25 As Sutherland (1998: 101) states, the Belize Audubon Society became the first Belizean member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), the world's largest environmental organization, based in Switzerland. 67

78 Crown Lands Ordinance to establish Crown Reserves at Rio Grande in 1968, Guanacaste in 1973 and on seven small cayes carrying breeding bird colonies in 1977 (NARMAP 1995: 28). During this period, however, government policy led to increasing pressure on the forests and natural resources of Belize as the government placed a strong emphasis on the development of land for agriculture. The most significant trend was the establishment of large-scale, permanent fields of cash crops such as sugarcane in the north and citrus and banana plantations in the south of the country. By the seventies, the shift from forestry products to agricultural and fish products was well underway: sugar had become the country's principal export commodity by 1975, accounting for more than 75 percent of the total domestic exports (Fernandez 1989: 35). Between 1978 and 1983, about percent of total export earnings were comprised of sugar/molasses, citrus and fish (Bolland 1986: 72). This economic transition was encouraged by the implementation of a land reform program in 1966 that imposed a penalty on all undeveloped parcels of land in excess of 100 acres. During this time the nationalist and anti-colonial People s United Party (PUP) gained and maintained control of political power. Throughout the 1970s, however, the PUP did not fare well in Toledo. In the elections of 1974 and 1979, Toledo was the only political district to elect two opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) representatives and in each election, one representative was Maya. As a result, the region s poverty, ruralness, and indigeneity came to seen by the PUP as a threat to nationalist hegemony and state sovereignty. Moreover, this region was (and remains to the present) claimed by Guatemalan state as part of its territory. Particularly in the years before 1978, many 68

79 Mayans in Toledo questioned their potential gains from an independent Belizean, PUPled government, even going so far as to endorse the Guatemalan claim. As a solution to this perceived problem, the PUP government targeted the region with a development project that would signify its commitment to developing the rural south while articulating the Maya into their national development program (Wainwright 2008:206). In this respect, the government s policy toward Toledo at this period in time stressed the development of agriculture, especially rice cultivation, as a means of drawing the Toledo District closer to the aims of national development (Wainwright 2008: 204, emphasis in original). 26 Thus, the Toledo Rural Development Project (TRDP) was launched in 1978, followed closely by the Toledo Small Farmers Development Project (TSFDP) in The aim of these projects, from the perspective of the government, was to achieve a settled population in the area with adequate land under freehold title to secure a reasonable standard of living (Minister of Natural Resources, as quoted in Wainwright 2008:209). The Maya, however, did not respond positively to government efforts to develop them. On April 15 th, 1978, the leaders of the Maya communities in southern Belize, referred to locally as alcaldes, called a meeting on to discuss what was perceived as a process of forced assimilation and acculturation (TMCC and TAA 1997: 3). This meeting witnessed the birth of the Toledo Indian Movement, which was immediately branded by the government as subversive (TMCC and TAA 1997: 3). 26 According to Wainwright (2008:206), one report suggests the leader of the PUP was pushing for a major development project in Toledo as early as 1975, since there is still a strong anti-government feeling in Toledo, and there is a national political desire to do something for the development of Toledo to spike the guns of those who advocate better economic progress through union with Guatemala. 27 The TRDP, which started in 1978, was funded by the British government s Overseas Development Administration (ODA), while the TSFDP, which started in 1984, was funded by IFAD, an arm of the UN. Belize achieved formal independence in

80 1980- Present Neoliberal Environmentality Independence in Belize (1981) coincided with an economic recession, and sharp declines in sugar export earnings plunged the country into a debt crisis. As a condition for assistance, the IMF imposed significant reductions in state budgets and demanded the diversification and expansion of the nation s export base; the latter would increase foreign exchange earnings, required to repay the nation s debts. The rate of forest clearance doubled or tripled during the 1980s, as state lands in central and southern Belize were distributed and cleared for citrus and banana production for export. Belize thus replicated the pattern of accelerating deforestation occurring across the global South, in response to development aspirations and debt crises (Medina 2010: 249). Through this period, government development policies continued to generate resistance from Toledo s Maya population. However, in an effort to shed its subversive label, in 1982 the Toledo Maya Indian Movement was restructured through the institution of the Toledo Maya Cultural Council (TMCC). 28 The central focus of the TMCC was local, national, and international political advocacy for the recognition and protection of Maya land rights and the establishment of a semi-autonomous Maya Homeland. In 1984, the TMCC attended the fourth general assembly of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples and became a member of regional organization Coordinadora Regional de Pueblos Indios (CORPI) (TMCC 1986:2). By 1986, the TMCC had addressed the United Nations and outlined the organizations concerns about government development efforts in Toledo and their desire for the establishment of a Maya Homeland: 28 The TMCC was formally registered under the Companies Ordinance Chapter 206 of the laws of Belize on August 29 th,

81 The land policy of the government of Belize, since 1980, has tried to abolish the reservations and stop recognizing our traditional form of government. Our government has existed from time immemorial, and the system has proven its value over the years. The attempt by the government to abolish the reservations and traditional system of Mayan government without the informed consent of the people concerned was, and continues to be, strongly protested by the Toledo Maya Cultural Council of Belize, an indigenous organization elected from the grass roots. All we are asking here is that our legitimate rights to determine our own destiny are recognized the right to a cultural homeland where we can develop at our own pace without any coercion from outside interests (as quoted in IWGIA 1986: 1-2). In 1986 these efforts were formally outlined in a document produced by the TMCC entitled Proposed Cultural Homeland of the Indigenous Members of Belize in Toledo. This document, which included a hand drawn map of Maya lands in southern Belize, outlined the TMCC s request for the government to establish a Maya Homeland that would span 500,000 acres: In order to preserve peace, freedom, and democracy in Belize, the Mayas of Toledo seek the right to a block of land shown on the attached map. 71

82 The Mayas of Toledo want a Freehold Title to the block as a community property and not the present lease that the Mayas have on their reservation. (TMCC 1986: 3) 72

83 Figure 3: Map of Proposed Maya Homeland Source: TMCC (1986). 73

84 Maya advocacy against government development projects, logging and oil concessions for the creation of Maya Homeland continued throughout the 1990s, driven largely by the TMCC and its leader at the time, Julian Cho. During this period, the Maya struggle for land rights and cultural autonomy was increasingly framed as a territorial conflict between two nations: Whereas the Mayan people are the original inhabitants of this place where we find our origin, being, philosophy, science, and the roots of our languages, Mopan and Q eqchi, we have agreed to claim a territory for our Mayan Nations (Wainwright 2008:179). 29 For state officials, Maya advocacy for cultural autonomy and the creation of a Maya Homeland was not perceived as consistent with efforts to build a unified nationstate, and indeed, was seen by some as a threat to the integrity of the country. This is evident in numerous statements by government officials regarding the Maya, and the benevolent role that the government can and has played in the promotion of equality and development for the nation as a whole. As Prime Minister Said Musa, for instance, stated: It was only with the Nationalist movement that recognition was given to their rights and indeed a lot of development took place since then in the 29 This discourse of Mayan nationalism also included the creation of a Maya flag (TMCC and TAA 1997). Consequently, the state has interpreted the Maya Movement as a threat to the integrity of the nation-state, and has portrayed it in the media as a desire to Balkanize the country. The following quote from the Prime Minister, Hon. Said Musa, is indicative of the GoB s position on Maya land rights: Really the thing is and I must state this very categorically as Prime Minister of Belize that I will not preside over the balkanization of Belize. I will not create a homeland just for Mayas, or a homeland just for Garifuna, or a homeland just for Creole. All of Belize belongs to all Belizeans and that is the number one and the first principle (Hon. Said Musa, as quoted on Channel 7 News, Oct. 24, 2004). 74

85 Toledo district but the facts still show that they are still the most disadvantaged groups in our country based on the poverty assessment report. And all that I recognize, all that my government recognizes and we ve been trying over the years - certainly since I became Prime Minister I know we ve made a conscious effort to address their concerns - to ensure that they get equal rights recognized, their human rights. There is no dispute about that. Where the dispute comes in is where, and this is nothing new, they ve been saying for some time now that they want a special homeland within Belize for the Maya people and I m saying and I ve said it publicly, that I will not preside over the Balkanization of Belize, that this part of Belize is strictly for the Maya, that part is strictly for the Garifuna and so on because that will result in a disintegration of our nation as Belize as we know it. Despite considerable successes, the Maya Movement struggled to sustain itself in the late 1990s. This was primarily due to conflict generated by the extremely controversial Homeland proposal, and the mysterious death of the movement s most charismatic leader, the Maya activist Julian Cho, in December Many believed he was killed because of his opposition to land privatization and logging and his promotion of the Maya Homeland, and as a result, enthusiasm for Maya advocacy in southern Belize was replaced by an underlying sense of unease and fear. At the same time, while the Maya Movement struggled to sustain itself, new opportunities provided by increasing levels of international funding for conservation and development activities led many 75

86 Mayan leaders to refocus their energies by taking positions within conservation organizations in the late 1990s. With land rights being of low priority in these fields, because they were seen as too politically contentious, Maya advocacy for land rights appeared to take a back seat to conservation, which provided a means of income to Mayan leaders, and promised to provide direct benefits to communities in need to alternative livelihoods. This change in the nature of the Maya Movement was made possible by Belize s rapid embrace of conservation and ecotourism in the 1980s and 90s. Under pressure from the World Bank and IMF to resolve deficits in their balance of payments, plans for the economic recovery were established that were strongly in favour of the diversification of Belize s economy that recommended the development of the tourism sector as a potential sector for economic growth (Medina 2010: 249). According to Belsky (1999: 659), imposed structural adjustment mandates compelled the Belizean government to promote new growth sectors like tourism. Moreover, due to the emergence of a global discourse of sustainable development, international lenders like USAID and the World Bank were increasingly attaching green conditionalities that required borrowing counties to conform to certain environmental standards in order to receive loans (McAfee 1999). 30 In this sense, the emergence of Belize as leader in the field of conservation and ecotourism was not a random occurance, but was actively promoted by a range of actors, including international financial institutions, conservationists and environmental 30 As McAfee (1999:137, n3) explains: A typical package of green conditionalities may include requirements for participation in international environmental agreements, preparation of national environmental plans and policy reforms generally modeled on those of Europe and the United States, actions to increase the prices of and/or state revenues from natural resources such as water and timber trees, the designation of protected areas, and the establishment of state agencies to set pollution standards, to sign off on environmental impact assessments, and to hire World Bank or Bank-approved experts to receive Bank green loans. 76

87 organizations, the Government of Belize, as well as national and international tourism businesses and entrepreneurs. Indeed, throughout the 1980s and 90s, all of these actors engaged in efforts aimed at transforming Belize from a relatively unknown and underdeveloped timber colony into an ecotourism paradise branded and sold to world as Mother Nature s Best Kept Secret (Berendse and Roessingh 2007). This project involved a fundamental reevaluation of the nation s natural resources, as large areas of undeveloped lands and forests that had once been stigmatized as liabilities connoting backwardness and underdevelopment were suddenly redefined as pristine, remarkable assets and natural wonders (Pat 2001: 16). According to several scholars (Sutherland 1998; Belsky 1999, 2000; Horwich and Lyon 1998; Lindberg et al. 1996; Medina 2005, 2010, 2015; Munt and Higinio 1993; Duffy 2002), the protection of Belize's environment was promoted as a means to link Belize with one of the fastest growing segment of the tourism industry, ecotourism. As Horwich and Lyon (1998: 344) explain: In the 1980s, conservationists convinced Belizean politicians of the potential of ecotourism for attracting foreign capital into the country. They argued that these funds could be obtained with only small expenditures by the government and limited infrastructure development, yet the industry would have minimal environmental impact. Thus ecotourism provided economic and political justification for the protection of certain national areas, including the relatively high-profile Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary. 77

88 Medina (2010:253) provides a vivid illustration of how national and international conservationists sought to govern the state by using tourism as an incentive to support conservation: Then, they [the Belize Audubon Society] launched efforts to educate government officials especially the Prime Minister, the Minister of Natural Resources, and the permanent secretary and department heads within the Ministry of Natural Resources about the needs and behaviors of jaguars and the global significance of Belize s unusually healthy, yet threatened, jaguar population. They carefully framed their case for conservation in economic terms designed to appeal to market-rational subjects, warning of the economic costs to ecosystems and infrastructure that would result from deforestation of the basin. Articulating conservation priorities with national development aspirations, conservationists asserted that Belizean forests and their wildlife could become a new kind of commodity a tropical rainforest teeming with endangered biodiversity for a new market: ecotourists. BAS and WCS leaders sought to enable both the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of Trade and Industry, whose portfolio included tourism, to reimagine the Cockscomb as a tourist attraction rather than a source of timber or fertile land for agriculture. In response, the government of Belize began designating new categories of protected areas aimed nature preservation and tourism, with the first being the Cockscomb Basin in This period saw the establishment of an expansive system of 78

89 94 protected areas that cover approximately 36% of Belize s terrestrial area and 13% of its marine area under various categories of protected status (Cherrington et al. 2010). Significantly, these new protected areas would not be spaces where nature would be disciplined (as in forest reserves), but rationalized as spaces in which natured would be freed to return to its natural or wild state (as in National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries). Capitalizing on the government s embrace of conservation, in the 1990s the Belize Tourism Industry Association (BTIA) initiated an advertising campaign in its official tourism magazine, Destination Belize, based on the slogan Mother Nature s Best Kept Secret (Berendse and Roessingh 2007; Ramsey and Everitt 2008), through which international tourists were sold an image of the country as a tropical paradise where Indiana Jones meets Jacques Cousteau, with endless natural wonders both above and below the waterline (BTIA 2007: 64). Indeed, Destination Belize declares the entire country feels as if it were a big open air zoo where jaguars prowl freely and bird and animal watchers spot unusual species in the skies, trees, and savannas, and riverbanks ; a pace where vacationing feels like playing in the worlds largest aquarium, and where every tourist can become an archaeologist and step back thousands of years in cities of the ancient Maya world (BTIA 2007:64). By the mid- 1990s tourism comprised 48 percent of Belize s total export receipts and by 1997, ranked first among all sources of foreign exchange earnings in the country (Stonich 2000: 8-9). 79

90 Table 3: Protected Areas Created Under National Patks Systems Act ( ) Year Established Site Name Area (ha) 1982 Half Moon Caye Natural Monument 3, Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary 40, Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary 1, Blue hole National Park Tapir Mountain Nature Preserve 2, Bladden Branch Nature Reserve 40, Guanacaste National Park Laughing Bird Caye Chiquibul National Park 101, Burdon Canal Nature Reserve 2, Aguas Turbias National Park 3, Five Blues Lake National Park Monkey Bay National Park Paynes Creek National Park 12, Rio Blanco National Park Sarstoon-Temash National Park 16,956 Source: NARMAP (1995:37-39). 80

91 Figure 4: Map of Protected Areas The embrace of conservation in post-colonial Belize has also opened up new opportunities spaces of collaboration between Maya communities and the state. In this respect, many communities and NGOs have developed protected area co-management agreements to fill technical and staffing voids created by the chronic human and financial resource limitations of government. Consequently, these NGOs manage a significant 81

92 number of protected areas, covering the range of conservation categories. Overall, NGOs manage 34% of all protected area categories in Belize, and over 70% of the national parks (22 of 31). In terms of acreage, NGOs manage 75% or acres of the total extension of NPSA-declared protected areas (Brechin and Salas 2011: 267). One of the earliest indigenous organizations to promote co-management in Belize was the Kekchi Council of Belize (KCB), an organization established in 1992 as a splinter organization of the TMCC by a group of Q eqchi community leaders who felt that the interests of Toledo s Q eqchi Maya population could be more adequately addressed by a single-ethnicity advocacy organization. 31 Additionally, some Q eqchi leaders felt that the TMCC was dominated by Mopan Maya, and resented the TMCC s visibility in the struggle to secure Maya land rights (DeVries et al. 2003: 52; Caddy 2005:31). The aim of the KCB is to promote the enhancement and preservation of the Q eqchi language and culture. In doing this, the organization collaborates with both government and non-government organizations to improve the living conditions of the Q eqchi people by conducting leadership skills training, engaging in economic development projects, and documenting indigenous knowledge (DeVries et a. 2003: 52). It is in relation to the issue of indigenous land rights, however, that the approach of the KCB differed significantly from the approach of the TMCC. In contrast to the political advocacy for a Maya Homeland pursued by the TMCC, the KCB adopted a more technical approach, emphasizing discourses of resource management, comanagement and partnership rather than land rights, and ownership. Part of the reasoning behind this strategy was the longstanding criticism from state officials that 31 The KCB was incorporated and legally registered in 1992 as an acknowledged organization under the Laws of Belize. 82

93 Maya peoples were a threat to the environment and could not manage natural resources. As Gregorio Choc, a prominent leader in the KCB, (and future Executive Director of the Sarstoon-Temash Institute for Indigenous Management) explained to me: politically the homeland issue was going to be a very difficult issue to accomplish. My feeling at that time, for a variety of reasons, was that I recognized that government was refusing to accommodate the demands of the TMCC, and the rhetoric and justification for that was that we could not manage our resources, we could not manage, we did not have the institutions in place to manage the resources we were demanding. And for me it became critical to pilot and showcase that with appropriate support, both technical and financial, that indigenous people can take their traditional management regime and put it in a different context and integrate that into contemporary management regimes that exist, or that is advocated for by international environmental organizations. So that became the premise of KCB s work at that time. We wanted to showcase to the government that indigenous communities in Belize can participate in conservation, can manage their resources, can put in place strategies to mitigate all these over-exploitations that the government was using as rationale for refusing to even consider the homeland issue. A major impetus of the approach adopted by the KCB was an initiative funded by 83

94 the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to foster indigenous-toindigenous collaboration between the Inuit of Canada and the Maya of Belize. In 1994, CIDA sponsored a meeting of non-government organizations in Belize with the aim of fostering connections between Canadian and Central American indigenous peoples. The conference was attended by a wide range of Central American community organizations and NGOs, and by Canadian representatives of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC). 32 During the meetings, members of the KCB developed a relationship with the ICC around the notion of working on an alternative plan of action for resolving land-use conflicts between Maya communities in Toledo and the Government of Belize. In contrast to the Maya Homeland proposed by the TMCC, this alternative plan drew heavily from the experience of Canadian Inuit communities, and was based on a concept of comanagement that would require active cooperation and compromise, rather than political contestation between Maya communities and government agencies. As Gregorio Choc explained to me: For me when I got involved I felt that the viability of an autonomous homeland was very slim, and we started to explore other options, starting with co-management, starting with shared management, areas where opportunities existed. I think one of the significant steps we made was to try to look at and identify areas that had potential and to test pilots for these approaches. And to an extent I think there was a lot of influence from the Inuit people. We had a project with them at that time. It was a co-management project. I think to a certain extent a lot of people where 32 The Inuit Circumpolar Council formed in 1977 as a multi- national indigenous NGO representing Inuit people of Alaska, Canada, Russia, and Greenland. 84

95 influenced in that direction. And there wasn t a lot of discussion going on between TMCC and KCB at that time. I don t know why. They where very busy trying to get the map done [the Maya Atlas], and the lawsuit was put in motion. But again, we were pushing the co-management project as a pilot process. I think for me that was what defined the Q eqchi Council from the Toledo Maya Cultural Council. As a result of the CIDA-funded indigenous exchange, the KCB and ICC jointly organized and hosted a co-management workshop held in Belize City from January 8-10, 1997 in order to discuss the merits and potential application of co-management in Belize (KCB and ICC 1997: 2). 33 The meetings were arranged as an opportunity for Inuit participants to share their knowledge of, and experiences with, co-management with Belizean Maya. 34 As project documents (KCB and ICC 1997:1) explain: Inuit working closely with governments and other interested groups, have established a number of successful regimes designed to foster cooperation in the development of natural and cultural heritage resources. This is being accomplished in a manner that enables Inuit to create new directions for social and economic development, without compromising their cultural identity. Inuit feel it is time for this experience to be shared, and an interest has been expressed in Belize for the establishment of community- 33 This workshop was followed by an ambitious CIDA-funded project the Maya Co-Management Mapping Project (MCMMP) The aim of the project was to act as a research and training initiative that would provide skills and data needed to pave the way for future co-management arrangements between Maya communities and the state. Part of this project involved training local Maya people in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and data collection methods to upgrade the hand-drawn maps of the Maya Atlas. 34 The workshop specifically highlighted the Community Baboon Sanctuary initiated by Robert Horwich as a model of co-management. 85

96 community linkages. The experience of Inuit in collecting and managing information provides a framework for sustainable development through a process referred to as co-management. This process is intended to minimize conflict and maximize cooperation for the sharing of knowledge and responsibilities between indigenous communities, government and other interest groups. The Belize workshop places emphasis on an exchange between indigenous peoples, while promoting open dialogue with Government and others involved in the development process. However, while the meeting was officially described as opportunity to share perspectives and experiences between indigenous peoples, it can also be read as a key example of the politics of translation through which alignments are forged between the objectives of authorities wishing to govern and the personal projects of those organizations, groups and individuals who are the subjects of government (Rose 1999:48). In this case, conditions of possibility are created for partnerships between Maya communities and the government of Belize by translating competing notions of sovereignty (e.g. state vs. indigenous control over territory) into a technical discourse of shared interests in the realm of natural resource management. In this respect, the discourse of co-management promoted at the workshop, and through the Inuit-KCB partnership more generally, is clearly one in which questions of land rights and ownership are put aside in order to promote and normalize a more technical discourse of resource management that emphasizes cooperation, participation and win-win scenarios. It also fits neatly within a neoliberal agenda with its emphasis on local 86

97 participation and economic efficiency. It was asserted at the meeting (KCB and ICC 1997:3), for example, that co-management results in: Cooperation between government managers and local resource harvesters Increased trust and respect between resource users and government Meaningful participation by local people in planning and in the development of practices for sustainable resource development and use. Increased communication about resources and species populations Increased support for indigenous knowledge and management systems Development and implementation of species management plans Reduced requirement for government to create new bureaucratic organizations thereby meeting its custodial responsibilities at less cost Improved ability to manage and protect resources Through this politics of translation, competing political interests in land and resources are whisked away and replaced by a technical discourse of management. 87

98 Chapter 3: Assembling the Sarstoon- Temash National Park Introduction: The focus of this chapter is the creation of, and negotiation of a co-management agreement for, the Sarstoon-Temash National Park (STNP) in the Toledo District of southern Belize a process described by Arun Agrawal (2005a:6) as the creation of governmentalized localities. According to Agrawal, the significance of govermentalized localities is found in three key features. First, governmentalized localities serve to enhance systematization and enhanced certainty in the realm of natural resource management by establishing the parameters within which resource management may occur. Second governmentalized localities work to formalize the rights and responsibilities of various actors in relation to the use and management of natural resources. And finally, governmentalized localities serve to reduce state-community conflict by harmonizing the interests of state and community actors around the shared goal of conservation (Agrawal 2005a: ). In his case study of de-centralized forest management in India, for example, Agrawal cites the colonial Forest Council Rules of 1931 as the most important instrument in the formation of govermentalized localities. These rules set out the conditions under which communities could take on responsibility for managing forests and served to fix localities into a particular structural position accomplices in conservation (Agrawal 2005a:103). In the case of the STNP, the formal co-management agreement for the park is the key instrument in transforming the area into 88

99 governmentalized locality. However, while Agrawal s concept of the governmentalized locality usefully points to the way de-centralized conservation programs aim to (or at least claim to) systematize, formalize and harmonize state-community relations in the realm of natural resource management, it treats the regime in question as relatively fixed and static, a trend in many studies of governmentality (Li 2007b:264). In this respect, Agrawal s analysis of the governmentalized locality focuses on exploring the various features and characteristics of the Forest Council Rules of 1931, and how they redefined statecommunity relations in the realm of natural resource management. Rather than simply focusing on the rationalities and the (intended) results of governmental regimes, however, Li (2007b:264) advocates for an analytic approach that directs attention to the practices of assemblage; the work involved in bringing a given form of governance into existence (see also Braun 2006; Büscher 2010). In what follows, I present an analysis of the governmentalized locality of the Sarstoon-Temash National Park as a process of assemblage rather than a fixed regime with specific characteristics. The resultant image of the Sarstoon Temash National Park is as a highly contingent assemblage forged through practices of translation. In this respect, translation refers to a set of skilled cultural practices (both tacit and explicit), including the strategic (mis)representation of interests and desires, the closing down of debate over contentious issues, and the rendering technical of highly political situations and relationships (e.g. moving from a discourse of land rights to resource management). In this case, the chapter specifically highlights the significant and continual work of numerous actors and organizations in an effort to resolve ongoing political conflict between Maya communities and the state over 89

100 indigenous land rights by promoting their mutual interest in the technical field of natural resource management, conservation and ecotourism, ultimately resulting in the co-management of the Sarstoon-Temash National Park. Assembling the Sarstoon- Temash National Park The Sarstoon and Temash River watersheds in southern Belize have long attracted the attention of national and international conservationists due to the region s low population density and its reputation as having a pristine natural environment especially its coastal mangroves. A 1984 USAID-funded country environmental profile, for example, identified the mangrove system of the Temash River as the finest mangrove forest in the country (Hartshorn et al. 1984:103), and the IUCN included the region s mangroves in its 1987 Directory of Neotropical Wetlands. A1989 compilation of information on conservation efforts in Belize, funded by transnational conservation and development donors, identified the Sarstoon-Temash area as a site of nature conservation interest (Zisman 1989), and in the early 1990s the Forest Planning and Management Project in Belize, funded by the Overseas Development Administration of the United Kingdom, proposed a protected area encompassing the pristine and well developed riverine mangrove of the Temash and Sarstoon Rivers (Zisman 1996:46). Some of the earliest and most sustained efforts to promote conservation in the Sarstoon-Temash region were initiated by American zoologist, Dr. Robert Horwich, a passionate advocate of community-based conservation and ecotourism in Belize. Dr. Horwich, founder of Community Conservation Inc. based in Grey Mills, Wisconsin, began working in Belize in the early 1980s. In 1984, Dr. Horwich successfully established the Community Baboon Sanctuary (CBS) in collaboration with over

101 private landowners along the Belize River, a project that became a model for communitybased conservation and ecotourism projects throughout the country (Horwich 1990; Horwich et al. 1993; Horwich and Lyon 1986, 1988, 1998; Lyon and Horwich 1996). 35 Subsequently, Horwich and Community Conservation Inc. promoted and developed numerous conservation and ecotourism projects throughout Belize and helped to initiate a national protected area co-management project ( ) funded by the UNDP/GEF entitled the Community Co-Managed Park System for Belize (Young and Horwich 2007). 36 At the core of Horwich s approach to community-based conservation is the promotion of ecotourism as an incentive to entice various stakeholders including state officials and local communities to support and participate in nature conservation. Thus, Horwich s approach to community-based conservation is a classic example of neoliberal environmental governmenance, as it seeks to utilize ecotourism as an economic incentive to influence the conduct and decision-making of particular individuals and groups. 37 In addition to enticing governments to protect threatened ecosystems, Horwich and Lyon (1998) claim that ecotourism can also work to instill a will to conserve within the general population, and particularly rural communities. Horwich and Lyon state, for example, that: 35 For a thorough critique of Horwich s approach to community based-conservation and ecotourism as it was applied in the community of Gales Point, see Belsky (1999, 2000, 2003). 36 For an UN evaluation of the national co-management project, see Ravndal (2002). 37 Medina (2010) similarly describes efforts by national and international conservation scientists in Belize to use ecotourism as an incentive to gain government support for conservation as form of neoliberal governmentality that targets the state. 91

102 effective ecotourism remains as a viable tool that can interest and motivate rural people to protect the wildlands where they work and live. Given attainable economic incentives, true local involvement in the management of lands, and a proper framework, many rural people have shown that they will take a responsibility to protect their lands. (Horwich and Lyon 1998:343) Following the successful establishment of the Community Baboon Sanctuary in 1984, Horwich sought to extend his conservation work to other areas of Belize, and turned his sights south to the Toledo District. In early 1987, Horwich made his first trip to Toledo, where he met with prominent leaders of the Toledo Mayan Cultural Council, including Primitivo Coc. During his visit Horwich and TMCC leaders discussed Maya advocacy and proposals for the establishment of a Maya Homeland, and potential compatibilities between the Homeland proposal, conservation and tourism. These discussions encouraged Horwich in his efforts to promote community-based conservation and ecotourism as a compromise capable of reconciling the interests of Toledo s Maya peoples with the goals of conservationists and the Government of Belize. As Horwich explains in a letter to a contact at the NGO Cultural Survival in November 1987: I am writing to you about what I think is a potential biosphere sanctuary situation. I met a Mopan Maya man, Mr. Primitivo Coc, about three years ago at an archaeology meeting in Belize. At that time I was interested in extending my own work into other areas of Belize. I have been working with a group of Creole 92

103 farmers to establish the Community Baboon Sanctuary, a sanctuary for howler monkeys on their private lands. I am enclosing some materials about what we have been doing. I spent a few days talking with Primitivo Coc and visiting his home in Toledo District in Belize. I was very impressed with him personally and what I felt his group was trying to do. My interest is to help them use their land in a healthy self-sustaining way and to protect large forest areas for wildlife and local people use. Primitivo and some others I talked to seemed to feel this was in their interest as well. However, the Mayan people do not have a good reputation with government officials and with local conservation groups as I perceive it. I do not know the facts of the situation but Mayans in the south have been accused of cutting down protected forest in the past for use as milpas. At this point, the southern Mayas in Toledo District are attempting to bring together a strong cultural-political structure and they have petitioned the government for a large tract of land. The government, I believe perceives them as a problem and is acting very slowly on their petition.i am interested in helping with the situation although I m not sure how much time I have for it at this point. In an interview with me, Horwich acknowledged that his promotion of community-based conservation was designed to appeal to both Maya activists (by promising some control over resources and economic benefits from tourism) and state officials (by serving as a technical and non-political alternative to the highly politicized Maya Homeland). As 93

104 Horwich explained: My approach to most proposals that I write is to start with an idea and modify it according to what those in the area are thinking or proposing as long as the things will work together. So my feeling was that whether or not the [government] might entertain the Mayan Homeland, I felt it was important to have the Mayan Council s support.however, I didn't think the [government] would seriously consider it [the Maya Homeland]. So at least the Biosphere and co-management would give the local Mayan Community some power over how their lands were used. So in a sense I was loosely linking them together since they had some similarities in helping gain the communities some power over their lands. (personal communication). Following his initial visit, Horwich continued his efforts to promote communitybased conservation in the Temash River watershed and made several more trips to the region. Horwich traveled to Toledo in March 1989 and participated in a flight over the Temash area to observe the terrain and the extent of agriculture in the area. The flight was followed up with meetings with the local chapter of the Belize Tourism Industry Association (BTIA), and two of the villages in the Temash River watershed (Barranco and Crique Sarco) to gauge local support for his plan. At each of the meetings Horwich gave a presentation and collected signatures of support from those in attendance. He also met with and networked with the local Forest Department and other state officials. On March 15, 1989, Horwich received a letter of support from the Toledo District Forest 94

105 Officer, and in November 1989, the Ministry of Tourism and the Environment confirmed the government s support for the project: The Ministry of Tourism and the Environment wholeheartedly endorses your proposals for such a biosphere reserve. Your project is in keeping with the spirit of our Government s policy to encourage eco-tourism and proper environmental planning. The Government s Manifesto (Page 14) states: The protection of our national environment and development of eco-tourism are compatible goals which will be given high priority. With this in mind, the Minister gives his full support for your modest proposals. (personal communication). Horwich subsequently planned a visit to Toledo with two members of the Belize Audubon Society, February th The purpose of the trip was to further explore the compatibilities between ecotourism and the TMCC s Maya Homeland proposal. As Horwich explained in a letter to Primitivo Coc in December 1989: One main emphasis for them [Belize Audubon Society] is developing ecotourism to help local people receive benefits from protecting their forests and wildlife for tourism During our visit, if possible, I would like to be able to meet with you and other Maya Council members. We would also like to visit some forested areas which might be good to show tourists. I d like to know more about your proposal to the government for that land. The idea of a Biosphere Reserve 95

106 may present an alternative to the government for Mayan participation in the use and management of that land if it is still government land. Finally, in 1990, Horwich submitted formal funding proposals for his initiative to WWF and the Nature Conservancy. However, when funding failed to come through, and the government failed to act to create a formal protected area in the region, Horwich temporarily abandoned his lobbying efforts for the project. He did, however, continue to informally encourage others working in the area to push for its conservation. As Horwich recalled: I distinctly remembered an incident of networking that may have played a role in the establishing of the park. I was talking to Siman Zisman who was a mangrove expert working with I believe the Overseas Development Administration from the UK. They had a close working relationship with the Belize Government and so had great influential power. In my conversation with Simon I said that if he was truly interested in mangroves he should push for the Temash region. When I returned a few months later, they had made it a National Park. When I asked if he were somewhat responsible he answered affirmatively. (personal communication) Indeed, national reports documenting Belize s protected areas and areas of conservation interest continued to identify the Sarstoon-Temash region as an area of importance until the area was formally declared a National Park in 1994 (Zisman 1989, 1996:46). In May 1994, the Government of Belize formally declared 41,898 acres of land in 96

107 Toledo as the Sarstoon-Temash National Park (STNP), making it the second largest National Park and southernmost protected area in the country. 38 According to the Chief Forest Officer at the time, the declaration of the area as a National Park was driven by a bio-political imperative to protect unique and threatened ecosystems: I was the Chief Forest Officer in charge of the Forest Department at the time and believed that such was the appropriate measure to address the number of issues arising at the time. There was a growing recognition to protect certain ecosystems and the Sarstoon-Temash area displayed many features that made it suitable for such designation. I made the proposal to declare five protected areas, each having particular ecological, geographic, or physical attributes that made these suitable for protection. At the same time, however, declaring the area a National Park was also intended to assert state sovereignty as well as rationalize and discipline resource use in an area that was (and largely remains) a remote, isolated and territorially disputed border region in which the state had little knowledge of, or control over, the use of natural resources. As the chief Forest Officer explained: Prior to its designation as a National Park, the Sarstoon-Temash area was National Lands, and forest permits were granted to enable timber extraction. During those years, the Forest Department received a number of reports about 38 The area of the park was reduced from 41,898 to 41,000 acres in February 2000 through Statutory Instrument No

108 illegal activity within the area; this included both illegal cutting and removal of logs, and illegal hunting by Belizeans. This was compounded by illegal activity from our neighbor [Guatemala] on the South side of the Sarstoon River. Declaring it as a National Park would enable the Forest Department to set the stage for a higher level of enforcement. (personal communication) However, while the Chief Forest Officer described the area as National Lands, the area encompassed by the STNP had long been used by several indigenous communities in the area for farming, hunting, and fishing, and for the collection of medicinal plants and materials for house construction. Indeed, as much as 3000 acres of land inside the 41,000 acre park was being used by local villagers for subsistence agriculture (Herrera 2004: 12). Thus, much of the illegal activity the Forest Department sought to regulate was the everyday livelihood activities of Q eqchi Maya villagers practicing customary forms of natural resource management. Finally, it must also be recognized that the declaration of the STNP, like the majority of Belizean protected areas, occurred in the 1990s during a period of neoliberal reform and the growth of transnational regimes of environmental governance aimed at promoting sustainable development. During this period IMF and World Bank loans were increasingly subjected to neoliberal structural adjustment policies and green conditionalities that required borrowing countries to adopt environmental protection measures in exchange for aid, and ecotourism was emerging as an international growth industry (Caddy et al. 2000: 55; Goldman 2005; Medina 2010, 2015). Thus, the 98

109 declaration of the STNP was driven by multiple environmentalities, including the assertion of sovereignty, the disciplining of resource users, the bio-political interest in protecting ecological populations, and the neoliberal desire of state officials to use conservation as a means of gaining access to tourism revenues and international loans. Assembling the Stakeholders Following the declaration of the STNP in 1994, a renewed push to generate community interest in managing the park was initiated. The impetus for this effort came from Judy Lumb, a writer, member of the Belize Audubon Society, and friend of Robert Horwich. As Lumb explains (personal communication), she was preparing the Belize Audubon Society Newsletter in 1994 and was pleased to note the declaration of the Sarstoon-Temash National Park. During a visit to one of the villages bordering the park (Barranco) in May 1995, Lumb talked to people in the village about the possibility of co-management of the park. But the men all said they would want to do their own tourism operations, not anything cooperative. Then, in January 1996, Lumb received a letter from a friend in Barranco inviting her to return to the village to help write a comanagement proposal for the park. Lumb returned to Barranco in August that year and was encouraged by villagers to organize a workshop that would bring together all the communities around the park to collectively discuss the potential of co-management. Lumb stayed in the Sarstoon-Temash region for a month, traveling to each of the communities bordering the park, and informally assessing their interest in conservation and tourism, and inviting them to a co-management stakeholder workshop she was planning for February As Lumb (personal communication) explains: 99

110 I didn't try to make a meeting in the villages because I didn't feel up to doing it by myself. I knew Rob [Horwich] would be there in February and together we could do that. I tried to meet the Alcalde and the Village Council Chair in each village. I also talked to people as I walked around each village. No one knew that the Sarstoon-Temash National Park had been declared. They didn't even know what a National Park was. They thought I was talking about a football (soccer) field.i got no reaction then because I wasn't able to explain. Everyone I talked to said they would come to Barranco for a workshop in February to talk about it. After returning home from her trip, Lumb began the process of organizing the logistics of the stakeholder workshop. As Lumb (personal communication) explains: I knew all the people to contact. I went back to my home after visiting all the villages and called the central people to pull off the workshop. All were very positive about it, so I wrote a short proposal and sent copies to the village leaders, as well as potential funders and speakers. One of the key stakeholders identified by Lumb was the Kekchi Council of Belize (KCB). As discussed in Chapter 2, the KCB was working to develop a new strategy for resolving long-standing land-use conflicts between Maya communities in Toledo and the Government of Belize. A central component of this new strategy was a shift from the highly politicized discourse of the Maya Homeland toward a more technical approach to the land issue focused on co-management Thus, in contrast to 100

111 the Maya Homeland proposed by the TMCC, the KCB approach which drew heavily from the experience of Canadian Inuit communities emphasized a concept of comanagement that would require active cooperation and compromise, rather than political contestation between Maya communities and state agencies. Part of the reasoning behind this strategy was the longstanding criticism from state officials that Maya peoples could not manage resources and were a threat to the environment. As Gregorio Choc, a prominent leader in the KCB, (and future Executive Director of the Sarstoon-Temash Institute for Indigenous Management) explained to me: politically the homeland issue was going to be a very difficult issue to accomplish. My feeling at that time, for a variety of reasons, was that I recognized that government was refusing to accommodate the demands of the TMCC, and the rhetoric and justification for that was that we could not manage our resources we did not have the institutions in place to manage the resources we were demanding. And for me it became critical to pilot and showcase that with appropriate support, both technical and financial, that indigenous people can take their traditional management regime and put it in a different context and integrate that into contemporary management regimes that exist, or that is advocated for by international environmental organizations. So that became the premise of KCB s work at that time. We wanted to showcase to the government that indigenous communities in Belize can participate in conservation, can manage their resources, can put in 101

112 place strategies to mitigate all these over-exploitations that the government was using as rationale for refusing to even consider the homeland issue. (personal communication). Lumb s proposal to instigate community participation in the co-management of the Sarstoon Temash National Park therefore provided an ideal pilot project for the KCB to pursue their approach. Another key stakeholder contacted by Lumb was the Forest Department, which had since the 1980s become increasingly receptive to community and NGO involvement in the management of protected areas through the institution of co-management agreements. Here it must be recognized that although the Government of Belize created a number of new protected areas in the 1980s and 90s, including the STNP, it failed to support these declarations with the necessary institutional, technical and financial resources to manage them effectively. A 1995 assessment of Belize s protected area system funded by USAID (NARMAP 1995:59), for example, noted that: The creation of protected areas has far outstripped the in-country capability for their good management. Management presence in most protected areas is at best intermittent. The four national parks created in 1994 Aguas Turbias, Monkey Bay, Paynes Creek, Sarstoon-Temash are paper parks in the truest sense, with no on-ground management presence whatsoever. 102

113 Making this situation worse, resources allocated to the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNRE) in which the Conservation Division responsible for managing Belize s Protected Areas lies were drastically retrenched in 1997 by 30 per cent (Caddy et al. 2000: 55). As Caddy et al. explain, the Conservation Division is being asked to oversee the management of the 38% of Belizean territory that falls under some form of protected area status, with only three full-time staff (2000:55). As a result, the proposal drafted by Lumb caught the attention of the Forest Department, and triggered a visit by Department staff to the Toledo District in November 1996 (Forestry Department 1997). As an internal Forest Department report explained, In the proposal it was apparent that to some degree communities around the park would be interested in developing tourism ventures, thus generating financial benefits directly or indirectly from the park. The report further acknowledged that the STNP did not have any level of on-the ground management in place and was indeed only a paper park (Forest Department 1997: 1). As such, the objectives of the Forest Department trip to the region included: 1. To become familiarized with the area. 2. To visit communities on the periphery of the park and find out their level of awareness for such a park. 3. To better assess any potential level of community involvement in park co-management. 4. To assess situation of park. Forest Department staff visited and conducted meetings in three of the communities 103

114 bordering the STNP, including the villages of Barranco, Midway and Crique Sarco. During these visits, Forest Department officials found a high level of interest in tourism and co-management in the village of Barranco (where Judy had been based), but much less awareness of the park and co-management in the villages of Midway and Crique Sarco. Based on this fact finding trip to the region, the Forest Department staff concluded it was vital that those communities better understand the role of a park and that stressed that opportunities need to be encouraged for well planned participation of the communities on this park (Forest Department 1997:4-5). With the Forest Department on board with the planned stakeholder meeting, Lumb contacted Robert Horwich to assist her with another set of community meetings in the villages around the park. In early February 1997, Judy Lumb and Robert Horwich returned to the Sarstoon-Temash region to formally invite village representatives to the stakeholder workshop planned for February 22, As Lumb (personal communication) recounts: We repeated the visit to the villages in early February and Rob conducted a meeting in each village. He showed a map so the men could see where the park boundary was. Some were quite concerned as the boundary was very near their village. As Horwich (personal communication) recalls: We walked to the three towns and told them we would like to address the 104

115 members of the towns. We slept in public buildings and usually on wood or cement floors or benches. We first told them about the National Park that had been gazetted in We showed them maps of the National Park boundaries which generated discussions of where they hunt or farm and if they had been doing it in the park. They had many questions about what was to happen and we mainly encouraged them to come to the meeting if they wanted to have a say in how the land would be managed. We stressed that it would be in their interest to come to the meeting and thus avoid the government doing more things without their input as the National Park had been gazetted. The Stakeholder Workshop On February 22, 1997, representatives from the indigenous communities situated around the park, as well as environmental, indigenous, and government institutions convened in the village of Barranco for the Sarstoon-Temash National Park stakeholder workshop. 39 In total, the meeting brought together 72 participants to discuss the STNP, its rules and regulations, and whether villagers living around the park had an interest in partnering with government to co-management the area. In popular accounts of the history of the Sarstoon-Temash National Park (e.g. Caddy et al. 2000), the stakeholder workshop serves as a mythic origin story detailing the moment when villagers recognized their interests in conservation and agreed to take on the responsibility for managing the park. As Caddy et al. (2000: 55-56) explain: 39 The full list of organizations in attendance included the Belize Center for Environmental Studies (Belize), Coastal Zone Management Project (Belize), Community Conservation Inc. (Gray Mills, Wisconsin), Indigenous Mapping Project (Canada), Inuit Circumpolar Council (Canada), National Association of Specialist and Interpretive Guides (Belize), Protected Areas Conservation Trust (Belize), K ekchi Council of Belize, Sandy Beach Women s Cooperative (Belize), The Nature Conservancy, Toledo Alcaldes Association, and the United Nations Development Program. 105

116 Considering the cultural and regional context, the indigenous communities decision to fight for inclusion within the park management structure was groundbreaking. The indigenous participants had no formal resource management experience, nor any local examples of a successful indigenous/governmental comanagement initiative to draw upon. However, with the input provided by the external representatives, the communities began to understand how the park could represent an opportunity for them to increase their income-generating opportunities by preserving, rather than exhausting, their natural resources. While this portrayal of the meeting is appealing, it is somewhat problematic, particularly in the way it disregards customary forms of resource management by stating villagers had no formal resource management experience and would have exhausted their natural resources without such a project. Moreover, it disregards the significance of the compromise and discursive shift inherent in the villagers decision to participate in park management rather than asserting indigenous land rights. We must remember that this meeting was taking place in the context of widespread advocacy by and mobilization of Maya communities throughout Toledo around the issue of indigenous land rights. 40 Indeed, this compromise can only be understood, therefore, as part of a larger strategy of some Maya Movement leaders (particularly the KCB) to adopt a more technical discourse in their struggle to secure access to land and resources for Maya communities. Finally, the decision of villagers to fight for inclusion within the park management 40 On this point, it is significant to note that the TMCC was not in attendance at the stakeholder workshop, despite the status of the organization at the forefront of the Maya Movement. 106

117 structure was not an organic and spontaneous outcome of the meeting. Rather, as we will see below, the workshop was planned from the outset to facilitate this outcome, and the meeting must therefore be read as a technology of government aimed at shaping the subjectivities and conduct of participating villagers. 41 Before moving to a description and analysis of the workshops dynamics, a brief overview of stakeholder analysis will be provided. The concept of stakeholder first emerged in the private sector field of corporate management in the 1980s as a challenge to the commonly held notion that the primary responsibility of the corporation was to consider the interests of, and maximize profits for, stockholders. In contrast, the stakeholder theory of the firm suggested that corporate responsibility should be extended to all groups and individuals who benefit from, or are harmed by, and whose rights are violated or respected by, corporate actions (Freeman 2001:41). 42 It must be noted, however, that there is disagreement and disparity in the way stakeholder theory is understood and applied, particularly as to whether it is driven by an ethical or managerial rationale (Freeman 1994). Thus, while some argue that stakeholder theory reflects an ethical/moral duty on the part of corporations to consider the interests of all relevant stakeholders, others interpret and apply it as a means of managing stakeholder relations in order to minimize risk and achieve corporate objectives (i.e. profit maximization) (Freeman 1994:410). In the 1990s, stakeholder analysis was enthusiastically adopted as a key 41 My analysis of the dynamics of the STNP stakeholder workshop is based on a detailed reading of the complete transcript of the meeting (Lumb 1998), as well as interviews with many of those who planned and attended the meeting. 42 In practice, stakeholders could include suppliers, customers, employees, stockholders, managers and the local community (Freeman 2001:39). 107

118 approach in the fields of international development and conservation (Grimble and Chan 1995; Stinson 2004; Fletcher 2009). Significantly, the ambiguity over the rationale of the approach (ethical/managerial) persisted as well. Consider the following statement by Grimble and Chan (1995: ): Our interest in stakeholder analysis (SA) stems from the concern that many policies and projects in the past have not met their stated objectives because the consequences of the policy are perceived to be adverse by one or more stakeholder group, and therefore lead to non-cooperation or even open opposition by those stakeholders. Moreover, many policies and projects that have been perceived to be successful have achieved their success only at the expense of certain stakeholder groups, in particular local people. Ways of better anticipating and dealing with stakeholder opposition and conflict, and better incorporating various stakeholder interests, are therefore seen to be crucial for improving policy design and implementation. In this respect, some critics have pointed out that one of the reasons why buzz words like stakeholder analysis gain popularly in the fields of conservation and development is precisely the fuzziness of their meanings, which allows them to be translated in different ways and applied toward diverse ends (Cromwall and Brock 2005). Accordingly, Fletcher (2009:270) asserts that while stakeholder theory presents itself as a technical approach to facilitate participation and incorporate diverse interests in projects, critics increasingly argue that, in its emphasis on material incentives and market 108

119 integration, the theory is part and parcel of an increasing trend towards neoliberalisation within ecotourism specifically and international conservation in general. With these points in mind, we return to explore the dynamics of the STNP stakeholder workshop. In terms of structure, the stakeholder workshop was divided into two components: a morning session based around introductions and a presentation by an official from the Conservation Division of the Forest Department, and an afternoon session in which participating villagers were broken up into small groups to discuss co-management and come to a decision as to whether they would like to participate in managing the STNP. In an introduction to the workshop, one of the moderators of the meeting began by explaining that STNP had been created in 1994 to protect the mangroves, coastline, and watersheds of the Temash and Sarstoon Rivers (Lumb 1998:10). From there he went on to note that the goals of this project are to bring income generating activities to economically depressed southern Toledo and to increase awareness among residents of the need to conserve natural resources (Lumb 1998:10). He further emphasized that development of the park would provide jobs in the management of the protected area, income from visitors to the Park, and would insure a presence to protect the area from exploitative activities (Lumb 1998: 10). Following this introduction, an official from the Conservation Division of the Forest Department commenced a presentation describing the extent of protected areas in Belize, the characteristics and features of the Sarstoon-Temash National Park, National Park rules and regulations and the benefits of local participation. As he explained: 109

120 It is considered that the Sarstoon-Temash has one of the oldest stands of mangroves found in the whole country of Belize. In terms of natural features, we do not really have a good idea of what we have inside that particular national park. And that is where it becomes very important for the communities who have been living around that park for many, many years. I am pretty sure that you know more about what is found in that particular area than what exactly we know at the Forest Department. (Lumb 1998:11) The Conservation Officer then continued to note that not only did the Forest Department not have a solid understand of the natural environment inside the STNP, they also had little knowledge of human activities occurring in the area: Even though we are starting to gather more information about Sarstoon-Temash National Park in our offices, we are still a lot uncertain what exactly is happening within the park. Somebody mentioned earlier that some people are hunting gibnuts or peccaries in the park. To be frank, we don t really know who exactly is doing it or the level of hunting. So we don t know what is happening in the national park. (Lumb 1998:12) This lack of state knowledge and capacity was then used to explain why the Forest Department was now in favour of pursuing a cooperative management structure for the 110

121 park. Here, the Conservation Officer identified several reasons (most which tied directly to the need to secure local support for the park) for the Forest Department s promotion of co-management. These reasons included 1) community benefits; 2) meeting local needs and priorities; 3) better planning of the protected area system; 4) defining the objectives of management; 5) managing adaptively; and 6) gaining the support of stakeholders (Lumb 1998:12). Moreover, the Conservation Officer continued to highlight throughout the presentation that a major goal of community participation in park management would be to provide economic benefits to local people. As the Conservation Officer explained: Of course, one of the first points is in order to provide benefits to the people. The people and the communities have been living around these natural resources for many, many years and if we are going to maintain, if we are going to protect, if we are going to sustain those areas, it will only be done along with the communities and the people living around these particular resources.we can only initiate management and protection of areas when we have the full support of the local people and other participants in that process. (Lumb 1998:12) From here, the presentation moved on to describe the legal components of the STNP, including an overview of the National Parks System Act, the activities permitted and prohibited in National Parks, and offenses and penalties. The Conservation Officer explained, for example, a national park is any area established for the protection of and preservation of natural and scenic values of national significance for the benefit and 111

122 enjoyment of the general public (Lumb 1998:14). The officer further clarified that activities permitted in the STNP would be restricted to scientific research, tourism, and educational activities, and that any building of shelters or infrastructure, removal of plants, hunting, fishing and agriculture would be prohibited (Lumb 1998:14). Finally, the state official outlined the penalties for violating the rules of the park, noting that a first offense would be a fine of up to $200, and a second offense a fine up to $500, imprisonment, or both (Lumb 1998:15). The presentation of the technical aspects of National Parks and co- Management, however, did not have the desired effect of encouraging local support and participation. Instead, it served to evoke concern and a politicized response from the villagers at the meeting. Indeed, many villagers interpreted the park as a direct threat to their livelihoods, and responded immediately by voicing concerns about their rights to hunt, fish, and farm in the area. One man asked, for example, how can we do the extraction of products in the heart of this national park? How can we get leaf for our roof and other materials we need in this national park? (Lumb 1998:13). Another asked what about those villages who are close to the National Park? There is a creek and a river, you know, they use for fishing. Will they be permitted to come and fish again? (Lumb 1998: 13). Another man stated his concern for the park by explaining: We are living in [the area] and we have already made a plantation in that area. What will happen to us, to our investment there? (Lumb 1998: 13). Other villagers were concerned about the location of the park, how close it was to surrounding villages and whether the borders could be adjusted (Lumb 1998:15-19). One villager asked: How far is this line going to take place between the park and the villages? How far is it from Crique Sarco and 112

123 Conejo? (Lumb 1998:13). Another suggested reducing the size of the park to an area between the Sarstoon and Temash rivers stating: How far is the line from the villages? I think that the people that are living around the park, they would rather see the park on the other side of the Temash River, between the Sarstoon and Temash, rather than cutting some pieces on this right side of the map (Lumb 1998:19). This debate, however, was quickly shut down by an official from the Toledo District Forest Department who noted that discussions of policy where the concern of the government and beyond the scope of the workshop, which was focused on management: Ladies and gentlemen, these people are asking, why is the border of the park not on the Temash River? What we are dealing with here is a matter of policy. At present we are not the ones that make that. We only work under the policy The people who make this actual thing into a national park is the Cabinet. We are not the ones. We can go on all day with this and we will get nowhere. (Lumb 1998:19). Of note here is the official s invocation of state sovereignty in the assertion that it was the the Cabinet that had created the park, and therefore nothing could be done about it. Following this intervention, workshop moderators quickly moved on to a series of presentations by expert conservationists that highlighted case studies of co-management from around Belize and the experience of various organizations in this area. In this way, we see the politics of translation through which the politicized concerns voiced by 113

124 villagers were successfully suppressed (at least temporarily) as moderators and officials invoked state sovereignty and steered the discussion away from the political issues of rights back to the technical issues of management and participation. After a break for lunch, the workshop reconvened for the afternoon session. At this point, workshop participants were instructed by the moderator to form small discussion groups and select a leader for a steering committee that would be formed to pursue co-management: At this point we ll be forming small groups and each group will be responsible to select a leader. You ll have 20 minutes to have discussion in each group. And the groups will be based on localities, where you come from, like Barranco, Crique Sarco, Sunday Wood, Conejo, Midway, will form their own groups to discuss and examine what is possible, what they see, what their plans would be. Then after 20 minutes, you ll come back and then we ll have the leader give a report. Now also you ll have to select a leader who will represent you on the steering committee because this afternoon, after the group reports, we will form a steering committee, who will lead the movement onward, forward. OK, so please select a strong and reliable leader who will meet with the other 5 members along with a few of us to really decide where we go from here. (Lumb 1998:26) 114

125 Before the activity could commence, however, a villager from Crique Sarco interjected, stating that he and his fellow villagers were in attendance to learn about the park, and had not agreed to select a management committee: Let me clear up something, Mr. Chairman. We are here for this meeting.we are here to hear more about what is national park like what [the Conservation Officer] explained. So that s why we are here. We are not here to select any committee, or to pursue it. (Lumb 1998:27). Another villager agreed, explaining, we thought we were only coming to learn about the National Park and then go back to the village. This will not happen overnight (Lumb 1998:28). Finally, the alcalde from Crique Sarco explicitly rejected the idea of pursuing co-management, explaining the rest of the people don t want it [the park]. So that s why I bring them and they say they don t want it. So that s why. Either you accept it or reject it and we reject it by what you say now (Lumb 1998:28). At this point, a workshop moderator stepped in once again to limit and control dissent, stating that the National Park had already been created, and if villagers chose not to participate they would simply be excluded from the decision making process: You cannot get information if you refuse to be a part of what we ll bring to this committee. The committee that is going to be formed, will look after the information, not only you who want the information, all the villages need 115

126 information.for you to say, we don t want to be a part, then your problem will be you won t get the information that you need. But the National Park is a reality and that will continue. You ll just be shut out. I don t know if you want to go in that direction. At the same time, you can have your representative on the committee who will bring you information from time to time, informing you about what s happening (Lumb 1998:28) Villagers were then divided up into groups and given 20 minutes to talk about the park and their potential role in its management. Crucially, each these small group discussions was facilitated and monitored by various experts from indigenous rights organizations (such as the KCB) and/or national and international conservationists in attendance. The Crique Sarco group, for example, was facilitated by Gregory Ch oc, a leader of the KCB and strong proponent of co-management (as noted above). The effect of structuring and monitoring the discussions in this way proved powerful in working to achieve the desired end of workshop planners. After brief 20 minute discussions, each of the community groups officially agreed to participate in moving the co-management process forward, and to form an official Sarstoon Temash National Park Steering Committee (STNPSC). Reporting for villagers from Crique Sarco, for example, who just minutes earlier had denounced the park Gregory Ch oc stated: Crique Sarco recommended that they participate in any activity regarding the Sarstoon Temash National Park. So, in effect, they have accepted responsibility to participate (Lumb 1998:29). He went on to report: 116

127 they are willing to participate, or to continue, to become custodians or stewards of the forest, through forest guards and forest rangers. Because of their long term inhabiting the area, they are willing to participate in scientific research that establishes and gives credibility and recognition to the value of traditional ecological systems and also establishing valuable forest attributes which the Temash River has a lot of potential for. In ecotourism, they wish to participate in tour guides, transportation, establishing a community guesthouse, restaurants, and at the same time promoting the Q eqchi traditional dances. This 20 minute discussion had facilitated a complete transformation in villagers understanding of the park and their respective interests in it. In this regard, villagers from Crique Sarco had gone from not understanding the park and resisting efforts to promote co-management, to agreeing to participate in managing it in numerous ways. They had seemingly become environmental subjects in a matter of minutes! Reflecting on this process, and highlighting the key of role of groups mediators in translating the meaning co-management, one of the original group members explained to me in an interview: No, they say if you don t want the park someone will be coming to take over. Then, don t say anything again. Well there are some people from nongovernmental organizations that came in for that meeting. So some people had said well if the people don t want it, they put us in groups, we went into groups now. But we never knew anything about it. They put us into groups to see what 117

128 we would say. So each group now said you know what, some people here have a little bit of experience and they said you know what? Co-management is good. Co-management means working together. So that you have the right to say yes or to know what is coming. Because if you don t want it somebody will own it and then you won t have any say about it. So either you stay there or you come out. So co-management is better so that everyone will take part. So then we gone back again into the session and we said, well, it would be good to do the comanagement. As a technology of government, the stakeholder workshop was effective in achieving the desired end of gaining local support for and participation in, the comanagement of the STNP. In this respect, it must be noted that villagers were not forced to participate in the meeting or to pursue co-management. At the same time, the workshop was structured, and discussion managed, in such a way as to lead villagers toward that decision. The continual promotion of economic incentives (tourism revenue and park employment) combined with the assertion of state sovereignty (the threat of exclusion), and the disciplinary presentation of expert knowledge and the monitoring and surveillance of group discussions articulated to form a powerful technology of government that produced the desired outcome for meeting planners. While villagers exercised agency in this process, they did so within highly unequal relations power structured in a way in way to lead them to a specific conclusion. Toward Co- Management While villagers at the stakeholder meeting in 1997 agreed to work toward 118

129 developing a co-management structure for the STNP, it would take several years of planning, organization, lobbying and negotiation before the STNP Steering Committee would sign an co-management agreement with the government. During that time, the STNP Steering Committee embarked on a process of gaining community support for the co-management initiative and held a series of meetings in communities around the park. They also undertook a process of formally registering and organizing the STNP Staeering Committee as a non-governmental organization. In 1999, the informal STNP Steering Committee was registered as an NGO the Sarstoon-Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM), and by 2002, the organization had secured funding for a threeyear project funded by the Word Bank and Global Environment Facility to develop a management plan for the park and officially commence park management activities (this planning and institutional strengthening process is discussed in more detail in Chapter 4). The primary issue holding up the negotiation of a formal co-management agreement between the government and SATIIM, however, remained the unsettled status of customary Maya land rights in Toledo. Despite the fact that the Government of Belize and the Maya Leader s Alliance had negotiated and signed an historic agreement the 10 Points of Agreement in which the state acknowledged that Maya People have rights to lands and resources in southern Belize based on their long-standing use and occupancy, the issue remained highly contentious. In this respect, state officials wanted to ensure that the STNP co-management agreement could not be interpreted as an official recognition of Maya rights to land or resources in the park. On the other hand, SATIIM did not want the agreement to signal an acceptance by indigenous communities of state sovereignty that could jeopardize future land claims. An analysis of negotiations over the 119

130 wording of the co-management agreement reveals that this political dilemma was resolved through the practice of anti-politics. In September 2002, a draft co-management agreement was submitted by SATIIM to the Forest Department. The draft agreement was rejected, however, and a revised draft was sent back to SATIIM which included the following clause: this agreement shall not be treated as a recognition of any indigenous groups alleged rights to land or resources nor shall it be deemed to impact on any agreement or framework dealing with land and resource issues (SATIIM 2002). As noted in SATIIM board meeting minutes from December 2002, board members of SATIIM were not comfortable with the clause, and sought to re-engage the Forest Department in negotiations aimed at amending the draft agreement with more favourable language (SATIIM 2002b). Following a period of consultation, and after receiving advice from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Assad Shoman, SATIIM submitted a revised draft in January 2003 that, while not treating the agreement itself as a specific claim to land or resources, was explicitly intended to ensure that the agreement would not infringe on any rights that indigenous peoples already had or could be found to have in the future. The revised agreement stated: this agreement shall not be treated as a recognition of any claims regarding rights to land and resources by any indigenous peoples and shall not adversely affect the rights to lands, territories, or resources that any indigenous peoples have or may be found to have under international, national, local, customary or other law SATIIM Board meeting minutes from January 2003 indicate that Minister of Foreign Affairs, Assad Shoman, recommended including the negotiation of SATIIM s co-management agreement as part of the ongoing negotiations between the Maya Leaders Alliance and the state over the issue of land rights. This recommendation was voted on by SATIIM s Board of Directors and was defeated over concerns that SATIIM was not officially represented on the Maya Leaders Alliance and should therefore negotiate the co-management agreement directly with government officials. 120

131 Despite this ongoing dispute over the status of indigenous land rights, just a few months later on April , SATIIM and the Minister of Natural Resources signed an official co-management agreement for the Sarstoon-Temash National Park. Lobbying support from the Ecologic Development Fund, a US-based conservation NGO that had partnered with SATIIM, and the World Bank, with whom SATIIM had developed a three-year project to implement management of the STNP, proved useful in eventually persuading the state to sign off on the agreement (Caddy 2006:14). Of note, however, is that the final agreement made no reference at all to sovereignty, land tenure or indigenous land rights. A compromise was forged by rendering the land issue technical. In this sense, conflict over the status of indigenous land rights was avoided by restricting the scope of the agreement to technical issues of park management and a delineation of respective rights and responsibilities in this domain. The final co-management agreement signed by SATIIM and the Ministry of Natural Resources conforms to fairly a standardized template of protected area comanagement agreements in place with a number of NGOs throughout Belize. 44 In general terms, the agreement can be divided into five key themes: 1) scope and duration; 2) roles and responsibilities; 3) revenue generation and allocation; 4) reporting; and 5) conflict resolution (see Table 4 below). In terms of scope and duration, the most salient point of the agreement is that management activities must take place in accordance with the National Park Systems Act. 45 Within this framework, the agreement delegates to SATIIM the responsibility of day-to-day management of the park, including recreational activities, 44 For a review of the contents of various co-management agreements governing protected area management throughout Belize, see Brechin and Salas (2011). 45 As will be discussed in Chapter 4, however, the management plan ultimately developed for the STNP deviated significantly from the provisions set out in the National Parks Systems Act. 121

132 while the Forest Department is officially responsible for providing security and enforcement of regulations. 46 Further to this, the state retains the responsibility for processing applications for camping and scientific research, but ensures that approval for such applications will only be granted with free prior and informed consent of [SATIIM]. The agreement further indicates that SATIIM and the Forest Department will jointly formulate a detailed management plan for the STNP, and provides SATIIM with the right to collect entrance fees (of which 10% go to government and 20% to the Protected Areas Conservation Trust). Reporting mechanisms stipulate SATIIM must provide the government with detailed financial records and annual reports, while the state must provide SATIIM with relevant information when requested. Finally, the agreement sets out the rules for the dealing with conflict and the termination of the agreement. Most notably, it indicates that if at any point the government wishes to resume sole responsibility for managing the park, SATIIM must facilitate this transition within a period of one year. Table 4: Sarstoon Temash National Park Co-Management Agreement Subject Scope and Duration Clause The Government, the Forest Department and the Association [SATIIM] shall jointly manage and develop Sarstoon-Temash National Park. Management shall be exercised by the parties hereto in keeping with 46 In practice this has meant that the [state] will support SATIIM in security matters if called upon; however, the day-to-day responsibility of enforcing park security will rest squarely on SATIIM s shoulders (Herrera 2004:99). 122

133 the provisions of the National Parks Systems Act for a period of five (5) years and may be renewed for a similar period. The Forest Department after consultations with SATIIM may also put in place such other regulations by Statutory Instruments or otherwise as may be necessary in order to develop full implementation of this agreement. Roles and Responsibilities The Government, through the Forest Department and the Association shall together formulate and implement detailed management plans for the development of Sarstoon-Temash National Park to explicitly include goals, objectives, permitted activities, standards, methods of implementation, and control, priorities, budgets, personnel requirement, target dates and such other matters shall be agreed. The management plan shall be formulated within one year of the date of this agreement. The management plan shall also specify the assessment methods to monitor accomplishments and shall provide the necessary periodic evaluations and refinements. SATIIM shall be responsible for the day-to-day management of the Sarstoon-Temash National Park, and the Government shall along with the Forest Department be responsible for providing security and enforcement of regulations within the National Park, and assist in providing infrastructure. SATIIM shall be responsible for the implementation of all aspects of recreation within the National Park, for visitor use and day-to-day 123

134 maintenance of structures and facilities provided within the National Park as well as for public awareness campaigns and education with respect to the National Parks. The Government shall in accordance with Section 5-(1) of the National Parks Systems Act process all applications for camping and under Section 7-(1) of the same Act process all applications for scientific research, and will grant approval for such applications only with free prior and informed consent of the Association. The Government hereby grants to SATIIM the right of first refusal for all recreation related concessions and activities pertaining to the National Park. In all cases in which SATIIM declines to operate a concession or activities, the Government and SATIIM shall jointly select concessionaries.profits from the operation of the various concessions will be for the exclusive use of the concessionaire. Revenue Generation and Allocation The Government hereby authorizes SATIIM to collect fees such as entrance fees, camping fees, programme fees and concession fees. All fees collected by SATIIM shall be apportioned as follows: a) The Government 10% of fees collected to be paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund. b) Protected Areas Conservation Trust 20% of fees collected to be used for purposes of the Trust. c) SATIIM 70% of fees collected to be used for management and development of the National Park. 124

135 Any endowment, trust fund, grant, loan, subsidy or any monies whatever obtained by SATIIM for the management and development of the National Park under this Agreement shall be for the exclusive use of SATIIM, providing these fall within the priorities as defined in the approved management plan for the National Park. Reporting SATIIM shall provide the Government with quarterly financial statements, annual reports and reports on any major revision in operations regarding management of the National Park. For its part Government upon written request from the Association will provide the Association with relevant information pertaining to the National Park. SATIIM shall keep detailed records of all fees collected and its records shall be made available for inspection by the Forest Department when requested. Conflict Resolution Mechanisms Where at any time government wishes to resume sole responsibility for the management of the National Park the parties hereto shall agree on a transition period not exceeding one (1) year during which SATIIM shall co-operate fully to accomplish an effective and expeditious transition. In the event of infringement of any of the terms of the Agreement, the non-infringing party shall give notice thereof and the parties shall use their best efforts to resolve the matter within six (6) months of the date of the infringement. 125

136 If no satisfactory resolution is reached, either party may by further notice of at least thirty (30) days after the expiration of the period referred to above terminate this Agreement. The Association may wherever it deems necessary and after consultation with the Forest Department terminate this Agreement provided prior notice of a minimum of six (6) months is given to the Forest Department. Termination of this Agreement shall not terminate or otherwise adversely affect any rights to concessions or activities operated by or managed by SATIIM. Conclusion: What is clear from this brief overview of the STNP co-management agreement is that in many ways it largely conforms to Arun Agrawal s (2005a) notion of the governmentalized locality. The agreement, for example, sets out the parameters within which resource management can occur (the National Parks Systems Act), formalizes rights and responsibilities for SATIIM (day-to-day management) and the government (enforcement and regulation), and seemingly serves to reduce state-community conflict by harmonizing the interests of state and community actors around the shared goal of conservation (Agrawal 2005a: ). What is also apparent, however, is that rights and responsibilities offered by the state to SATIIM (and by extension participating communities) are extremely limited in scope, and highly contingent rather than fixed and stable. In this sense, the STNP co-management agreement provides SATIIM with limited 126

137 rights to manage (not own) natural resources. Moreover, as in many cases of communitybased conservation, such rights are only granted by states to communities and NGOs on the condition that they act within specific legal and managerial parameters. In practical terms, this means that in order to gain limited control over natural resources, communities and NGOs must conform to the requirements of protected areas legislation and take on responsibility for designing and implementing state approved management plans (Li 2007b:269; Schroeder 2005). The stability and continued existence of the governmentalized locality is therefore contingent on communities and NGOs operating within the parameters established by the state. What this chapter has also shown however, is that when the governmentalized locality is looked at as a process of assemblage rather than as a fixed regime, the notion that co-management has served to harmonize state and community interests around the shared goal of conservation is problematic. In this sense, while the public transcript of the co-management agreement is restricted to the realm of conservation and park management, there were other interests and rationalities that drove state and community actors to enroll in the project. In addition to the bio-political will to conserve, for example, we have seen that the state s interest in co-management was tied to a will to assert sovereignty, a desire to discipline and regulate resource use, and motivated by economic incentives in the form of tourism revenues and international loans. Moreover, indigenous rights activists and Q eqchi villagers did not simply pursue the comanagement of the STNP out of a desire to manage the park and conserve biodiversity, but to maintain access to and control over resources and as a platform from which to advocate for greater autonomy in the future and to gain access to employment and 127

138 economic opportunities created by conservation and tourism. It was thus through the politics of translation that diverse interests and rationalities were re-forged into a unified and technical will to conserve. In this sense, the will to conserve that serves as the primary rationale of the co-management agreement for the STNP must be seen as compromise or misrepresentation that facilitates the enrollment of support from diverse social actors and groups (Conklin and Graham 1995; Li 1999; Mosse 2004, 2005). As we will see in the following chapters, the compromise of co-management did not involve the displacement of sovereign, disciplinary and neoliberal rationalities by a bio-political will to conserve. Instead, the persistence of these multiple and overlapping environmentalities would ultimately turn the management of the STNP from a site of cooperation and harmonized interests into a renewed site of conflict and contestation between Maya communities, SATIIM, and the government Belize. 128

139 Chapter 4: Translating Community into Conservation Introduction: Community-based conservation entails a shift from exclusive state control over parks and protected areas, to the involvement and participation of communities in conservation areas. Thus, rather than displacing and marginalizing communities, CBC is proposed as a means of integrating communities and traditional ecological knowledge into conservation. In short, CBC is a form of government through community (Li 2007a: 232; Rose 1999). This involves not just the delegation of authority to participate in protected area management, as discussed in the previous chapter, but the participation of local communities in the planning and management of protected areas, and the enforcement of protected area regulations. The rationale for this approach to conservation is based on several assumptions. One central assumption behind CBC is the notion that because local people already used, relied on and managed natural resources, they were most suited to conserve them (with external support) (Dressler et al. 2010:7). A second assumption driving the CBC narrative is that communities have incentives to use resources unsustainably when they are not involved in or marginalized from resource management. If communities are involved in conservation, the benefits they receive will create incentives for them to become good stewards of resources (Agrawal and Gibson 1999:633). As Rose notes, however, for those who advocate an anti-politics of community, civil society, or the third sector, part of the political attraction of these zones lies in their apparent naturalness: their non-political or pre-political status (Rose 1999: 188). 129

140 Integrating communities into conservation, however, is not a straightforward and technical process, but a highly political process of translation. As Rose explains: these third spaces of thought and action have to be made up. Boundaries and distinctions have to be emplaced; these spaces have to be visualized, mapped, surveyed and mobilized. And perhaps, what distinguishes contemporary spaces of community is precisely this that communities have been objectified by positive knowledge s, subject to truth claims by expertise and hence can become the object of political technologies for governing through community. And these political technologies involve the constitution of new forms of authority of this new space of natural associations, and the instrumentalization of new forces in the government of conduct (Rose 1999: ). Thus, as will be demonstrated through this chapter, rather than simply being integrated into the management structure of the park, surrounding Maya communities and the environment itself needed to be translated in numerous ways. In the end, rather than simply being incorporated into the park, surrounding communities and their relationship to the natural environment were significantly transformed and bureaucratized. From Milpa Farmers to Bureaucrats As explained in the previous chapter, community members at the STNP stakeholder workshop agreed to pursue co-management out of a desire to shape park management and maintain some level of access to natural resources within the park. At the same time, Maya leaders such as Greg Ch oc, who had been elected as the chairperson of the STNP 130

141 steering committee, saw co-management as a less politicized platform from which to continue advancing the objective of Maya land rights. Securing funding and political support from state agencies and funding from the international biodiversity network to implement a co-management project with such goals, however, would prove challenging, and would require the practice of anti-politics and translation. A few months after the original STNP stakeholder workshop, members of the STNP steering committee approached the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) about potential funding. IFAD was preparing to launch a major development project in southern Belize the Community Initiated Agriculture and Resource Management (CARD) project the latest in a long line of colonial and postcolonial interventions intended to curtail the slash and burn farming of the Maya (see Van Ausdal 2001; Wainwright 2011). Funded by IFAD and the Caribbean Development Bank, CARD was designed as a seven year, $6.8 million project with the aim of reducing land degradation through sustainable intensification of Maya farming methods by stressing land suitability as a precondition for agricultural use. As project proposals, explain: The CARD project under the baseline scenario does not include activities devoted to biodiversity conservation and strengthened park management, but would focus on the push factors which are driving the expansion of the agricultural frontier and accelerating land degradation trends: Agriculture is the main source of income in the region. Virtually all the target population in the region depends to some extend on agriculture for their livelihoods, and over 80% have milpa as their 131

142 main activity and rice as their principal cash crop. (SATIIM 2002a:19) Put more succinctly, the ultimate goal of the CARD project was to provide resources and know-how for economic alternatives to the current slash-and-burn practices under the predominant Milpa system (SATIIM 2002a:19). During community consultations for the CARD project in 1998, members of the STNP steering committee approached IFAD planners and indicated that they wished to do more in relation to preservation of their ancestral lands and the SNTP then was planned within the sustainable agriculture framework of the CARD project (SATIIM 2002:16). 47 Thus, in their attempt to gain support from IFAD for the STNP comanagement initiative, members of the STNP steering committee worked to translate their vision of securing access to land resources into a discourse of co-management compatible with the approach and interests of IFAD and international conservationists (Van Ausdal 2001). In practical terms, this meant discursively framing co-management as a means of combating the spread of slash and burn milpa farming in southern Belize, and portraying traditional Maya land-use as wasteful and destructive (rather than a discourse of indigenous rights and/or common property management). This approach was ultimately successful, and IFAD planners were enrolled to help move the co-management process forward. However, since the CARD project was designed as an agricultural initiative and was not intended to support biodiversity conservation or protected area management, the STNP co-management project could not 47 The CARD project was approved in April 1998, and project start-up was initiated in March However, as Caddy (2006:17) explains, the CARD project was a major regional disappointment, which remained embroiled in red tape and bureaucratic procedures, failed to provide any significant measure of support to the COMSTEC initiative, and was indeed prematurely closed in late

143 be funded directly through CARD. Instead, IFAD planners worked with the STNP steering committee to design a funding proposal for a complementary project, the Community Managed Sarstoon-Temash Conservation Project (COMSTEC) that was submitted to the World Bank and GEF for funding. As outlined in the COMSTEC project proposal: Striving for a sustainable intensification, CARD is expected to reduce the pressure for further expansion of the agricultural frontier into zones unsuited for agriculture. The proposed GEF Community Managed Sarstoon Temash Conservation (COMSTEC) MSP [Medium Size Project] project would complement baseline CARD activities by approaching the land degradation problem from the non-agricultural side: by assisting communities to define those lands that should not be used for agriculture and developing ways to conserve them (SATIIM 2002a:10). In other words, while the CARD project focussed on intensifiying Maya farming techniques and eliminating milpa farming outside protected areas, the COMSTEC project was planned to eliminate farming entirely from areas deemed unsuitable for agriculture. Taken together, the official logic of the the complementary CARD and COMSTEC projects was the elimination of shifting agriculture in Toledo. Here it is important to note, however, that from the perspective STNP steering committee, the anti-milpa discourse was not primarily about conservation, but a strategic framing aimed at gaining political support and funding for co-management and ultimately, their objective of more secure 133

144 land rights. As noted in meeting minutes for the proposed COMSTEC project, for example: Therefore through initiatives such as the promotion of alternative income generation and permanent agriculture, both part of the COMSTEC programme, SATIIM is assiting local communities in securing a form of tenure, by effectively communicating that shifting cultivation is not the predominant income source, and therefore GOB [the government] is in a more likely position to negotiate leased/communal tenure. (SATIIM 2002b) Since funding for COMSTEC was being requested by IFAD from the World Bank and GEF, the project proposal needed to be linked to the funding criteria, or green conditionalities established by these organizations (Goldman 2005; McAfee 1999). In this respect, the COMSTEC proposal was submitted for funding under GEF Operational Programs 2 and 3 (Coastal, Marine, Freshwater and Forest Ecosystems), focusing on the conservation, management and sustainable use of ecosystems and habitats in concordance with Article 7 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which Belize ratified in December The proposal notes that the STNP lies within the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, a priority area for GEF biodiversity conservation activities, and was consistent with Conference of the Parties guidelines in that it: (i) addressed in situ conservation; (ii) strengthened conservation management and the suitable use of ecosystems and habitats; and (iii) included institutional capacity building that promoted the preservation and maintenance of indigenous communities knowledge and practices 134

145 related to conservation (SATIIM 2002a:10). At the same time, COMSTEC was framed within the World Bank Country Assistance Strategy for Belize (1993), which indicated the need for greater efforts to slow deforestation and strengthen conservation programs, and the World Bank Environmental Report for Belize (1996) which identified improved land management, improved forest management, and strengthened protection of conservation areas as key priorities. Specific recommendations made by the World Bank Report included a national land zoning system, to which COMSTEC would contribute on a local level, and a neoliberal approach to conservation, with improved forest management singled out as a priority area for the involvement of the private sector and NGOs. It further emphasized the need to earn revenues for the maintenance and proper enforcement of existing regulations for the protected areas and noted, direct involvement of local communities is seen as one of the most effective ways of achieving conservation objectives (SATIIM 2002a:12) Following consultations with relevant state agencies and communities participating in the STNP steering committee from June 4-19, 1998, IFAD consultants drafted and submitted a project brief to the Global Environment Facility seeking funding for the COMSTEC project (SATIIM 1998). However, while a review of the COMSTEC proposal by the GEF confirmed the project s eligibility and consistency with funding criteria, the absorptive capacity of the implementing entity (i.e. the STNP steering committee and participating communities) was identified as an issue that needed to be resolved prior to the project being formally approved (SATIIM 2002a:17). In order to address the issue, IFAD subsequently initiated an institutional strengthening and capacity-building project to assist the STNP Steering Committee in formalizing its legal 135

146 status as an officially registered NGO (SATIIM 2002a:17). By June 1999, the Steering Committee had initiated the IFAD-funded Indigenous NGO Establishment Project with the aim of transforming the informal steering committee into an effective, transparent and accountable NGO (SATIIM 1999: 4). From June 26-27, 1999, a two-day Governance and Management of NGO Workshop was held in Punta Gorda in order to establish a framework for governance that was relevant and reflective of indigenous culture and indigenous types of governance (SATIIM 1999:4). Participants at the two-day meeting, which included the members of the STNP Steering Committee, village alcaldes and chairpersons, a representative of the Forest Department, and the director of the Ecological Development Fund, 48 discussed national park regulations, the responsibilities of the Government and local communities in park management, and the pros and cons of traditional and Western systems of governance. With respect to governance, the discussion focused on differences between the traditional Maya alcalde system and the bureaucratic structure of western NGOs. In this regard, Q eqchi participants explained that the alcade system keeps the village united, is effective at conflict resolution, draws upon the knowledge of the people, is accessible to the communities so you don t have to introduce people from outside to manage or to train indigenous communities to manage and has worked for a long, long time (SATIIM 1999: 19). On the other hand, it was explained that the advantages of the Western approach is that the Board of Directors may be people who can access funds or donate funds for management actions, or who are technical experts. The volunteers on the Board of Directors oversee the paid staff within the organization so the paid staff is 48 This workshop was funded by the Ecologic Development Fund, an American environmental organization. 136

147 accountable to the Board of Directors. This model has been very successful. It exists all over the world (SATIIM 1999: 19). In this sense, the familiarity and local effectiveness of the alcalde system was contrasted with the universality, accountability, and expertise of a more bureaucratic organizational structure. In the end, STNP Steering Committee members agreed to formally structure the organization and register it as an NGO. This process entailed institutional strengthening and capacity building and included the development of operational manuals, financial systems, the formalization of a governance structure and official policies for the organization. In November 1999, the Sarstoon-Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM) was officially registered as a non-governmental organization under the Companies Act, Chapter 250 of the Laws of Belize, Revised Edition As noted in meeting minutes (SATIIM minutes, December 2, 1999), the name SATIIM was chosen because one of the overriding aims of the organization is the incorporation of indigenous knowledge within the management directive. The official mission statement of SATIIM is to safeguard the ecological integrity of the Sarstoon-Temash Region and employ its resources in an environmentally sound manner for the economic, social, cultural and spiritual well being of its indigenous people (Hererra 2004:4). The Community Managed Sarstoon Temash Conservation Project Once SATIIM had been registered as a legal NGO, the funding proposal that had been submitted to the World Bank-GEF via IFAD was officially approved. On 16 October 2002, funding was granted to SATIIM for the three-year COMSTEC project. Operational between 2002 and 2005, the objective of the COMSTEC project was to transform the STNP, which was essentially a paper park existing only on official maps, 137

148 into a reality on the ground. At the same time, COMSTEC was promoted as representing a rejection of the fences and fines approach of fortress conservation by incorporating local participation: Rather than allowing the park to become an imposition on the communities, this proposal intends to enable the communities to influence the character of the consequent park management plan by first determining how the lands in the buffer zone should be used. Essentially, this means working from the outside in. (SATIIM 2002b). A central component of this strategy, as outlined in various project proposals and publications (e.g. Caddy et al. 2000), was the integration of indigenous and scientific approaches to resource management (Caddy et al. 2000:56). A description of the COMSTEC project in an IUCN publication (Caddy et al. 2000) highlighting best practices in the field of conservation stated: Traditional knowledge and practices play an integral role in SATIIM s overall comanagement vision. SATIIM has ensured that the various biodiversity components identified in its proposal for co-management will be implemented through a careful integration of indigenous and scientific approaches to resource management. SATIIM puts a special emphasis on indigenous perspectives in the proposal, aiming to protect indigenous traditions and culture within the comanagement system, and to demonstrate the major practical contribution that Kekchi traditional ecological knowledge can make to park management. (Caddy et al. 2000:56). 138

149 Despite the rhetoric of participation and tradition, however, in reality the COMSTEC project was substantially oriented toward serving the aims of national and transnational institutions most notably the Government of Belize, IFAD, the World Bank and the GEF. In this respect, almost all of the project activities, outcomes, and indicators were determined before the project was even approved for funding (see Table 5 below). Projects documents made it clear, for example, that traditional milpa farming would be eliminated in the park, and that sustainable alternative livelihoods like ecotourism and organic cacao production would be promoted in the buffer communities. Indeed, the official rationale and objective of COMSTEC was not to provide economic benefits for participating communities, to secure indigenous land tenure, or to integrate indigenous knowledge into park management, but to reduce land degradation and conserve globally significant biodiversity resources in the Sarstoon-Temash National Park (STNP) and its buffer zones (SATIIM 2002a:17). In doing this, COMSTEC advocated a neoliberal approach to conservation with local participation in comanagement seen as an economic incentive to increase the feasibility of exclusion from the park: Proposed [COMSTEC] activities are based on the concept of co-management, as the most effective means for addressing open access problems related to natural resource use. Co-management aims to reconstitute the incentives at the local level in a way that those closest to the resource are given a greater stake in its long-run viability and to directly involve the population in the effective protection of 139

150 resources. In practice, this means increasing the feasibility of exclusion (promoting a sense of responsibility for the resource, improving control) and creating awareness for joint benefits of the resource (biodiversity, soil and water conservation) (SATIIM 2002a:17). Rather than highlighting the efficacy of traditional ecological knowledge and customary forms of resource management, the COMSTEC proposal portrayed co-management as a neoliberal means of dealing with open access problems. As Shroeder (2005:213) explains, theorists of natural resource and forest tenure systems define open-access goods quite specifically as resources that are not under any form of tenure constraint and are therefore free goods. This is contrasted with common-property regimes that are subject to customary and often unwritten rules and conditions set by particular communities. In her analysis of the COMSTEC project, Caddy (2006:17) argues that this framing of co-management was due to the fact that the drafting of the proposal was delegated by SATIIM to outside IFAD consultants because of a lack of capacity within SATIIM to craft the sort of proposal required by the World Bank and GEF. The COMSTEC proposal therefore reflects the manner in which IFAD staff (mis)read the park as an open access resource rather than a common property regime governed by the customary norms of Q eqchi land tenure and resource management (see Grandia 2004a). 49 At the same time, however, the (mis)interpretation/translation of the park as an open access resource was not simply a mistake, but central to the ability of planners to 49 Given the power relations at play, however, and the need to satisfy the conditionalities of the World Bank and GEF, it is highly unlikely that a more radical proposal drafted by SATIIM would have been approved for funding, even if they had the capacity to draft such a proposal (see, for example, Mosse 2004, 2005). 140

151 promote the COMSTEC project as officially stated in project documents not as a way to reconcile indigenous and scientific approaches to resource management, but to address a lack of management by giving local people a stake in the long-run viability of the park. In other words, it was only by (mis)translating the socio-natural reality of the STNP region that it became possible to frame COMSTEC as an effort to address a lack of management in the area. In the end, the COMSTEC proposal identified a number of planned outcomes and associated indicators. Planned outcomes included the promotion of environmentally sound alternative livelihoods, training and education for SATIIM staff and buffer zone community members, assessment and monitoring of the region s biodiversity, the development of a management plan for the park and buffer zone, the enforcement of National Park regulations, and the efficient implementation of the COMSTEC project (see Table 5 below). Table 5: COMSTEC Project Outcomes and Indicators 50 Project Rationale and Objectives: Reduce land degradation and conserve globally significant biodiversity resources in the Sarstoon Temash National Park (STNP) and its buffer zones Indicators: Agricultural encroachment into the Park by adjacent communities significantly reduced, Resource Management Plan and National Park Regulations implemented, 50 Adapted from COMTEC project proposals (SATIIM 1998, 2000, 2002). 141

152 Information on status/trends of biodiversity resources in the Park available to ensure effective conservation efforts by communities, government, NGOs. OUTCOMES A) Environmentally sound agricultural productivity improvements and small income generating activities introduced, consistent with protection of the National Park INDICATORS (i) Eco-development small business organization Organic cacao production Ecotourism School gardens Chicken and pig rearing Hardwood tree plantations B) Community self-organisation strengthened (ii) Training for SATIIM Board of Directors in Planning, Decision-Making, and Administrative Skills (iii) Educational Programmes for Community Members and Other Local and Regional Groups on the Mission and Objectives of the National Park (iv) Start-up and annual programming workshops C) Biodiversity assessed by communities, (v) Rapid ecological assessment and 142

153 status and trends monitored biological inventory programs (vi) Community based parabiologists conduct monitoring and evaluation (vii) Establish the Sarstoon Temash National Park Resource Centre (viii) Establish Basic Visitor Centres in Each Community (ix) Collect and Record Traditional Knowledge on Area Resources D) Resource Management Plan for the National Park and its Buffer Zones Developed (x) Strategic Management Plan for the Park (xi) Mark Trails and Visitation Areas E) National Park Regulations and Management Plan Implemented and Enforced (xii) Demarcation of park boundaries (xiii) Hire, Train, and Equip a Park Manager and Park Wardens F) Project Implemented Efficiently (xiv) Investment and recurrent expenditures required for effective project management (xv) Administrative/financial management capacity building and transfer of technology 143

154 For the purposes of this discussion and review, the COMSTEC outcomes and indicators can be grouped into four broad categories; 1) Institutional strengthening of SATIIM and buffer communities, 2) ecological and social assessment of the park and buffer zone (including traditional ecological knowledge); 3) development of a management plan for the park and buffer zone; and 4) the promotion of alternative livelihoods. In what follows, I will describe and analyze the first three of these topic areas (the promotion of alternative livelihoods will be discussed in chapters 5 and 6). A primary goal of the COMSTEC project was the institutional strengthening of SATIIM as an organization. Consequently, a number of early COMSTEC activities related to the hiring and training of SATIIM s Board members and technical staff. While early planning documents and publications continually stressed that SATIIM organizational structure was designed to integrate indigenous forms of governance, in practice, however, the institution of SATIIM resulted in a further bureaucratization of local governance and of the communities themselves. Rather than simply incorporating existing community governance structures into SATIIM, COMSTEC resulted in the creation of range of new bureaucratic positions that were designed to conform to World Bank hiring policies and criteria. As stated in a 2004 review of COMSTEC, all job descriptions and personal profiles were prepared and approved by the World Bank Task Management Team, and advertised in national newspapers and circulated via the internet (SATIIM 2004). Thus, the technical staff of SATIIM was comprised of a number of hierarchical and bureaucratic positions that were filled according to a set of employment policies and pre-defined job-related criteria Procuring the services of technical personnel is carried out in accordance with SATIIM s employment policies. These policies include considering qualified staff within SATIIM, advertising vacancies in local 144

155 Like most NGOs, SATIIM s organizational structure is divided between a Board of Directors (BoD) headed by a Chair and Vice Chair, and a technical staff headed by an Executive Director. The BoD is made up of elected representatives from each of the five participating park buffer communities (Barranco, Conejo, Crique Sarco, Midway, and Sunday Wood), as well representatives from the Toledo Alcaldes Association, the Q eqchi Council of Belize, the National Garifuna Council, and the Forest Department. 52 Village representatives on the BoD are elected for two-year terms at General Gatherings that are held bi-annually. newspapers, screening applicants, interviewing a short list of qualified staff or applicants and selecting the best applicant based on pre-defined job-related criteria. Remuneration is awarded proportionate to qualifications and experience (SATIIM 2002a:69). 52 This structure ensures that the five buffer communities have a voting majority on the Board. 145

156 Figure 5: Organizational Structure of SATIIM General Gathering Board of Directors Executive Director Administrative Assistant Technical Coordinator Finance OfGicer EcoLogic Program OfGicer for Belize Environmental Education OfGicer GIS Technician/ Data Analyst Park Manager Community Promoters Park Rangers Para- Biologists While the make-up of the technical staff changed over time, during the period of my fieldwork ( ) it included a full-time office staff that worked out of an office in Punta Gorda, the Direct Capital. The office staff included an Executive Director, Park Manager, Project Coordinator, Finance Officer, Environmental Education Officer, GIS Specialist, and an Administrative Assistant. While several of these positions were filled by Q eqchi individuals including the Executive Director, Education Officer and GIS specialist none were from park buffer communities. Instead, all of SATIIM s permanent office SATIIM were from either Punta Gorda or nearby villages where people 146

157 had much greater access to the secondary and post-secondary education opportunities needed to fulfill World Bank mandated job requirements. In addition, the technical staff included a number of village-based positions, including park rangers (responsible for enforcing park regulations), para-biologists (responsible for monitoring biodiversity) and community promoters (responsible for promoting SATIIM and environmental awareness in buffer communities). In early conceptualizations of the COMSTEC project, the areas of park regulation and enforcement were consistently envisioned as opportunities to integrate Q eqchi systems of traditional governance into biodiversity conservation. Early planning documents and publications (e.g. Caddy et al. 2000) proposed, for example, that the standardized and bureaucratic structure of SATIIM could be augmented by appointing village alcades as park rangers responsible for enforcing park rules and regulations. 53 As Caddy et al. (2000:56) state, the project intends to strengthen indigenous communal authority structures by giving Alcaldes the primary responsibility for enforcing park regulations within their respective villages, a move which should also help ensure greater compliance on the part of local indigenous communities with park regulations. Moreover, as stated in the proposal for the COMSTEC project: The role of warden is taken as being complementary with the conventional role of alcaldes and allows for an efficient means of information flow between SATIIM and community members. It is also in conformity with the principles of 53 The attempt by project planners to enroll village alcaldes as park wardens responsible for enforcing park regulations is strikingly similar to the earlier colonial projects of indirect rule through which alcaldes were tasked by colonial administrators with preventing their fellow villagers from burning mahogany [as discussed in chapter 2]. 147

158 indigenous management. [SATIIM 2002a: 62]. Here, it is worth noting similarities between this proposal to enlist village alcaldes to enforce park rules, and colonial efforts to use alcaldes to discipline Maya communities, particularly in relation to their use of forest resources (see Chapter 2). In practice, however, rather than integrating pre-existing systems of village governance, authority, knowledge and expertise into the structure of SATIIM by incorporating alcades or respected elders the institution of SATIIM s village based staff positions (as well a Board members) ultimately resulting in the creation of several new bureaucratic positions that required specialized training and expertise. By 2004, for example, the position of park ranger had been dramatically re-conceptualized. Rangers were no longer envisioned as traditional alcaldes, but as a key component of a new regime of park security. As stated in the STNP management plan, Applicants will have law enforcement and or military experience and familiarity with the area. A predisposition to living and working in remote settings and an appreciation for conservation work are also preferred qualities. In addition to the qualifications: Rangers will be required to patrol the protected area, fight fires, accompany the national security forces on patrol, maintain the property lines, make and install signs along boundary lines, assist researchers and liaise with the communities. Boundary checks will constitute the bulk of patrol duties with special emphasis on known hot spots. SATIIM should use its best endeavors to get the members of the ranger team trained and commissioned as special constables. An ongoing 148

159 record of protection work should be compiled by this body. (SATIIM 2004: 19) The rangers also received basic first aid and CPR training from the Belize Red Cross Society, jungle survivor training, map reading, GPS use, data entry, data management and conflict resolution skills. Training was arranged with park management staff of Programme for Belize at the Hillbank Field Station, near Orange Walk in northern Belize for 5 days (SATIIM 2004: 20). The disconnect between the policy of hiring village alcaldes as park rangers, and the actual practice of hiring villagers with police and military training is reflective of the fact that in the context of conservation and development, project practices are shaped less by formal policy goals, and more by organizational and system goals that revolve around efficiency, cost effectiveness, and the preservation of rules and administrative systems (Mosse 2004:653). In this case, the office of alcalde is fundamentally incompatible with the bureaucratic position of park ranger. One of the primary incompatibilities is fact that alcaldes are elected to serve two-year terms, and are expected to enforce customary norms, not national park regulations. Hiring alcaldes as rangers would therefore have required SATIIM to undertake a costly and time-consuming training and certification process for rangers every two years. In the end, SATIIM s village based staff positions, as well a positions on the Board of Directors, tended to be filled by younger Q eqchi men who had received secondary school education or some other form of specialized training, such as military or police service, biological 149

160 monitoring, or tour guide training. 54 Rendering the Socio- Nature of the STNP Visible Another of the highest priorities of the COMSTEC project was the implementation of a baseline data collection program that would render the STNP and its surrounding communities visible, as well as facilitate the development of the STNP management plan and future educational programming for communities and visitors to the park. Accordingly SATIIM commissioned several studies and hired a number of expert consultants, including geologists, social scientists, regional planners, and biologists to work along with community members from the STNP s buffer zone to conduct a rapid ecological assessment of the STNP (Meerman 2003), a hydrology study (Morgan 2003), a geological and soil assessment (Holland 2003), socio-economic analysis and GIS mapping of park buffer communities (Cayetano et al. 2003), a study of traditional ecological knowledge (Grandia 2004) and an assessment of the ecotourism potential of the park (Iandi Consultants 2005). Additional funding was also secured from Conservation International to map village boundaries as part of the park s buffer zone management plan. According to planners, the participatory nature of the studies ensured that traditional ecological knowledge was embedded in the research process from the outset, helped determine the management system for the Park, and engendered a strong sense of local ownership (Caddy 2006:15). 55 Here it is essential to recall (as noted 54 Many villagers themselves perceived volunteer and paid conservation-related positions with SATIIM as appropriate positions for young people with specialized training (and few other opportunities in the village to utilize their training) rather than positions appropriate for village leaders or elders. 55 As will be discussed more in the next chapter, community participation in COMSTEC did not just augment the data gathering process and the quality of data generated, but served as a neoliberal technology of government that worked to shape subjectivities. In this respect, participation in COMSTEC served as an economic incentive to support conservation as villagers were paid to participate in various studies. In 150

161 above) that studies and surveys such as these are not simply neutral and objective means of making communities and environments legible, but technologies of government that facilitate the (re)construction of the very realities they represent. Indeed, as Rose (1999:176) asserts, technologies of visualization do not simply render pre-existing communities and environments visible to planners, but work to constitute a reality whose vectors and forces can be mobilized, enrolled, deployed in novel programmes and techniques (Rose 1999:176; see also Li 2007a:232). In this respect, the following studies did not simply render the park and surrounding communities legible to authorities of various kinds, but served as key technologies in the re-shaping of socio-ecology of the STNP region. The Rapid Ecological Assessment One of the primary studies carried out in order to render the socio-ecology of the STNP legible to project planners was the Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) (Meerman 2003). The REA was lead by a group of three experts, including conservation biologist Jan Meerman (the principle investigator and one of the leading environmental consultants in Belize), Augustin Howe, a tree identification specialist with extensive taxonomic knowledge, and Peter Herrera, a tour guide with professional ornithological training from the Wisconsin based organization Birds without Borders (Meerman 2003: 7). In addition to the team of experts, the REA relied heavily on local villagers in the data collection process. In total, 19 villagers from the five buffer zone communities were trained in REA methodology in order to make optimal use of local knowledge and to this way, participation served as a significant source of short-term income for many villagers and worked to institute a system of patron-client relations between SATIIM and buffer communities. 151

162 assure that this knowledge can be translated to biological monitoring and ecosystem management (Meerman 2003:7). The aim of the REA was make to ecology of the STNP visible and legible to project planners and future park managers. As one of Belize s most remote protected areas, the ecology of the area was not well documented or understood by state officials. Indeed, no systematic study of the region s ecology had ever been carried out before the park was created, and its designation as a National Park was based on a popular assumption that the region contained large and unique stands of mangroves. As Meerman et al. (2003) explain: The common perception of the park s importance is that the park has important stands of red mangrove forest. However, this perception was not based on actual data. Previous to this document, no specific species lists for flora and fauna existed, and even the local residents were uncertain about the full variety of wildlife that may occur in the park. Significantly, Meerman et al. (2003:4) emphasized that the REA for the STNP was unique in the way in aimed to document not just the park s ecology, but the socioecology of the region: The Sarstoon Temash National Park REA is different from a normal REA in the fact that the information collected needed to be socially applicable. While the data collected will be as broad as possible, there is a need for information that is 152

163 relevant to the residents living near the protected area. A link had to be created between science and livelihood. One consequence of this approach is that the REA was not restricted to the protected area itself. The entire region is the milieu of the indigenous people that do not necessarily recognize any park boundaries. Thus, the REA assessed not just the park, but included a four-mile buffer-zone around it. Based on satellite imagery, the team made a preliminary assessment of the various vegetation types and ecosystems present in and around the park boundaries. In order to confirm the accuracy of this assessment, the main ecosystems identified were visited and standardized vegetation transects were established in order to assess the diversity and quantity of species in each area on the ground. This data was then used to construct a map depicting the various ecosystems in and around the park (see Figure 6 below), as well as detailed descriptions of each ecosystem (Meerman 2003:4). This information would play a key role in shaping the management plan for the park, particularly in terms of zoning the park for different types of uses. 153

164 Figure 6: Map of Transects for Rapid Ecological Assessment Source: (Meerman 2003:15). 154

165 Figure 7: Ecosystems of the Sarstoon-Temash Region Source: Meerman (2003) In terms of results, the REA concluded that the biodiversity of the Sarstoon 155

166 Temash National Park was average or slightly above average compared to other similar lowland sites in Belize (Meerman 2003: 71). The most important finding of the study, however, was the discovery that the belief that Sarstoon Temash region was unique for its large stands of Mangroves was a misconception. Indeed, the study found that while there were healthy stands of mangroves in the park, they were not particularly large or unique. Instead, the REA found that the most unique aspect of the Sarstoon Temash National Park was the existence of a several ecosystems that were not represented in other protected areas in Belize (Meerman 2003:22) and the identification of a large ecosystem in the heart of the park the Tropical Evergreen Lowland Peat Shrubland with Sphagnum ecosystem that was previously unidentified, and the only ecosystem of its kind in Central America. As the report states: The landscape consisted of low, dense, but open canopied scrubland with a dense understory of sedges (Hypolytrum longifolium?), all of this growing on a bog of Sphagnum moss (probably Sphagnum subsecundum). Sphagnum moss is rare in Belize and restricted to higher elevations such as Victoria Peak and the Mountain Pine Ridge. Finding it in Belize at sea-level in these quantities was nothing less but astounding. While much of the REA was oriented to identifying the various types and status of ecosystems in and around the STNP, another goal of the REA was to understand the links between human and natural populations, for the data collected to be relevant to the residents living near the protected area and to highlight links between science and 156

167 livelihood (Meerman 2003:4). Curiously, however, the only sections of the REA that explores the relation of local communities to the park are the sections titled threats and touristic potential. In this sense, despite finding that the biodiversity of park was average or slightly above average, the REA report paints a picture of local people destroying their environment due to uncontrolled population growth and unsustainable and un-regulated resource use. In the section titled threats, for example, the report specifically identifies carrying capacity, a lack of local management, and loss of cultural values as causing unsustainable resource use and loss of biodiversity. As Meerman (2003:61) states: Today, with a burgeoning population that doubles every years, and nowhere left to go; people are forced to stay where they are and, without management techniques in place, slowly but inevitably deplete their environment. In terms of hunting, for example, the report states: An additional problem with hunting is carrying capacity. Hunting is sustainable when the number of hunters is low, and when the hunters migrate to fresh hunting grounds on a frequent basis. In the project area, we are dealing with a fairly large (and probably rapidly increasing), sedentary population. Wildlife has no chances here. (Meerman 2003:61) The report goes on to claim that: 157

168 All the evidence throughout the project area, low mammal counts, species disappearing from the list of available prey species (White-lipped Peccary), Jaguars entering villages etc., all point to a gradually disappearing wildlife base. And the conclusion must be that hunting in its current levels is not sustainable and will inevitably lead to local extinction of many of the more desirable species. (Meerman 2003:61). The reference to hunting and carrying capacity is curious for several reasons, not the least of which is that according to the 2000 census, Belize had one of the lowest population densities in the world (ranked 215 th at 14.1 persons/km 2 ), and the Toledo District had the lowest population density in the country (5.3 persons/km 2 ). With approximately 1000 people living in the five buffer zone villages bordering the park, and a land area of about 42,000 acres (166 km 2), the population density of the STNP region is about 6 persons/km Moreover, although the REA cites low mammal counts as indicating unsustainable hunting levels, it is important to note that the REA did not systematically focus on assessing mammal populations. In fact, the report states that given the number of methodologies needed to accurately assess mammal populations, (such as live traps and camera traps), and that the fact that it often takes several years to get meaningful data, mammals were only assessed on an opportunistic basis (Meerman 2003). Thus, even though mammal populations were not systematically assessed as part of the REA, low mammal counts were used as evidence to claim that 56 Even if the all 13 of the primary villages in southern Toledo were included in the population figure (total population 2439), the population density for the STNP and its immediate buffer zone would still be just 14.6 persons/km

169 Maya hunting practices were unsustainable. 57 Finally, in reference to the threat of fire, Meerman (2003: 64) states that more than anything, slash and burn agriculture has to be seen as the main culprit for fires in lowland broadleaf forests. The report goes further, however, by claiming that in general the subsistence farmer has little consideration for the well being of the forest and most farmers do not take escaped milpa fires seriously (Meerman 2003:64). Indeed, the report, ultimately suggests that the resources of the park are being destroyed due to the cultural corruption of the region s indigenous people: Seeing that the wildlife resources (and other natural resources, see the following chapters) are not being used sustainably, the question may rise, why is it that the indigenous people here have apparently abandoned their values of the forest? (Meerman 2003:61). In answering this question, the report claims the indigenous people of Toledo have abandoned their values of the forest as the result of socioeconomic changes, both in their own culture and in the world around them and goes on to assert that there is no way back but to develop and implement new values, if the natural resources of the Sarstoon Temash Area are to be preserved (Meerman 2003:61). Thus despite the REA not focusing on indigenous cultures or management practices, and the expert consultants having little expertise in this area, the report definitively asserts that the communities in the buffer zone have lost their values of the forest and highlighted the need to 57 Several comments in the REA report would seem to suggest that low mammal counts may have been related to the ecosystems of the park such as the sphagnum bog which are not favourable to mammals, rather than to hunting. 159

170 implement new values. The Socio-Economic Assessment In addition to the REA, and study of TEK, the Socio-Economic Assessment of the Sarstoon Temash Region aimed to document in detail the socio-economic conditions of the STNP buffer zone communities, as well as land and resource use patterns in and around the park. Expected outcomes of the study included: Publication of a detailed traditional/cultural land use map for the region and its cultural sub-groups, use and occupancy trends. Detailed use of the different non-timber forest products used by each community (and culture), the uses of those products, spatial location, approximate abundance, and frequency of use. Quantitative analysis of land and resource use patterns, spatial extent, and frequency. Report on how communities currently generate their livelihood, options of income generating activities, feasibility and market accessibility assessment of alternatives. 160

171 Production of a detailed report on the outcomes of the consultancy, which should entail a full qualitative/quantitative description of the socio-economic conditions of the region, and the resolution/investment required from SATIIM and/or COMSTEC. In doing this, the assessment was made up of three components; 1) a study of key socioeconomic indicators of the Sarstoon Temash Region, 2) a head of household survey that was carried out in the Sarstoon Temash region; 2) a set of detailed GIS maps of settlement and land-use patterns in the Sarstoon Temash region. Together these three studies were used to compile a final report synthesizing the results of the assessment (Cayetano et al. 2003). The methodology for this study included a literature review, GIS mapping, household surveys, observation, focus groups, and consulting relevant experts. Much of the mapping and survey work was done by community members who were trained in GIS mapping and survey techniques. In sum, the reports examined numerous issues, including demographics, transportation, trade networks, employment and income, access to credit, education, use of forest products, food security and nutrition, water and sanitation, health care and family planning, and land tenure. In other words, the aim of the socio-economic assessment was to provide a picture of development in the STNP region. A 2004 mid-term review of COMSTEC, for example, states that it states that the socio-economic study gave a clear understanding of the social and economic baseline in each of the buffer zone communities and is the basis for designing additional programmatic initiatives and interventions. The document goes on to explain that such data provides an ability to monitor village level statistics 161

172 and demographics, development of enterprises at the village level, social infrastructure and services and is the basis for measuring life improvements. In sum, the socio-economic study paints a picture of the region as isolated, and Maya communities as small, subsistence based social units, with few prospects of development. As stated in the report: Not many industries operate in Toledo, the district with the smallest population in the country. Jobs are scarce so the majority of the population has to be self employed. The primary activities revolve around subsistence use of forest resources with milpa farming being a primary activity for most households. For various reasons the majority of the villages have very small populations. Most have less than four hundred people. The population of the villages fluctuate and community development planning is nonexistent. Economic opportunities are limited, and the communities are not completely integration into the cash economy. (Cayetano et al. 2003). 162

173 Figure 8: Conejo Village Land-Use Map Source: SATIIM Traditional Ecological Knowledge The study of Q eqchi traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) conducted by Grandia (2004) presents a marked contrast to the REA in both methodology and findings. Based on 32 days of intensive ethnographic fieldwork with 44 elders (22 women and 22 men), the study produced a largely qualitative and descriptive account of the wealth of Q eqchi ecological knowledge and systems of natural resource management. Outcomes included a formal report the Wealth Report (Grandia 2004), a storybook, a recipe book, and digital video recording of bush-related skills. Rather than presenting villagers 163

174 as a threat to the environment, the study concluded that the protection of the biodiversity of the STNP was connected to the preservation of its cultural diversity: For years the Q eqchi people of Toledo have survived largely outside the cash economy of Belize, utilizing their traditional knowledge and forest resources for subsistence production. Interestingly, when the Q eqchi people talk about their traditional knowledge they describe it as naleb' meaning learning, culture, and experience. They describe the source of this knowledge or naleb with forest imagery; saying it comes from their ancestors, qa xe' qa toon literally our roots, our trunk. Thus, we can see Q eqchi traditional knowledge as truly being from, of and for the forest. This knowledge, in turn, enriches appreciation for the conservation of biological diversity. Cultural diversity and biological diversity go hand in hand. (Grandia 2004:1) In framing the Wealth Report in these terms, Grandia translates traditional ecological knowledge and customary land use practices through a green lens (Berkes et al. 2000; Zerner 1994) in a way that emphasizes its social and ecological benefits. In contrast to the REA, which described slash and burn agriculture as environmentally destructive, and Q eqchi people having lost their values of the forest, the study of Q eqchi TEK asserts the opposite. Grandia, for instance, notes that at low population densities and used primarily for subsistence, many experts have concluded that the Q'eqchi communal milpa system is well adapted to Toledo's poor tropical soils 164

175 (2004: 17). Moreover, rather than having lost their values, Grandia explains that subsistence corn production is central to the Q eqchi worldview and way of life: Perhaps the most fundamental thing to understand about milpa agriculture is that it is not merely a mode of production but an entire way of life (Osborn 1982). In traditional Q'eqchi' villages, the milpa cycle confirms and reaffirms religious holidays, kinship and friendships, and really the whole human lifecycle. Corn is sacred and, above all, one must observe the correct customs for planting corn. (Grandia 2004:21) Indeed, much of the Wealth Report is dedicated to describing in intimate detail the customary beliefs and practices connected to the Q eqchi milpa system. The main thrust of the report is that Q eqchi resource use is systematic and that it has both ecological and social benefits: Some high ranking political leaders in Belize have demonstrated their misunderstanding of the communal Maya land system in Belize to the point of calling it communism. Quite to the contrary, an individual Maya farmer works his own land, but it is part of a customary or community system. The basis for customary land management is a concept of usufruct rights that is, the person who uses the land has a right to control it. He or she may recruit group labor, but ultimately the land and the crops are his/hers. If someone clears a piece of forest, other members of the community will respect that land as his/hers even as it lays 165

176 fallow. That allows people to rotate their crops every five to seven years so that the soil will be aerated and nutrients restored by the forest regrowth. As swidden farmers, the Q'eqchi' use fire to kill weeds and release nutrients into the soil for the first or wet-season milpa (k'at k'al). While it is true that fires can get out of hand and can cause ecological catastrophe Toledo farmers seem to use fires responsibly. This practice provides an ecological benefit because it kills milpa weeds without the need to use environmentally harmful herbicides. Thus, despite popular misconceptions about slash-and-burn agriculture, rotating crop land is not inherently bad and, at low population densities, can be environmentally beneficial. (Grandia 2004:17-18) In terms of social outcomes, Grandia asserts that: The milpa system also promotes equitable social and economic relations in villages. The amount of land a Q'eqchi' farmer can plant is regulated by the amount of labor he can recruit for planting rather than by the amount of land he controls. If someone is unable to plant (due to illness or being widowed or elderly), the community will clear and plant a small farm on that person's behalf. Emphasis is on equity and ensuring that everyone in the community is able to plant what they need. In the rare case of any disputes, it is the role of the alcalde to mediate. (Grandia 2004:17) 166

177 In addition to describing the Q eqchi system of milpa farming, the report also describes in detail customs and norms in the areas of religion and worldview, hunting, fishing collection and use of medicinal plants, use of ritual forest-based materials (such as copal incense and cacao), firewood, house building, crafts, animal husbandry, food processing and cooking, domestic life and childcare. In its conclusion, the report suggests that: If the management of the park is to be built upon traditional knowledge, then it must be led by the elders, and as such, a mechanism must be established by which the elders can lead the process. It must go beyond rhetorical acknowledgement of the respect due to elders for their experience and actually demonstrate that respect by trusting the elders with decisions and creating a context in which they can provide leadership. (Grandia 2004:70) The STNP Management Plan By late 2004, an external consultant had drafted a management plan for the STNP (Herrera 2004), and the plan had been reviewed and approved by SATIIM s board of directors. According to the official co-management agreement for the park, the STNP management plan was required to conform to national protected areas legislation, most notably the rules and regulations outlined in the National Parks Systems Act (NPSA) of 1981 (Chapter 215, Laws of Belize, Revised Edition, 2000). As outlined in the NPSA, the 167

178 purpose of a National Park is the protection and preservation of natural and scenic values of national significance within which permissible activities include scientific study, education and maintenance of genetic resources as well as tourism and recreation (Herrera 2004:30). Accordingly, the STNP management plan stated that the primary management objective of the park and its buffer zone region should be the protection of the region s biodiversity. This must remain as the highest management priority and all actions contemplated now and in the future must be measured against this standard (Herrera 2004: 6). At the same time, however, the management plan openly acknowledged that surrounding communities were using and extracting resources from the area, both prior to and following its designation as a protected area. As a result, the plan noted that: management has to decide whether to confront them openly (and risk losing community support) or accommodate them under a structured management program (Herrera 2004:38). Thus, the plan states that because of the sensitivity of the issue [resource use in the park] and the historical claims of the indigenous population, a compromise has had to be struck between strict conservation which is not practical at this point and the resource demands of the communities (Herrera 2004:4). In working to balance the goal of biodiversity conservation with the land use practices of surrounding communities, the STNP management proposed a compromise between conservation and community use of park resources. Elaborating on this, the plan states: Biodiversity conservation and support of community livelihoods are potentially conflicting land use demands on the park. Management finds it must deviate from 168

179 the ideals of park management as laid down under the National Parks Systems Act as a compromise to maintain community support. Without community support it is highly unlikely that management will be able to achieve any of its management objectives. Buffer zone communities are traditional users of resources and have historical claim to use of the area before the establishment of the park. This creates a moral dimension that cannot be easily legislated. The main issue is the delicate balancing act along the gray area of accommodating community interest while still managing for biodiversity. (Herrera 2004:39) In working to achieve this delicate balance, the STNP management plan articulated the following vision statement: To undertake the sustainable management of the natural resources and other environmental attributes of the Sarstoon Temash National Park, so as to ensure their long-term viability and continued contribution to the development of Belize and to a high quality of life for the indigenous people of the Sarstoon-Temash region. (Herrera 2004:44). This vision statement, in turn, was translated into five primary objectives (Herrera 2004:45-49): 1. To protect the physical resources and biological processes within the STNP. 169

180 2. To protect the natural flora and fauna of the STNP. 3. To foster community cooperation and participation to derive tangible benefits from the management of the park for the local communities. 4. To promote the ecological integrity of the regional watershed and offshore waters 5. To provide adequate income generation schemes for the management of the STNP In practical terms, the compromise devised by planners to balance conservation and community livelihoods in and around the STNP was based on the development of a unique zoning system for the park. Derived largely from the identification of ecosystems and land-use practices through various baseline studies, the zoning plan divided the territory of the STNP into four discreet eco-zones a Conservation Zone, a Unique Values Zone, a Multiple Use Zone, and a Traditional (Indigenous) Use Zone each with a unique set of rules and regulations. 58 The largest zone in the park, the Conservation Zone, was an area that most closely conformed to the regulations set out in national parks legislation. In this respect, the zone allowed for the conservation of biological diversity, education, research and other non-extractive purposes such as eco-tourism. Accordingly, the plan notes that since biodiversity conservation is the primary objective of the park, the Conservation Zone should be kept as large as possible to maintain the greatest sizes and number of viable habitats. The Unique Value Zone, on the other hand, was designed 58 This zoning system deviated from the National Parks Systems Act by creating zones that were both more lenient (Multiple Use and Traditional Use Zones) and more restrictive (Unique Value Zone) than permitted under national protected areas legislation. As the plan states, such deviation was necessary to adequately address the range of ecosystems and the many social and economic pressures that bear down on them (Herrera 2004: 51). 170

181 to protect a single ecosystem, the Tropical Evergreen Lowland Peat Shrubland with Sphagnum ecosystem an ecosystem unique both to Belize and the rest of Central America. Unlike the other zones, activity in this zone was more restricted than in other parks, and was limited to education and research purposes only with entry restricted to researchers and park employees. In contrast to the Conservation and Unique Value Zones, which largely conformed to the protected area legislation, the Multiple Use and Traditional use Zones allowed for extractive activities defined as illegal in National Parks. The Multiple Use Zone, for example, allowed for activities such as the controlled extraction of certain resources identified with traditional use. Regulations for the zone further stipulated that extraction of materials was limited to subsistence use by permanent residents of park buffer communities, and could not be for sale, profit, or to provide for commercial enterprises or developments outside the buffer zone area (Herrera 2004: 53). The Traditional Use Zone was similar to the Multiple Use area, but was further restricted to access and use of resources for spiritual and/or medicinal purposes. In order to regulate and monitor use and extractive activities in these zones, a permitting system was developed based on a negotiated list of approved species that could be used and/or extracted. While COMSTEC studies of resource use around the park identified over 300 species used by the communities (Grandia 2004), the list of approved species for extraction in the Multiple Use Zone was restricted to just 33 species (5 fish species, 6 medicinal plants, and 22 plant species used primarily as building materials). 59 In addition, prior to any extraction taking place, several approval forms had to be filled out identifying the resource to be used/extracted, and signed off on by SATIIM, Forest 59 The extraction species list was negotiated by SATIIM and Forest Department officials. 171

182 Department officials, and village alcaldes. In practice then, rather than simply incorporating traditional knowledge and systems of traditional resource use into the STNP management plan, this system (at least on paper) represented a significant bureaucratization of local resource use, and gave NGO and state officials, as well as village alcaldes, much greater knowledge of and control over resources in the STNP. 172

183 Figure 9: Park Zoning Plan Source SATIIM However, despite these compromises and agreements forged at the local level, the management plan prepared and presented to the Forest Department for review in early 2005 was summarily rejected, specifically because of the proposed indigenous extraction system. In the Forest Department s opinion, the entity responsible for overseeing all terrestrial protected areas in Belize, any type of extraction from a National Park, however 173

184 culturally justified or well-managed, simply contravened the laws of Belize. Indeed, the National Parks System Act states that Parks can only be entered for the purposes of recreation, education or scientific research, with visitors prohibited from disturbing the fauna and flora, or damaging, collecting or destroying plants. What SATIIM was therefore proposing constituted a radical and in their view, illegal departure from national parks legislation. With the Forest Department refusing to endorse the plan, it therefore appeared that the management of the STNP by an indigenous NGO was not in any significant way assisting local communities to safeguard even a compromised version of their traditional livelihood systems. It also appeared that despite indigenous communities participation in the process of data collection which had informed the management recommendations, their input was nevertheless not being allowed to alter the standard conservation oriented management framework for protected areas in Belize. This rejection threatened to undermine any sense of ownership or engagement in the process which involvement in research and management had generated. SATIIM as the Park s managing entity was in effect being forced to act as watchdog over the area, without the ability to provide any commensurate benefits to local communities that responded to their traditional practices or livelihood needs (Caddy 2006:16). Faced with the opposition of the Forest Department s technical conservation staff, who were insisting that the plan fit national legal standards, the Q eqchi Maya Executive Director (ED) of SATIIM, who was also the spokesperson for the Maya Leaders Alliance and a recognized leader in the struggle for indigenous land rights, went directly to the top echelons of Government for support. It is a fair assumption that the Government, embroiled in parallel indigenous land rights negotiations headed by the same individual, 174

185 encompassing the entire region of the District, believed that by conceding the indigenous and multiple use zones request, negotiations with the Maya Leaders might indirectly be improved (Caddy 2006:18). Moreover, while the principle of indigenous rights to use traditional resources within the park might not appeal, the community livelihood benefits that they could provide did, in demonstrating protected areas ability to address local developmental needs. As such, the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, using his extensive power of discretion over protected areas, overturned the Forest Department s decision, and gave his support to the management plan and zoning scheme. On June 22nd 2005, what was billed as a controversial and unprecedented management plan for the STNP was signed, providing the first instance of traditional extraction of forest resources being allowed within the boundaries of a national park. This important precedent was presented as a major step towards sustainable co-management of the STNP, and in reconciling the needs of indigenous peoples and environmental conservation in Southern Belize overall (Caddy 2006:18). As the Minister of Natural Resources stated: Indeed today it is a historic day because for the very first time we're signing a management plan that has been well thought out and it has been thought out not only by the technical people, not only by foreigners, or by the World Bank who is helping with the project, but it is being driven by the 5 communities that live and depend around the Sarstoon Temash National Park. Similarly, SATIIM s executive Director, Greg Ch oc, exclaimed: 175

186 Today s signing presents and demonstrates that as a people, and as citizens of this country, we want to be a part of Belize, we want to participate in its development, but it has to on our terms and our capacities. They say you start to eat an elephant one bite at a time and that certainly is what we have done here and what we want to do here. Thus, in this moment of candor, Ch oc explicitly acknowledges the reality that for him, co-management was not just about protecting biodiversity, but a small part of a larger struggle (one bite of the elephant). In this case, the unnamed elephant in the room Ch oc was referring to was the longstanding struggle to secure Maya land rights. Conclusion While the Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management has certainly involved indigenous Maya villagers in the management of the STNP, the extent to which the community-based management regime for the park reflected indigenous traditions of natural resource management is extremely limited. It is significant to note, however, that although that although COMSTEC is framed as participatory and community driven initiative, both the project and the participating communities needed to be significantly altered according to the interests and logics of state and transnational organizations just to get to the point were participation was possible. In other words, before the indigenous communities bordering the STNP could be deemed capable by international funders of participating in protected area management, they needed to link their efforts to those of 176

187 external organizations, and be appropriately bureaucratized and responsibilized. 60 Thus, while the STNP and its management plan have been hailed by many as exemplars of community participation in protected area management and an effective integration of traditional and scientific knowledge, a closer look at both the COMSTEC Project reveals instead a process that could be interpreted as a process of containment : the management of community involvement in the planning process so as to minimize disruption to the primary goal of producing and completing protected area plans fundamentally oriented towards biodiversity protection (Few 2003:32-33). Such an understanding, however, significantly overlooks the agency of SATIIM staff in shaping the COMSTEC project. In this sense, it was through the politics of translation through which SATIIM staff put aside their long-standing objective of securing Maya land rights and worked to represent COMSTEC as being compatible with biodiversity conservation. Moreover, while the communities around the STNP were significantly bureaucratized through the COMSTEC project, the ultimate effects of such bureaucratization were complex and contradictory. As we will see in the following chapters, community bureaucratization did not simply serve to aid state and international actors in managing and regulating the practices of Maya villagers, but served as structures through which indigenous peoples themselves could work to govern the practices of state and corporate actors. 60 As Rose (1999: 174) notes, the neoliberal delegation of many functions and services previously carried out by the state to non-state actors involves a double movement of autonomization and responsibilization. 177

188 Chapter 5: Cultivating Environmental Subjectivities Introduction With the proliferation of community-based approaches to environmental management around the world, diverse local communities have become intimately engaged with the discourses and practices of bureaucratic and scientific biodiversity conservation. In recent years, a body of scholarship has started to examine the ways in which policies and practices of environmental governance specifically decentralized, or community-based conservation impact and relate to the diverse ways that local populations perceive, value, and relate to the natural world (Agrawal 2005; Bryant 2002; Snodgrass et al. 2008, Haggerty 2007; West 2006; Walley 2004; Nadasdy 2003; Rutherford 2007; West et al. 2006). Arun Agrawal (2005), for example, has developed a theoretical framework he calls environmentality to explore how the devolution of environmental governance from state authorities to local communities affects the way individual subjects perceive and relate to the natural world. Drawing on this body of work, this chapter explores the translation of bureaucratic conservation by and through the practices and beliefs of Q'eqchi' milpa farmers in Belize, Central America. While this research demonstrates that the devolution of environmental governance has cultivated new ways of seeing, valuing, and relating to nature among Q'eqchi' Maya villagers that participate in protected area comanagement, this new environmental subjectivity (Agrawal 2005) has not simply displaced previous and more localized ways of comprehending the non-human world. Rather, what is occurring is the creation of new layers of meaning and conception that overlap and mix, as global environmental discourses engage and articulate with more 178

189 historically and geographically situated beliefs and practices. Consequently, I examine the devolution of environmental governance as a crucible of cultural politics (Moore 1999) through which diverse discourses and practices are translated and contested ultimately resulting in the (re)shaping of landscapes, social practices, and subjectivities. Environmental Subjects and the Will to Conserve? In exploring the literature relating to perceptions of nature in the context of conservation, one significant field of scholarship has explored the relationship between local and indigenous communities and scientific biodiversity conservation as a matter of distinct and often incompatible cultural models (Bird-David and Naveh 2008; Cruickshank 2012; Escobar 1998; Fajans 1998; Ingold 2000; Mosse 1997; Nadasdy 2005, 2007; West 2006). According to this school of thought, while indigenous peoples are often stereotyped as natural conservationists possessing traditional ecological knowledge (Conklin 1997; Conklin and Graham 1995; Brosius 1997), the reality is that their beliefs and practices do not conform with those of conservation. Rather than evaluating indigenous people s actions and beliefs according to a Euro-American ideal, Nadasdy argues that such beliefs and practices need to be evaluated in their own terms. Thus, based on his work with the Kluane people in northern Canada, Nadasdy asserts that: Most Kluane people are not environmentalists. This is not because they are antienvironmentalists, but because the terms of the debate do not apply to them. First Nation people s beliefs and practices do not fit anywhere on the environmentalist spectrum, and any effort to pigeonhole them in this way has serious political consequences for them. Those who do categorize First Nation 179

190 people in this way, regardless of their intentions, end up viewing indigenous people either as rapacious despoilers of the environment, as sad failures unable to live up to the ideals of ecological nobility, or as inauthentic manipulators, cynically and opportunistically deploying environmentalist rhetoric (that they know to be false) for their own political gain. In fact, they are none of these things. They are simply people with a complex set of beliefs, practices, and values that defy standard Euro North American schemes of categorization. (Nadasdy 2005:293). Similarly, Bird-David and Naveh (2008), for example, contrast the relational epistemology of Nayaka forest-dwellers living in the Nilgiris biosphere reserve in India with the dominant environmental discourse of the Man and the Biosphere program. As Bird-David and Naveh explain, the discourse of the environment in the MAB program is conceived in utilitarian terms, and is associated with rational use, conservation, and efficient management of natural resources in the 'biosphere. The very title Man and the Biosphere constructs Man as outside the Biosphere, with which it supposedly has a relation (2008:68). The Nayaka, in contrast, are not concerned with protecting forestbeings or conserving the diversity of species in the environment (Bird-David and Naveh 2008: 70). Rather, the relational epistemology of the Nayaka is concerned with engaging particular beings, which particular Nayaka meet, at a particular time and place, in the forest, or near their homes. These particular beings are considered as co-dwellers, and in some cases including (but not only) ritual ones as relatives (Bird-David and Naveh 2008: 69). Moreover: 180

191 Engaging with forest beings whether in the forest or in the trance gathering is personal. It is embedded in, and is inseparable from, actual immediate ongoing corporeal togetherness, negotiation, and sharing. The engagement involves empathy, rather than managerial control, and it is moved by concern not for rational use as much as for sustained conviviality. (Bird-David and Naveh 2008: 69). In contrast to the approach above, an emerging literature on environmentality suggests that the way social groups perceive and relate to nature is significantly dependent on policy and government instead of being constant and immutable (Agawal 2005a:180; see also Agrawal 2005b; Braun 2000; Bryant 2002; Cepek 2011; Dressler 2014; Haggerty 2007; Medina 2010, 2015; Singh 2013; Snodgrass et al. 2008a, 2008b). As Agrawal (2005a: 226) explains, Environmentality, refers to a specific optic for analyzing how knowledges, politics, institutions, and subjectivities come to be linked together with the emergence of the environment as a domain that requires regulation and protection (Agrawal 2005a: 226). In his book Environmentality: Technologies of Government and the Making of Subjects, for example, Arun Agrawal (2005a) explores the implementation and effects of community-based forest management in the Indian region of Kumaon. In doing this, the central question Agrawal poses in Environmentality is: When and for what reason do socially situated actors come to care for, act, and think of their actions in relation to something they define as the environment? (2005a: 164). Indeed, explaining why, when, how, and in what measure people come to develop an environmentally oriented subject position is the ultimate aim of environmentality 181

192 (Agrawal 2005a:2-3). In working to answer this question, Agrawal s analysis of archival records revealed that the Kumaon Himalaya has the world s oldest surviving example of formal state-community partnerships to govern forests, but concern for the environment has not always existed in Kumaon. It has emerged and grown over time Agrawal (2005a:164). Through the emergence and influence of scientific forestry in the early part of the 20 th century, the colonial state of India reclassified approximately 80 percent of Kumaon s forest into state-controlled forest reserves (Agrawal 2005:3). The public enclosure of forests was, however, strongly resisted by Kumaoni villagers who protested state control of forests by setting fires in the reserves. In 1916, for example, around 200,000 acres were burned in hundreds of separate incidents (Agrawal 2005:3). 61 In response to rising social, political, and economic costs of centralized regulation of forests, in the early 20 th century the colonial state moved to de-centralize control of forests to local communities. In 1931, the Forest Council Rules created a legal basis for village forest councils. Subsequently, Kumaoni residents formed more than three thousand village-level forest councils that partnered with the state to regulate and manage thousands of square kilometers of forested land. Thus, the state s implementation of community-based forest management in the 1930s was seemingly effective in turning many Kumaoni residents into proponents rather than opponents of forest regulation and conservation. This conclusion was further supported by Agrawal s analysis of contemporary survey data he collected from villages throughout Kumaon, which indicated that those villages that had formed forest councils to manage community forests and villagers that 61 It is significant to note that Agrawal takes this response as an indication of a lack of concern for the environment, rather than as a historically contingent political response to villagers displacement and dispossession as a result of the colonial enclosure of forests. 182

193 participated in monitoring and enforcement of forest regulations were more likely to support forest protection than villages without forest councils or villagers that did not participate in monitoring and enforcement of forest regulations. In other words, Agrawal concludes that the de-centralization of control over forests from government bureaucracies to local communities works to create environmental subjects a term used to denote those for whom the environment constitutes a critical domain of thought and action and who see the generalized need for environmental protection in some form and whose practices and words bear the mark of this acceptance, if not personal conversion (Agrawal 2005a:18). 62 More precisely, the environment constitutes for them a conceptual category that organizes some of their thinking; it is also a domain in conscious relation to which they perform some of their actions (Agrawal 2005a:165). On a general level, Agrawal asserts that his data demonstrates clear empirical connections between government policy, institutional frameworks and regulatory techniques, and the environmental subject positions taken on by social actors. Beyond the empirical findings of his work, Agrawal (2005a:166) asserts that the theoretical implication of his research is that it shows that social practice is a more important factor in determining environmental beliefs than static interests and/or identity categories. ). Relating his concept of environmental practice to Foucault s discussion of the 62 While Agrawal does not provide an authoritative definition of the environment, he contrasts it with the concept of nature - the more threatened nature was perceived to be, and the more humans intervened to care for it, the more difficult it would be for nature to survive in a realm imagined as separate from humans. Careful calculation on the part of the state and the community transformed nature into the environment (Agrawal 2005a:66). In contrasting the managerial conception of environmental to the concept of nature, Agrawal s notion of the environment perceived by subjects in Kumaon seems to be similar to the dominant discourse of the global biodiversity network. This discourse is characterized by a utilitarian terms and rational use, an accountant-like view of a stock of items, listed and catalogued in a uniform way. Biodiversity itself is described in terms of the number and names of different flora and fauna species in the biosphere reserve, and in terms of the major types of habitats and land-cover types (Bird-David and Naveh 2008:68; see also Escobar 1998, Ingold 2000). 183

194 disciplinary power of the gaze, Agrawal proclaims: Here then is a mechanism the gaze that acts as a sorting device. Those subject to the gaze become subject to power, examples of the effect it can produce. Those who escape the gaze also escape the effects of power (2005:171). 63 For Agrawal, then, Foucault's notion of the gaze is applied as a useful sorting device that helps to explain why some people and not others become environmental subjects. For Agrawal, it is practice (participation in environmental monitoring and enforcement) that takes on the role and functions of power that Foucault ascribes to the gaze. In this respect, Power, as it is practiced...environmentalizes subjects by changing how they view the environment and their place in it (Agrawal 2005:17). Thus, practice [is] the crucial link between power and imagination (2005a:199). Practice and participation explains why some villagers come to care about the environment while others do not. Villagers that participate in environmental monitoring and enforcement become subject to power, and in turn, are transformed into environmental subjects, while those that do not participate seemingly escape power and its effects: Those who take part in allocating resources, monitoring actions in forests, and implementing sanctions are more likely to come to appreciate the fragility of the environmental resources they are trying to conserve. Those who see the environment as requiring protection are 63 It is useful to point out that this is a somewhat paradoxical application of Foucault s concept of the gaze. In Foucault s account of the Panopticon, for example, it is the prisoners subject to the gaze who internalize their own subjection, not the guards that do the gazing. In Agrawal s account, however, it is those that take on the responsibility for deploying the gaze (e.g. villagers who participate in environmental regulation) that are subject to its effects and become environmental subjects. Those that are gazed upon (e.g. regular villagers) somehow escape the disciplinary effect of gaze. This discrepancy is not explained by Agrawal. 184

195 more likely to put greater effort in their protectionist practices. Involvement in the practices of rule making and the conduct of rule enforcement becomes effective not just because of the presence of mechanisms of visibility and lines of observation. Involvement generates awareness and knowledge by confronting subjects with the effects of their actions as they undertake them (Agrawal 2005a:163). Agrawal s influential work has inspired the emergence of a field of study that have subsequently elaborated on his approach and conclusions. Snodgrass et al. (2008), for example, argue that religious specialists and healers are more like than others to become environmental subjects : Because of, in part, their greater dependence on wild resources as well as the particular identities, knowledge, and values that emerge from such a dependence religious specialists with knowledge of healing plants are more likely to share interests in common with local NGOs promoting ecodevelopment. They are thus more likely to adapt themselves to, work within, and indeed have their very consciousness penetrated by state and parastate structures of environmental regulation (Snodgrass et al. 2008: 309). On the other hand, based on research of community-based resource management in Amazonia, Cepek, a governmental project did not engender an environmental subjectivity: 185

196 Rather than adopting an external logic as their own, Cof an project workers maintain a critical consciousness of the activities, relations, instruments, and products of scientific conservation. They view their collaboration with Western institutions as part of a larger exchange with a world that values the environments that they know and inhabit. As long as they receive some portion of the politicaleconomic resources that they seek, Cof an people are more than willing to devote themselves to a form of labor that they continue to experience as burdensome and oriented to community-external rather than community internal logics and needs. (Cepek 2011: 512) What seems clear from this review, is that both of the approaches described above are characterized by problematic dichotomies. In this first instance, the dichotomy is between environmentalism and the non-modern or relational ontologies of diverse local communities. In the case of environmentality, a dichotomy is established between those who become environmental subjects and those who do not. The problem with this framing is that is that it treats environmental subjectivity as a linear spectrum that reflects one s degree of environmentalism : But environmentalism is not a simple variable that can be plotted along a mathematical axis. People are not merely more or less environmentalist. Instead, what we gloss as environmentalism is actually a complex set of overlapping, dynamic, and sometimes contradictory beliefs and practices. The 186

197 spectrum of environmentalism obscures much of this complexity because each point on the spectrum seems to indicate a single thing: one s degree of environmentalism. In reality, however, each point represents a nexus of different beliefs, values, and practices. (Nadasdy 2005: 300) In exploring how environmental discourses of community-based conservation are translated through and experienced by Q eqchi villagers living around the Sarstoon Temash National Park, this chapter draws on the insights of post-structuralist perspectives and ethnographic accounts of conservation and development. A central tenant of this approach is that recognition that identities are the result of articulations that are always historical and contingent. No identity or society can be described from a single and universal perspective (Escobar 1999:3). Indeed, from a post-structural perspective, the subject is not a static, self-bounded and rational individual, but produced by/in historical discourses and practices in a multiplicity of domains. Antiessentialist conceptions of identity highlight the fact that identities (racial, sexual, ethnic or environmental) are continually and differentially constituted partly in contexts of power rather than developing out of an unchanging and preexisting core. What matters then, is to investigate the historical constitution of subjectivity as a complexity of positions and determinations without any true and unchanging essence, always open and incomplete. As Little (2004:270) asserts, Real Maya identities are composed within a complex matrix of social, economic, and political arenas, where difference from and identification with other individuals are manifested in continually shifting ways. From 187

198 this perspective, the best that anthropologists can do is to examine those forces that make Maya subjects and contribute to Maya self-concepts of identity (Little 2004:270). Drawing on such insights, anthropological research has shown, that processes of conservation and/or development do not confront static and unchanging social groups; nor do they produce fixed, homogeneous, or unified subjects (Moore 1999:658, 2000). Instead, conservation projects should be seen as operating in, and indeed, producing dynamic social fields where competing conceptions of and relations to the natural world articulate in often unpredictable and complex ways. Donald Moore refers to this as the crucible of cultural politics through which transnational influences like discourses and practices of conservation are reworked through historically situated and sedimented actors, practices, and beliefs (Moore 1999: 656). Rather than conceiving of a single discursive formation as a fully formed system that arrives from the outside, unfolding across rural landscapes, Moore s approach suggests that historically contingent cultural politics produce development. Similarly, I argue that it is historically contingent cultural politics that produce environmental regimes (like community-based conservation) and environmental subjects (Moore 2000:659). Tiedje (2008), for example, specifically explores how conservation ideals influence indigenous Nahua views of nature, and demonstrates the cultural agency involved in the translation of globally circulating conservation ideas into a local discourse of conservation-as-sacred practice. Similarly, in her analysis of the cultural politics of conservation encounters in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Peten, Guatemala, Sundberg notes: 188

199 attention to processes of negotiation, exchange and transformation that occur in the contact zones of conservation dispels the myth that local people in Latin American sites merely react to or parrot North American conservationist discourses and practices. Marginalized groups mediate these encounters in terms of long-standing power struggles at community, regional and national levels. In Sherry Ortner s words, Pieces of reality, however much borrowed from or imposed by others, are woven together through the logic of a group s own locally and historically evolved bricolage. (Sundberg 2006: 259) Thus, while Moore s focus is on popular opposition to state-administered re-settlement, I suggest that even in cases were local people and communities consent, of their own free will, to participate in projects, that cultural politics, struggle, and conflict take place, and must be examined. In this case, rather than being manifested as overt opposition to projects or social conflict between individuals, groups, or projects, it is through the cultural politics translation through which competing and often contradictory discourses and subject positions interact, mingle, hybridize and are negotiated. Cultivating Environmental Subjects around the STNP This section explores the various technologies of government utilized by SATIIM in order to cultivate environmental subjectivity in Q eqchi villages bordering the Sarstoon Temash National Park. As acknowledged in the STNP management plan: A massive educational outreach program is required to bring the communities on board... If the communities do not understand the physical arrangement of the zones and the 189

200 underlying ecological processes which makes zoning necessary, the scheme will fail (Hererra 2004:55). Here, the ability of villagers to see and understand ecological process, and hence the need for protection, was seen as a key to the success of the project. In this sense, COMSTEC and subsequent environmental education initiatives implemented by SATIIM sought to discipline subjects through training, education and surveillance. In addition to the training of full time SATIIM staff and board members (as discussed in chapter 4), a large number of villagers participated in training and capacity building through COMSTEC and subsequent projects implemented by SATIIM. For example, 75 residents from the buffer zone were hired as field assistants for COMSTEC consultancies and were trained in a variety of basic research techniques (relative to the specific study), data collection methodologies, GPS use, and map reading. As noted in the COMSTEC Completion Report (2006), for example, the extensive training of young people in the villages has created an openness to visitors, researchers and their themes and a willing cadre of trained volunteers and part time employees to carry out biodiversity monitoring, guiding and research support. Similarly, during the Rapid Ecological Assessment of the park, community field assistants were divided into teams based on their respective villages, which allowed them to assist the expert consultants in the locations that they were most familiar with, while becoming acquainted with biological data collecting methods (Meerman 2003: 8). While dividing participating villagers into teams based on the locations they where most familiar with had benefits according to Meerman, it also had drawbacks in that it limited their opportunities to gain experience with data collection and monitoring methods. As Meerman explains: 190

201 The greatest benefit from their presence during the REA came from their expert knowledge of the area around their own community. In general, I prefer to work with a fixed team for the entire duration of an REA. That didn't happen this time, since every segment of the area had a different community and therefore a new team. Again, the benefit was mainly their knowledge of the terrain, but they themselves benefitted less than my normal teams, since they were involved only in a small segment of the REA. In many ways the initial training workshop we had was the best, because everyone was present and we had some chance to practice some basic skills together. (personal communication). Thus, a central component of local participation in the REA was the training component, which involved a group workshop in one of the park buffer villages. At the workshop, participating villagers were trained in several techniques for biodiversity monitoring, including 1) satellite imagery and interpretation, 2) use of GPS, 3) preparation and execution of a vegetation transects, 3) plant identification, 4) fish collecting, 5) butterfly collecting, 6) bird observation and 7) bird transects. In other words, the training sought to inculcate a particular way of seeing the environment, which focusing primarily on ecosystem identification and quantification of species and biodiversity. Other means employed by SATIIM to discipline environmental subjects in communities around the STNP included the promotion of environmental education 191

202 initiatives. One aspect of this involved enrolling villagers in tour guide training courses. In Belize, all guides working in the tourism industry need to be officially licensed by the Belize Tourism Board. As part of this process, prospective tour guides need to take an intensive tour guide training course. Teresa Holmes has examined the national tour guide training program in the context of governmentality and the shaping ethnic citizens in Belize. As Holmes explains, the tour guide training manual could be seen as a pedagogical tool that helps create responsible national citizens (2010: 168). In this sense, the tour guide training program provides detailed descriptions of Belizean, culture, ethnicity, and history, and instructs potential guides on the appropriate ways to interpret and perform this for tourists. The tour guide training program, however, is not only aimed at creating particular types of ethnic and national subjects, but environmental subjects as well. Indeed, reflecting the dominance of ecotourism in Belize, over one third of the tour guide training manual (119 out of 341 pages) is devoted to the topic of the natural history, which includes an introduction to the ecosystem concept, terrestrial ecosystems, marine ecosystems, and protected areas. Thus, in addition to providing detailed information about the natural environment, the guide asserts that As a tour guide, you too can practice ecotourism principles. The tour guide s role in ecotourism is two fold. The tour guide functions as both ambassador and as a steward of the environment and of our culture (Christ et al. 2001:46). Moreover, the text goes on to explain that: Conveying the message of ecotourism to visitors and communicating specific tour guidelines that prevent negative environmental and cultural impacts and support direct contribution to the local economy is only one element of the tour guide s 192

203 role in ecotourism. The tour guide s role in ecotourism also involves serving as a steward of the environment and our culture, i.e. monitoring visitor actions on the tour to ensure that they abide by the established guidelines of the tour as much as possible to prevent negative environmental and cultural impacts. (Christ et al. 2001:47). Another means of promoting environmental subjectivity was through the promotion of environmental education programs for school children. Like the tour guide training program, the curriculum stressed the dominant discourse of global environmentalism, with lessons on the topics of what is biodiversity?, Threats to the Sarstoon Temash National Park, the importance of biodiversity, the importance of trees in the environment, and endangered species, among others. Significantly, however, SATIIM s environmental education program also promoting the understanding and appreciation of Maya cultural, history and traditional ecological knowledge. As part of the program, for example students were taken to the ancient Maya city of Xunantunich in western Belize, as well as to a sacred Q eqchi cave inside the park. Finally, park resource/visitor centres were constructed near the centre of each village bordering the park. These resource centers contained information about the park in the form of biological specimens, informational posters and brochures. These centres, however, were not just places were people [e.g. Maya villagers] gazed at things, but served to cultivate particular ways of seeing (e.g. Braun 2000). While the resource centres worked to cultivate Maya villagers as ecological observers by presenting ecological information about the park and its respective zones, it they may also have 193

204 worked to cultivate decidedly Q eqchi subjects, as the centres were also locations were villagers could access Q eqchi traditional ecological knowledge that had been collected as part of COMSTEC. Indeed, during my time in the field, I regularly saw children in the parks resource centres reading a collection of traditional Q eqchi stories recorded by Liza Grandia as part of the COMSTEC TEK study. 194

205 Figure 10: Q'eqchi' Youth in Park Resource Centre Source: Author s photo 195

206 In addition to disciplinary technologies, however, SATIIM utilized neoliberal incentives to generate support for conservation. Thus, in the context of the STNP, local participation often takes the form of paid employment. Evaluations of COMSTEC highlight, for example, that the project hired village residents for many project activities, including 75 community members that worked as field assistants for the various COMSTEC expert consultancies, 80 men that helped to demarcate the boundaries of the national park, 44 Q eqchi elders that were paid to share traditional ecological knowledge, short term employment for villagers to construct five village resource centres and one ranger station, and additional short-term employment for villagers who worked as cooks and performed other labour duties. In addition to these temporary contracts, permanent employment was provided to 4 villagers hired as park rangers, 10 as parabiologists to monitor biodiversity and 5 community promoters that were hired to work with school children and promote environmental awareness. SATIIM board members also received a monthly stipend to offset the costs of travel to meetings in Punta Gorda. In sum, COMSTEC provided a significant amount of short-term employment and income in a region where opportunities for wage labour are scarce. One of the primary means of attempting to move villagers away from extractive resource use (e.g. hunting, fishing, logging, agriculture) toward the ideal of national park management, however, was the promotion of alternative livelihoods like ecotourism, which were perceived by planners as consistent with the goals of biodiversity conservation. To this end, SATIIM contracted the services of Iandi Consultants to determine the eco-tourism potential of the park and its buffering communities as a means 196

207 of providing alternative economic opportunities for residents of the area. These consultants were tasked with identifying potential ecotourism attractions in the STNP and surrounding area, conducting an analysis of market demand, and an analysis of cultural, economic and environmental impacts, and included focus groups and interviews with buffer community residents and other stakeholders (Iandi Consultants 2005). Following these studies, SATIIM implemented several projects from aimed at initiating ecotourism in and around the STNP and its buffer villages. In 2007, for example, SATIIM constructed two camping facilities in the villages of Sunday Wood and Conejo. These sites and are situated on the banks of local creeks that feed into the Temash River are comprised of wooden structures with palm thatch roofing that provides campers with a cool and dry area. Additionally, in order to facilitate more ecotourism activities in the region, canoes, kayaks, snorkeling gear, and bicycles were provided to each of the buffer communities (SATIIM 2007:8) and ten local villagers, nominated by their communities, were selected and funded to participate in Belize s official tour guide training course, organized by the Belize Tourism Board (SATIIM 2007: 10). Finally, in 2008, SATIIM constructed two new guesthouses in the villages of Conejo and Midway. The 20 feet x 20 feet wood and thatch buildings are equipped with basic necessities, have four bedrooms and can accommodate 6-8 guests at a time (SATIIM 2008: 8). 64 The Nature of Q eqchi Maya Subjectivity 64 This ecotourism project is largely modeled on the Toledo Ecotourism Association ( a network of budget-oriented guesthouses in 10 indigenous villages throughout Toledo. While the project has been widely acclaimed as a unique community-based ecotourism success story (Mowforth and Munt 1998; Edington & Edington 1997; Timothy and White 1999), Iandi Consultants (2005: 55-56) report that it generates just US$62.50 per TEA member in active villages per year and from all indications revenues and visitor levels for TEA are down, membership interest is low and professional support from volunteers is no longer there. 197

208 In April 2006, I found myself on a bus traveling from the district capital of Toledo, Punta Gorda, to the Q eqchi village of Crique Sacro. I was sitting with Mariano Acal, 65 a villager who worked for SATIIM as a park ranger. It was the middle of the dry season and the air was thick with the smoke of freshly burned milpas. As we rode along the dusty dirt road toward Crique Sarco, Mariano and I discussed his work as a park ranger and life in a rural Q eqchi village. During our conversation, Mariano explained that he had recently moved back to his home village of Crique Sarco to work for SATIIM as a park ranger after spending many years away from the village working as a police officer. At one point during our conversation, Mariano lowered his voice almost to a whisper, and said the way my people farm, slash and burning one place this year and another place the next, is not sustainable. I ve been able to get a good education so I am able to understand how slash and burn is bad for the environment. In many ways, Mariano was a perfect example of someone Arun Agrawal would define as an environmental subject someone who understands the environment and supports conservation. Moreover, in this respect, he was not alone. Over the course of my 14 months of fieldwork in and around the Sarstoon Temash National Park, I encountered many villagers who shared Mariano s sentiments. Moreover, results from a household survey in the villages of Crique Sarco and Graham Creek also seemed to indicate that participation in conservation had worked to increase support for conservation (see Table 6 below). In Crique Sarco, a village that participated in co-managing the STNP, respondents indicated that their support for the conservation of the STNP had increased significantly, from 61% who initially supported the park when 65 Note that I have replaced the names of all villagers in this section with pseudonyms in order to protect identity. 198

209 it was established, to 80% at the time of my research. In contrast, in Graham Creek, a village to the south of Crique Sarco that did not participate as a member of SATIIM, support for the national park was reported to be much lower, and had remained steady at 53% of households. 66 Table 6: Support for Conservation Village Member of Number of Number of Households Initially Support Currently Support SATIIM Households Surveyed Park Park Crique Sarco Yes 56 N = 46 N = 28 (61%) N = 37 (80%) Graham Creek No 17 N = 17 N = 9 (53%) N = 9 (53%) In addition to increasing people s support for conservation, survey data from Crique Sarco and Graham Creek indicated that participation in park management had influenced people s perceptions of forests. For example, in response to the question Are forests important?, 100 percent of respondents in Graham Creek and 98 percent of respondents in Crique Sarco answered affirmatively. When asked to describe why forests are important, however, significant differences emerged between the two villages. Respondents from Graham Creek gave only two reasons as to why forests are important for farming (70%) (e.g. potential milpa sites and fertile soil) and for collecting house building materials (41%). On the other hand, respondents from Crique Sarco were much less likely to suggest a relationship between forests and farmland, and they identified a greater number of reasons why forests were important, which included farming (22 %) 66 Similar findings were reported by Medina (2005) who studied community-based ecotourism in the village of Maya Centre and the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary in southern Belize. 199

210 and house building materials (50%), but also tourism, animal habitat, medicinal plants, regulating (cooling) the climate, and producing oxygen. This data suggests that participation in co-management may, at least in part, have contributed to a reduction in the number of villagers that associate forests with farming (which is banned in the park), and an increase in the association of forests as spaces for the collection of house building materials, for tourism and the protection of animal habitat, ecosystems, and environmental services (all concepts promoted discursively through the park's management plan). One villager who was an original SATIIM board member, spoke positively about the park s displacement of farming, logging and hunting in order to protect valuable resources: Whenever we started to protect that area, Sarstoon-Temash that is on the ground now, there are a lot of things change. There is no more cornfield there, there is no more logging, no more hunting If they didn't force us to protect that there would be no more big tree there like there is today. Because all the loggers would have done cut that mahogany, cedar, samwood that we have by the hill there. That should have done gone already. But because now they say it is protected, they are still there right now. And the cornfield that we had before are gone and it is becoming like virgin bush again. But to me, my experience to me when we are protecting that place, we are doing very good. 200

211 Another villager, Juan, explained that he supported the conservation of the park because it served to protect medicinal plants and house building materials: Why I quickly understand that protecting that area is very important is because whenever they were explaining to us, they said we will be protecting the environment. The medicinal plant is very much more important, the vines that we tie for our homes, so that we can't go and destroy them the way we wanted. We have to go and get some but we have to take care of them, the animals. What comes into my mind, if that area is not protected you won't go there and see that high bush there, it won't be there again. But if you go there now it is still a jungle, and its very nice. That is why it is important to me for that area to be protected. SATIIM is protecting that area for us, as the indigenous people. We still have access to get our house material and our medicinal plants. If that area is not protected, the medicinal plants would all be destroyed by farmers, all destroyed. Reflecting the influence of neoliberal rationality, many villagers also linked their support for the park to its potential to bring tourists to the area. A number of villagers in Crique Sarco, for example, had started carving rosewood handicrafts, and saw the park as way to increase their business. As one man stated: Oh yes that [the park] is good because it brings tourists. When we have a little bit of stuff like this [rosewood carvings] some day you will sell a little. It is good to save the animals and protect the place is good. So I agree with the park. It is good 201

212 because all tourists bring money here to Belize. I will not say that tourists bring nothing. Tourists always bring money and leave money in Belize. That s why I m glad they are protecting the place for the national park. Another group of six families in Crique Sarco, inspired by the potential opportunities of the ecotourism industry, started a private ecotourism business, Jolpec Cave Ltd, in With the aid of European investors, the group was able to secure a lease for a piece of land north of the village with a hill and cave located on it. Additionally, promotional material for Jolpec explicitly identifies the pristine nature around the STNP as a local attraction: Jolpec has been launched in 2003 by the current shareholders with the objective to promote tourism in and around the village. Due to the remoteness of Crique Sarco, the village has never been considered for tourism before, although the pristine nature around the Sarstoon-Temash National Park, the second largest of Belize is really an attraction. The company website further states that All tourism activities are based on private initiatives The Maya families are the entrepreneurs and organise their tours on their own behalf and provide a significant share of their income to the community. 67 However, while there were certainly a number of Q eqchi villagers seemingly become environmental subjects, in reality the situation was more complex. For 67 Available at: accessed Oct. 31,

213 example, not long after my initial arrival in the village of Crique Sacro, I was sitting on the steps of the national park resource center talking to Jose, a young man who had worked with SATIIM both as a para-biologist (biodiversity monitor) collecting data on biodiversity in the park, and as a research assistant for the study of traditional ecological knowledge. At the time of our meeting, we were discussing the purpose of my research in the village, and the how I should proceed with my work. I started by explaining to Jose that one of the main things I was interested in learning about in Crique Sarco was how villagers understood and thought about nature. As I explained this, a puzzled look crossed Jose s face. After a few seconds of quiet reflection, Jose replied, Nature...is that something like culture? While I initially found this response somewhat confusing, the more I came to learn about Q eqchi concepts of nature, the more it made perfect sense. After explaining to Jose that the English term nature referred collectively to plants, animals, land, water and air etc., he told me that if I wanted to learn about how Q eqchi people understood such things, I needed to learn about naleb. Naleb is a complex Q eqchi word connected to notions of learning, experience, morality and respect. According to Grandia (2004: 30), the Q eqchi term naleb translates into English as culture, knowledge and experience. Wilson (1995: 30), on the other hand, translates naleb as moral values. Reflecting a scholarly trend toward treating local knowledge as a practical, situated activity rather than a form of context-free knowledge (Escobar 1998:62), other scholars emphasize the fact that for the Q eqchi, naleb is not simply knowledge or a set of moral values, but is above all else, a way of living and being. As Kahn (2006: 67) asserts, Q eqchi morality is action-in-place, active adherence to a socialized and 203

214 moralized imaginary. In this respect, Q eqchi people practice their morality through acts of respect, and respect itself can only be interpreted as a process of doing (Kahn 2006: 67). Central to this way of living, or naleb, is the notion of respect. As Kahn explains, for the Q eqchi : respect is a relationship and an action. Respect is not an object; there is no single noun in Q eqchi that translates into respect. Rather, respect is understood as an active process as obedience, belief, labor, paying debts, and buying esteem. Respect is expressed and given meaning through relationships between people, land, deities, owners, and institutions. (Kahn 2006: 63-64) Indeed, as I went about trying to discern the meaning and significance of naleb during my fieldwork, a Q eqchi elder and educator explained that: Naleb is how you develop the wise idea, not only with what you say, but mostly in connection with what you are doing. Its like say it and do it. Its not really naleb when you are really, really smart and you do different things. It s the wisdom to connect what you see, what you hear, what you smell, what you taste, and with the respect for here and for the cosmos. It s the harmony with everything. The same elder went on to explain that the concept of naleb is: 204

215 connected with the music, with the food, with the language, with the dress, with the way of producing your food. All this is culture agri-culture. Everything is connected. And agriculture is not just clean and plant and you have a crop. It is all the processes like the respect to the living things, and when you respect the muhel [spirit], you respect the tzuultaq a [landscape], then you respect yourself. When you don t respect that means you feel like you are the one who wants to control, you are the boss. You forget the small little bugs, the little creatures that have life. That is not naleb. Naleb is to respect everything. Here is the naleb. Be intelligent, be humble, that is naleb. In this sense, the Q eqchi concept of naleb is reflective of a relational ontology (Astor-Aguilera 2010; Harrison-Buck 2015; Ingold 2000; Bird-David and Naveh 2008). As Harrison-Buck (2015:216) asserts, for the Q eqchi their relational ontology is described not as a set of values, beliefs or worldview, but as ways of living their beliefs. A key feature of relational ontologies is that the essence of a given entity is not fixed or pre-determined, but exists, or rather becomes, in the unfolding of those very relations that are set up by virtue of a being s positioning in the world, reaching out into the environment and connecting with other selves along these relational pathways (Ingold 2000: 103). In this context, a classification such as personhood, for example, is not a characteristic that is uniformly assigned to certain classes of beings (such as humans), but is an attribute of being cultivated and recognized in the context of certain situations and experiences and through the establishment of social relations. Accordingly, Wilson (1995: 21) notes that there is linguistic evidence that for the Q eqchi, 205

216 location/condition (as in the Spanish verb estar) is more significant than being/essence (the Spanish verb ser), a reality reflected in the fact that the Q eqchi language does not have a verb for being/essence, only for to be located in a place (waank) (Wilson 1995:21). Furthermore, during his research among the Q eqchi in Guatemala, Wilson didn t encounter any notion of an essence of race (e.g. the blood) that is inherited; but found widespread agreement with the idea that ethnicity is socially constructed rather than biologically determined (1995:23). Central to the production of Q eqchi subjectivities are practices relating to the production and consumption of corn. In this respect, corn production and consumption is the primary means through which Q eqchi villagers forge and maintain social relations with other people and the non-human environment. As Grandia asserts, the most fundamental thing to understand about milpa agriculture is that it is not merely a mode of production but an entire way of life. In traditional Q eqchi villages, the milpa cycle confirms and reaffirms religious holidays, kinship and friendships, and really the whole human lifecycle (2004: 21). If the seasonal round of planting and harvesting crops is the skeleton, corn is the heart, treated with a reverence and respect not given any other crop. Practices relating to the production, preparation, and consumption of corn constitute the heart of Q eqchi relational ontology, and work to not only nurture the physical bodies of Q eqchi people, but to cultivate gender roles, kinship, and Q eqchi relations to the natural environment. As Wilk (1997: 89) explains, corn production and consumption are central to the production of family, kinship and gender: To say that a woman cooks corn tortillas for a man is to say they are having sexual relations. The complementariness of male corn 206

217 production and female corn processing and cooking are both symbol and substance of marriage. Zarger (2002: ) highlights the sharp gendered distinction in tasks assigned to boys and girls in the process of socialization. In this respect, girls and boys tend to learn tasks from parents, siblings, and grandparents of the same gender, with girls learning to bake tortillas (xorok), wash clothes (puchuk), and dishes, sweep (mesubk), and prepare food, while boys learn to chop bush in preparation for milpa (k alek), cut firewood (tsibk), plant (awk), and fish (karabk). A young man s initiation into Q eqchi society comes partially through his apprenticeship to an older man in the community (sometimes his godfather) who teaches him the secrets about corn. (Wilk 1997: 89). The centrality of corn consumption to Q eqchi identity is reflected in the fact that the general Q eqchi word for food is wa, but the term also specifically denotes corn tortilla (Wilson 1995:115). Indeed, it has often been noted that for the Q eqchi, a meal without corn is not considered real food. (Baines 2012; Wilk 1997:89; Zarger 2009:165). 68 Illustrating the centrality of corn to Maya conceptions of personhood and identity in southern Belize, Kristina Baines (2012: 75) relates the following anecdote: Bascilio was often keen to emphasize an understanding, and pride, in his being part of a Maya community Pride in being Maya means embracing corn. Depending on it, making a living from it, made you nohan en wool or satisfied. Over the course of our many conversations, he spoke freely about corn from multiple perspectives: as tradition, as political activism and, most commonly, as a means to keeping the body well. He talked about how Maya bodies were different from mine, about how they needed corn to stay muk a an, to work hard. Eating 68 According to Kiche Maya mythology in the Popul Vuh, humans were literally created from corn. 207

218 corn was important, he made clear, but only part of the traditional practices, which include respecting all the abstentions and ritual practices associated with planting, harvesting and preparing corn. (Baines 2012:75) While corn production and consumption is key a key component of Q eqchi sociality and subjectivity, it is also the primary means through which Q eqchi people relate to the environment. Moreover, as Wilson (1995:21) notes, it is their relationship with the local landscape that comprises the cornerstone of Q eqchi identities. Reflecting the intimate and reciprocal relationship between Q eqchi villagers and the land, communities are regularly named after nearby geographic features, often a mountain, and surnames are usually specific to particular villages (Wilson 1995:21). Significantly, however, the Q eqchi language has no term that easily translates to, or captures the semantic meanings of nature or environment. Instead, the most important concept structuring Q eqchi perceptions of, and relations to, their surrounding landscape is the Q eqchi concept of tzuultaq a. 69 When spoken separately, the terms tzuul and taq a refer to two distinct geographic features, with tzuul translating as hill, mountain or highland and taq a meaning valley or lowland. When combined together, however, the word tzuultaq a (mountain-valley) indicates an integrated and holistic landscape (Adams and Brady 2005: 305). 70 In ordinary speech, for example, the 69 Adams (2001), Adams and Brady (2005), Brady and Prufer (2013), Prufer (2002), Shackt (1986) and Wilson (1995), identify the tzuultq'a as key feature of contemporary Q'eqchi' identity. 70 According to Brady (2003: 87) the term tzuultaq'a has counterparts in many Maya languages, suggesting that it represents a pan-maya concept. Molesky-Poz (2006:97), for example, asserts that for the Kiche Maya, the concept nature, is imagined in the duality of high and low and translates into Kiche through the term Chomb al juyub tay j (Chomb al, its alive; juyub, mountain; tay j, lowland). 208

219 term is used to refer to a geographical entity, the hill-valley. As Adams and Brady (2005: 307) explain, people talk of their experience traveling from community to community as Xo-nume chiru Tzuultaq a (We passed through these hills and valleys). It would be a mistake to understand the tzuultaq a as simply a geographic or natural entity. Rather than reflecting a nature/culture dichotomy, tzuultaq a is a more holistic concept that highlights reciprocal interconnections between the social and the natural. Thus, the idea of tzuultaq a represents the ideal social-ecological unit for the Q eqchi economy, which is a valley where corn can be planted and houses built, surrounded by wooded mountains that provide trees, rain, game, medicinal plants (Adams and Brady 2005: 305). Many villagers living around the STNP adhered to this understanding of tzuultaq a as an integrated and reciprocal socio-ecological landscape. As one Q eqchi elder explained to me: Tzuultaq a its like lovely mother land who provides us the food, the drink, all the resources the humans need. Like when they say Tzuultaq a, its not just the plains and the mountains, its what the tzuul and taq a have...and when they say that the meaning is like, the big trees clean the air and from up there the water runs and comes to the plain. And most of the people live in the plains in the lowlands of the mountains, and there is the life...in that context the meaning of tzuultaq a is to realize the life of the community. However, while the tzuultaq'a can be conceived of as a unitary entity (e.g. the sacred 209

220 landscape), tzuultaq a are simultaneously understood as multiple and distinct, as particular sacred sites across the landscape are identified as unique and individual tzuultaq a (Prufer 2002: 88; Shackt 1986:60). These sacred sites are often the focus of much Q eqchi ritual practice relating to agriculture, and the use of forest products (e.g. hunting, fishing, collecting medicinal plants and house materials etc.). While mountains and caves are most commonly identified as such sacred sites, other unique landscape features such as bluffs, cliffs, boulders, overhangs, and riverbanks may also be considered tzuultaq a and serve as potential locations for ritual activity and (Adams and Brady 2005:205). In the STNP buffer village of Crique Sarco, for example, a small rock formation in a low-lying depression outside the village was identified as a tzuultaq a. In contrast to Euro-American conceptions of landscape or environment, tzuultaq a are conceptualized as living, social beings that possess a spirit and the quality of personhood. For the Q eqchi, personhood (wiingilal) is not a fixed attribute of humans, but a quality of being attributed to entities deemed to posses muhel (shadow, strength, spirit, force) (Wilson 1995:143; Grandia 2004:31). 71 In this sense, non-human and even inanimate entities such as mountains and other geographical features, maize seeds, saints images, and houses can all be considered in certain contexts to have muhel and the quality of wiinqilal (personhood), and must therefore be considered, and related to appropriately, as social beings or other-than-human persons (Wilson 1995:53). Personhood, in this context, is not an essence, but has to do with social relations as the community bestows and acknowledges it (Astor-Aguilera 2010:230). 71 Wilson (1995: ) notes that term muhel (shadow) is often used interchangeably with musiq (spirit/breath). This view was reiterated to me by an elder in Toledo, who explained that muhel and musiq were essentially the same, but that the latter was introduced to the Q eqchi by Christian religious leaders. As he stated: leaders from the church talk much about the musiq. Its like saying spirit, the holy spirit. Too me it s a little new. I prefer the muhel. 210

221 As other-than human persons, tzuultaq a are described as having human forms, and are said to dwell in a house, often a cave, deep inside the mountain (or other geographic feature). 72 As Wilson (1995:57) Tzuultaq a are often described as appearing alternately as European (tall figures with white skin and hair and, if male, beards) or as wild Ch ol Maya. 73 Each tzuultaq a is unique and has a name, gender and a distinct personality (Wilson 1995: 54-55; Grandia 2004a: 40), 74 Male tzuultaq a are often characterized by jagged, sharp features and dramatic peaks, while female tzuultaq a have softer contours and are often associated with water. Thus, the tzuultaq a outside Crique Sarco is identified as female, and named Santa Maria Makinilha. At the same time, the gender of a given tzuultaq a is contextual and relational. Tzuultaq a are called Our Father Our Mother, regardless of gender, and are therefore simultaneously male and female. A tzuultaq'a that appears male in dreams and other encounters is feminized when crops are being planted on it by Q eqchi men, after which it returns to its masculine status (Wilson 1995:66). Only one tzuultaq a lives in each mountain, and it is refers as the owner. As Wilson (1995: ) elaborates: 72 Of note is that the Q eqchi word for cave is ochoch pek, which translates literally into English as stone house (Grandia 2004a: 39). 73 According to Wilson the description of tzuultaq a as European and Ch ol Maya is reflective of the colonial history of the Q eqchi Maya. In this sense, the Germans were the first major land owners in the Q'eqchi' homeland of Alta Verapaz during the colonial period. The Q eqchi experience of a plantation economy run by German landlords fundamentally altered the character of the tzuultaq'a. Both the tzuultaq a and the Germans are called patrones, or bosses. Since both are authority figures and owners of the land, the personas of the mountain spirits and the plantation landlords have merged to a degree (Wilson 1995:57-58). On the other hand, the Ch ol Maya were the original pre-colonial inhabitants of southern Belize, who were forcibly relocated by the Spanish into the Q eqchi territory of Alta Verapaz in Guatemala. Descriptions of tzuultaq a as Ch ol Maya therefore reflect Q eqchi conceptions of the ultraindigenous that they project onto the vanished Ch ol. The Ch ol wiinq are the Mayas, the living memory of ancient ancestors. They are what traditional Q eqchi s see themselves as once having been and, in part, still to be. Traditional identity then, is created in opposition not only to the non-indigenous but also to the super-indigenous (Wilson 1995: 84). 74 In this respect, Wilson (1995:55) notes that the tzuultaq a is distinct from the more generalized Andean conception of Pacha Mama. 211

222 Tzuultaq'a own the land and everything on its surface. They are the original owners of corn. This is part of the explanation for sacrifice: it allows access to continued use of land and corn. Mountain spirits are sometimes called aj ilol re, she/he who watches over. They are sentinels, guadians of plants, people, and forest animals, which are held in a corral inside the mountain. This is why traditionalists do not thank the hunter who brings home a kill; thanks are due only the tzuultaq'a. Wild animals are servants of the mountains and can be sent to castigate those who do not fulfill ritual obligations. As the owner of the land as well as its surrounding forest and wild animals (Wilson 1995:54), the forest is like the milpa of the Tzuultaq a and the animals are like his/her domestic animals. The tzuultaq a are thought to keep wild forest animals in their caves. As Shackt (1986:60) describes: Today the tzuultak a are believed to keep the wild animals locked up in pens inside their hills. On receiving proper offerings of copal, they let them out in the forest to become the prey of hunters. However, the animals may also be let out to trespass on a man s milpa if he has neglected the customary rituals in connection with clearing and sowing.since the tzuultaq a are the masters ( owners ) of both the land and the animals, people are completely dependent upon them for their livelihood. The masters must be appeased, both to give and not to destroy. 212

223 In accordance, Wilson (1995:57) notes that the relationship between people and the mountains is essentially reciprocal. Each must feed the other, not just consume without recompense. An elder expressed this morality in the following way: We must mayejak (sacrifice) and tz amaank (plead permission) because the mountain feels bad when we take what is his/hers. 75 Thus, in order to maintain balanced and harmonious relations with the tzuultaq a, the Q eqchi must demonstrate respect and engage in relations of reciprocity. In this sense, tzuultaq'a can be the source of prosperity and wealth as well as bringers of illness and suffering. When people have contact with a land, by walking, cutting bush, hunting, or planting milpa on it, the Tzuultaq a can be disturbed and offended. Failure to adequately respect and appease the owners of the mountains can result in their wrath. As a Q'eqchi' informant explained to me: Sometimes...like planting corn people didn t respect the tzuultaq a and just go out and plant without burning some incense or asking their names to look after what we put in the ground. So sometimes birds come and dig up the corn and we get some lashing from the tzuultaq a. Because we didn t respect him so he show us how we are treating him. Thus, it is crucial for Q'eqchi' people to continuously affirm their relationship with and respect for the tzuultaq'a in order to obtain permission to plant and use the resources of the earth (Wilson 1995:88). Significantly, to respect the tzuultaq'a (or earth) means to relate to its as a person and to involve it in reciprocal social relations In practical terms, tzuultaq a are fed through the burning of copal incense and/or candles, and the offering of b oj (a fermented corn drink) and cacao. Cooked food is accepted only in the form of pure maize, either as ground corn gruel or corn flour cooked in banana leaves (Wilson 1995:57). 76 This understanding of respect is similar to that described by Nadasdy (2003:79-113) in the context of First Nation communities in the Canadian Yukon, and is extreme different from Euro-North American notions of respecting the environment. 213

224 Because each tzuultaq a is distinct, and because personhood is a characteristic cultivated through social relations, when Q eqchi people move to a new region, they must go through the process of discovering the locations, identities and personalities of each local tzuultaq a. While this often takes place through direct engagement with the landscape, it also occurs through dreaming. Indeed, rural communities often come to know their tzuultaq a through the dreams of their elders, male or female (Wilson 1995: 57). In Crique Sarco, for example, which was founded in the early 1900s, Q eqchi settlers originally made long pilgrimages to sacred sites in Guatemala to offer sacrifices before the local tzuultaq a was discovered in the 1950s. In narrating the discovery the Crique Sarco s tzuultaq a, one elder explained: well now some old people dream. And they were told by a dream that its not far, I m not far away from the village. My name is Makinilha, Santa Maria Makinilha. That is what the old people have seen and heard in the dream. A tzuultaq a had shown itself to them in a dream. So now when they come together and they said their dream, well I saw this and this is what I m told and I m not far away and something like this. Well now the old people came together. So they gone and search until they find that little place out there and they said, well I think this is the one. Now they keep it, they open it, they clean it. Now every year whenever they do this mayejak [sacrifice] they go out there to burn their incense, their candle and everything. They heard it from far and then they came and searched around. 214

225 In sum, rather than reflecting fundamental distinctions between nature/culture, good/evil, male/female, field/, the concept of tzuultaq a is predicated on a recognition of interdependence and complimentary relationships. Indeed, Wilson asserts that the tzuultaq'a incorporates the complimentary dualities of mountain and valley, male and female, spirit and matter, singular and multiple, benevolent and vengeful, indigenous and foreign...linking the heavens and the earth (1995: 53). To this I would add that the tzuultaq a incorporates the complimentary relation between the social and the natural, milpa and forest. As Grandia attests, in contrast to a European model that separates field and forest the Q eqchi treat the two as a continuum or as integrated agrarian environments (Grandia 2012: 92). At the same time, however, it is critical to recognize that the Q eqchi concept of tzuultaq a is not timeless and unchanging legacy of the pre-colonial Maya culture, but has been fundamentally shaped by and through pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial processes of social and ecological change (Wilson 1995:58). Wilson (1995) illustrates, for example, how the tzuultaq a concept can be seen as key symbol reflecting Q eqchi experiences of colonial re-settlement, plantation labour, Catholic orthodoxy, and the Guatemalan civil war. Similarly, Abigale Adams notes, the tzuultaq a is a concept through which Q eqchi people translate and interpret their relations with the external world, and can therefore be seen as historically shaped refractions of indigenous encounters with the world capitalist system and embody not only local identity but also global process (Adams 2001: 201). In accordance, the following section will explore how Q eqchi villagers translate the meaning of, and their relations to, neoliberal conservation through the concept of tzuultaq a. 215

226 Translating Neoliberal Conservation In seeking to teach me about Q eqchi understandings of and relations to nature, Jose began by inviting me to participate in the planting of his milpa. When we arrived at the field just before sunset, Jose went to a small cross that had been placed at the centre of the field, and buried an offering to the tzuultaq a. Thus, while co-management has led Q'eqchi' villagers to relate to forests in new ways largely by cutting off a large section of land from agricultural use and enforcing a greater separation between natural forest areas and the social agricultural zone - milpa farming remains as an important source of livelihood for villagers living around the park, including villagers directly involved in comanagement through their participation with SATIIM (e.g. board members, community rangers). For example, Q eqchi villagers who had worked for SATIIM as park rangers in the communities of Midway and Conejo, and had become strong proponents of the park and its protection, continued to farm milpa and remained equally firm in their beliefs in the tzuultaq a. As of them told me, Its dangerous if you don t respect it. The forest, well they have owners. The tzuultaq a. They are the owners that live in the cave. Just the spirit, you don t see them. But they are right in there. In another instance, the figure of the tzuultaq a was invoked to subtly rebuke the practice of neoliberal conservation. Speaking of the group in Crique Sacro that had bought a piece of land with a hill/cave to use as an attraction for their ecotourism business, one elder stated: Well there is another cave near here but it was lately that they found it. Maybe twelve years ago. The people used to have use of it, but the thing is now some 216

227 people clean around it, they burn it and make a plantation around it. It was said that nobody should be allowed to go and work there because it is secret place, but people never did understand, they never mind, so they go and do whatever they feel like doing. When I asked if there was a tzuultaq a in the cave, the elder responded: I believe it because there is a cave there that they found. I went in there and we found many parts of the bones from hundreds of years. It s a big cave, but now some people I don t know how but they have one white man that wanted to own the place and they measure it [survey] so nobody can go in there, its private. But inside now it looks different because they went in there and searched all around trying to find gold, jade they have all the inside turned up Just two days ago Ernesto tell me he hear a roaster crow there. That s what he tell me. One time he was peeling his corn there early in the morning and he hear a rooster crow, and turkeys to. I think there is a doorway there but it can t be shown to us. The tzuultaq a is there. In this case, the reference to the tzuultaq a is deployed as a localized critique of ecotourism and privatized land ownership, and reflects the way in which Q eqchi use discourses of tzuultaq a to contest the discourses and practices of outsiders. In her article, You Cannot Measure a Tzuultaq a : Cultural Politics at the Limits of Liberal Legibility, Megan Ybarra (2013) illustrates how Q eqchi Maya activists deploy the 217

228 concept of the tzuultaq a to contests the discourse and practices of neoliberal governance. As Wilson elaborates: Communities, through their idiosyncratic rituals, are saying, These are our mountains, with whom we have had a moral collective relationship over the centuries. They belong to us and our ancestors before us even though in the official registry the land may belong to another community, or a Ladino, or the Ladino government. Q'eqchi' communities have met with continuous obstruction to obtaining land rights through legal processes, which leads to an elaboration of those rights in the realm of indigenous religion, the most autonomous and clandestine social activity. (Wilson 1995:85). Qeqchi conceptions of tzuultaq a, however, are not only deployed in opposition to conventional discourses of nature and conservation. In other instances, Q eqchi villagers articulate and translate discourses of parks and conservation with and through the concept of tzuultaq a. In this sense, the new relations to space and place brought about by park regulations and practices of conservation may be altering Q eqchi conceptions of the tzuultaq'a in subtle, but significant ways. For example, one day I went to the house of a village elder in Crique Sarco to speak to him about the park. During our discussion, the elder did not simply emphasize the importance of respecting the tzuultaq a (by asking permission and giving offerings), but conflated the act of respecting the tzuultaq a with the work of protecting it (e.g. by conserving the environment). Moreover, the elder explained that protecting the tzuultaq a would help to 218

229 ensure that the tzuultaq'a in the park could assist milpa production by influencing animals and the weather. At the same time, he also made reference to the bureaucratic nature of this new landscape, by mentioning that villagers could ask permission to take resources from the park. In this case, however, the elder was referring to asking permission from SATIIM and the Forest Department to extract resources from the park, rather than acknowledging the tzuultaq'a as the owner of the land. As the elder from Crique Sarco explained: The national park has a tzuultaq a there so we still protect that, we still take care of it just because maybe one of these days maybe we won't have anything around the national park and maybe everything will be cut down like vines and sticks so we could just ask permission to go into the park. So we still protect the national park because that tzuultaq a is very important. There are important animals, parrots, all kinds of animals are still in there so we still respect the tzuultaq a. The tzuultaq a that is in the national park is still very important because it gives us cool breeze and it still brings down the rain, and then it still also assists us in giving us good harvest, like from corn, so that we still get good harvest from the tzuultaq a in the national park. Here we see the translation of scientific discourses of nature conservation into a more localized and historicized discourse of the tzuultaq'a. This is similar to what Tiedje (2008) describes as conservation-as-sacred-practice, and serves as an example of how globally circulated environmental discourses and practices are translated through and articulated with more historically situated belief systems and made meaningful within specific local contexts. 219

230 Conclusion: Arun Agrawal s theoretical framework of environmentality draws important connections between changes in environmental policies, regulatory strategies like community-based conservation, and the environmental beliefs and practices of individual subjects. However, in examining connections between environmental policies, practices, and subjectivities, we need to not only trace the movement of official discourses around the globe and into distinct localities, but we must remain attentive to the messy actualities of how these official discourses and practices articulate with and are translated through the beliefs and practices of historical situated and sedimented actors. In this respect, the discussions I have related about the Sarstoon-Temash National Park, its protection, and its very nature, offer important insights into the complex ways that human-environment relations are being translated by Q'eqchi' villagers in southern Belize. Rather than creating a single environmental subjectivity or way of comprehending the environment, Q eqchi participation in co-managing the Sarstoon-Temash National Park has facilitated ongoing encounters and struggles between multiple and diverse ways of seeing, comprehending, and relating to nature (Vivanco 2001:82). Thus, although Q'eqchi' villagers are coming to see and relate to forests in new ways, this is not simply occurring at the loss of more localized ways of seeing and relating to space. Nor, however, have the localized beliefs and practices of Q'eqchi villagers served as an essential ground from which to resist new environmental subjectivies. Rather, Q'eqchi participation in community-based conservation is working to produce new layers of meaning and 220

231 conception as global environmental discourses articulate and mix with more historically and geographically situated beliefs and practices. 221

232 Chapter 6: The Will to Conserve? Introduction: This chapter explores the downfall of community-based conservation by chronicling and critically evaluating the scenario through which the co-management regime governing the Sarstoon Temash National Park ultimately came to be terminated. In doing this, it highlights the contingent nature of neoliberal environmental government and subjects. Moreover, this chapter clearly shows that governmental regimes can only remain stable when actors are able to reconstruct the network of interactions through the creation of coherent representations, which they do through a process of translation that permits the negotiation of common meanings and definitions and the mutual enrollment and cooptation into individual and collective objectives and activities (Lewis and Mosse 2006: 14). As previously noted, community-based conservation projects are assembled through political acts of translation, processes of representation and interpretation through which actors construct meaningful linkages between their own individual and/or collective interests and the rationality and effects of particular projects. As a result, projects do not fail when they do not meet their stated objectives, but when practices of translation fail to produce interpretations capable of engendering and sustaining political support. In the context of the STNP, an emerging conflict over oil exploration brought to 222

233 the fore the issue of indigenous land rights, ultimately leading to the termination of the co-management regime governing the Sarstoon-Temash National Park. 77 The Lure of Black Gold While Belize s status as an international leader in the fields of nature conservation and ecotourism is widely recognized around world, the country s history of petroleum exploration, culminating in the first discovery of commercial quantities of oil in 2005, is relatively unknown. In fact, Belize has experienced considerable oil exploration activity over the past 50 years. Shell was the first company to obtain an exploratory license in Belize as far back as 1938, and carried out geological and aerial surveys as part of its initial exploration efforts. Subsequent exploration activities by a range of companies, including Shell, Gulf, Phillips, and Exxon, have involved the shooting of seismic lines, aeromagnetic surveys being flown, and at least 50 exploratory wells being drilled between 1956 and In 1977, for example, Exxon drilled two wells in southern Belize, one offshore and another on land near the present site of the Q eqchi Maya village of Crique Sarco that borders the Sarstoon-Temash National Park. Despite these early exploration efforts, no commercial quantities of oil were discovered until On June 3 rd, 2005, the company Belize Natural Energy (BNE) Limited announced the commencement of exploratory drilling operations at Spanish Lookout, about 20 km west of the capitol in Belmopan in central Belize. On June 25, 2005, BNE struck commercial quantities of oil in their first exploratory well. 78 Since 2005, oil has quickly 77 Portions of the chapter have been adapted from Stinson (2013). 78 The Inspector of Petroleum reports that the Spanish Lookout reservoir, which is at about 3,000 feet depth, is estimated to have held a total of 19 million barrels, of which some 6 million barrels have been extracted by 2011 (Steiner 2011: 5). The Never Delay prospect is reported to hold some 6 million barrels. By world standards, these are very small fields, and at the present rate of extraction, will be exhausted in 7-223

234 become one of Belize s most important sources of foreign exchange, rivaling the tourism industry. Moreover, the government is actively encouraging additional oil exploration, with some 19 companies having secured exploration concessions in the country, including in existing protected areas and offshore areas encompassing the fragile barrier reef. While the quantity of oil reserves discovered in Belize were quite small in relative terms, state officials were excited about the potential new source of revenue. Indeed, total revenues from oil production from 2005 to September 2010 totaled BZ$821,732,744, and in 2007, total export earnings from oil were BZ$142.6 million. 79 In 2010, BZ$45 million (US$22.5 million) of the government s BZ$678 million (US$339 million) revenue was projected to come from the oil industry through taxes, royalties and other fees. As Prime Minister Barrow (2010: 12) explained in his 2010/11 budget presentation: the projected total inflow of $45.0 million from the local petroleum sector, as made up of royalties, income tax, working interest, production sharing, surface rental and environmental monitoring fees, has been a boon. It underscores the point I never tire of making. We must manage this sector in such a way as not to scare off those that are seeking to find more oil. (Barrow 2010: 12) 8 years. Total current production from the BNE fields is about 5,000 barrels per day or 1.5 million barrels (60 million gallons) of oil/year, and is transported via tanker truck to the Big Creek Terminal at the Port of Big Creek, from where the oil is exported via tanker (Steiner 2011: 4-5). It should be noted that the high international price of oil at the time played a key role in making relatively small quantities of oil commercially viable for exploitation and development. 79 The BZ$142.6 million in export earnings from oil in 2007 compares to BZ$585.3 million in export earnings from tourism. 224

235 Table 7: Oil Production in Belize Year Petroleum (barrels) 14, , ,000 1,200,000 1,609,000 Source: Fineberg (2011: 26) Just a few months after the discovery of oil by Belize Natural Energy, (November 14 th, 2005), SATIIM received a letter from the Forest Department informing the organization that an American oil company, US Capital Energy, was requesting a permit to enter the Sarstoon Temash National Park to conduct seismic testing for the purposes of oil exploration. 80 In response, SATIIM sent a letter to the Geology and Petroleum Department and Forest Department objecting to the issuing of the permit on several grounds, including that the decision did not respect SATIIM s right under the STNP comanagement agreement to free, prior and informed consent regarding the issuing of permits for scientific research, and that conducting seismic surveys for oil exploration in a national park was unlawful under the National Parks System Act, the Petroleum Act and the Environmental Protection Act. After getting no response from government, SATIIM requested and organized a meeting with the officials from the Forest and Geology and Petroleum Departments that was held January 10 th 2006, but no resolution to the conflict was reached at the meeting. In late January, government bureaucrats and representatives of US Capital Energy were invited to a SATIIM board meeting where the 80 The permit was being requested under the terms of a Production Sharing Agreement between US Capital Energy Ltd. and the Government of Belize, dated January 22nd, In 1998 the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment had issued an oil exploration license to a U.S. corporation, A&B Energy Limited, for lands that encompassed most of the Toledo District s terrestrial and coastal area, including the STNP and other protected areas. By 2001, this concession, known as Block 19, had been acquired by US Capital Energy. 225

236 issue was further discussed and additional concerns raised.81 As a follow-up to the meeting, SATIIM sent another letter to relevant government departments and US Capital Energy reiterating their concerns about oil exploration inside the national park and its buffer zone. Figure 11: Map of Oil Concession and Proposed Seismic Lines and Drill Sites Source: Cultural Survival82 Finally, on April 24th 2006, SATIIM received a faxed letter from the Chief Forest Officer informing them that the Forest Department had issued the permit to US Capital Energy to conduct seismic testing inside the STNP. The same day, Channel 7 News ran the story Oil War Brewing in Southern Belize (Channel 7 News 2006b). In the story, 81 The questions raised by SATIIM included: what proof could be offered that oil exploration would not damage the environment, health and well-being of residents of the area? How the government would ensure that economic benefits would be tangible and long term for people of the region and not simply short term employment cutting seismic trails; and what safeguards were in place to ensure compliance with national and international environmental laws, agreements, and conventions accessed February 25,

237 the Chief Forest Officer explained that the decision to allow for oil exploration inside the national park was an attempt to balance economic development and the sustainable use of our resources and explained that the department had invited SATIIM to assist in monitoring the testing. Moreover, it noted that SATIIM s Executive Direct had accused the government of bad faith in failing to follow its obligations under national environmental laws and the co-management agreement for the park, and noted that SATIIM would escalate efforts to block the testing and the subsequent exploration (Channel 7 News 2006b). A subsequent press release from the government reiterated the Forest Department s approval of the permit, and emphasized that the seismic technique being used is low impact and will only minimally disturb the park s ecosystem and that stated the government position that the national parks act does not prohibit the granting of such permits (Channel 7 News 2006b). The government decision to grant US Capital Energy the permit to carry out seismic testing in the STNP, despite the SATIIM s official objections and without even requiring an Environmental Impact Assessment, left SATIIM with few options. Over the next two weeks, SATIIM continued to publicly advocate against oil exploration in the STNP on that grounds that it violated Belizean environmental and protected area legislation, while also working to build a coalition of support among other conservation NGOs and indigenous organizations in Toledo. In this respect, SATIIM was able to gain a public declaration of support from both the Toledo Alcaldes Association and the District Association of Village Councils. 83 At the same time, SATIIM staff began aggressively networking with international environmental organizations (including 83 While many local conservation NGOs privately supported SATIIM s position on oil exploration, none of them immediately spoke out publicly in support of SATIIM due to fears that their co-management agreements would not be renewed, or funding denied. 227

238 IUCN, Global Response, the RAMSAR secretariat, and OAK Foundation), urging them to voice their concerns to the government and to provide funding to SATIIM to support a legal challenge of the permit. Within a short period of time, funds began flowing into SATIIM from international donors, enabling the organization to hire one of the most experienced lawyers in Belize. 84 One of the first international environmental organizations to offer its support to SATIIM was the environmental advocacy organization Global Response. In mid-2006, Global Response set up an online advocacy website outlining SATIIM s efforts to block oil exploration in the STNP, and encouraging its supporters to engage in an international letter writing campaign to pressure the government. The messaging and imagery on Global Response s campaign website clearly drew on and promoted the popular conception of oil extraction as incompatible with environmental protection and indigenous livelihoods, and portrayed oil extraction as a direct threat Belize s reputation as an prime ecotourism destination: A groundbreaking model of community-based natural resource management, SATIIM promotes eco-tourism, agro-forestry and other economic alternatives for the indigenous communities that depend on the health and diversity of the Park s waters, flora and fauna. Oil development does not fit in this picture, and SATIIM is fighting to stop it. SATIIM s battle to bar oil exploration and development in Sarstoon Temash National Park will set a precedent. At stake are all of Belize s national parks and protected areas, and the country s integrity as a proponent of conservation and sustainable development 84 This lawyer also happened to be the leader of the official opposition United Democratic Party. 228

239 (Global Response 2006). Thus, Global Response s anti-oil campaign website plays on the notion of a clear dichotomy between community-based conservation as a form of sustainable development compatible with indigenous livelihoods and oil exploration which is portrayed as a threat to both indigenous peoples and the environment. Another international environmental organization that publically supported attempts to block oil exploration in the STNP was the Worldwatch Institute, which published an online article in support of SATIIM entitled Oil Exploration Threatens Belize s Protected Areas. Like Global Response, Worldwatch presented oil exploration as a threat to Sarstoon-Temash region and its indigenous peoples, as well as to Belize s reputation in the fields of conservation and ecotourism: Belize, a Central American country roughly the size of Belgium, boasts more than 90 protected areas and has an international reputation for conservation and naturebased tourism. Over the past decade, however, the government has issued licenses for logging, oil exploration, and other extractive activities in areas that have traditionally been home to Belize s indigenous Mayan communities, including Sarstoon Temash National Park, a 41,000-acre (16,592 hectare) area of pristine forests and coastline along the southern border with Guatemala. 85 After such advocacy efforts failed to influence state officials, on May 15 th 2006, SATIIM held a press conference in Belize City and announced that they had filed a legal 85 Available online at: accessed Oct. 29,

240 challenge of US Capital Energy s permit to conduct seismic testing inside the Sarstoon- Temash National Park (SATIIM vs. Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment 2006). Of note, however, is that SATIIM s legal challenge was based entirely on technical issues. The suit, for example, made no mention of indigenous land rights and did not challenge the government s position that the STNP was National Land. Rather, SATIIM s case argued that the permit to conduct seismic testing was a breach of the park s co-management agreement, the National Parks Act, the Environmental Protection Act, and a violation of Belize's international legal obligations under the Ramsar Convention for the protection of wetlands. As SATIIM s Executive Director stated at the press conference: SATIIM has filed a suit against the Government of Belize for violating the National Parks Act, the Environmental Protection Act, breach of the comanagement agreement governing the park, and the violation of Belize's international legal obligations under the Ramsar Convention for the protection of wetlands. We have seen in Belize that the law is a flexible tool that government uses as they please. For the past years the government of Belize has used the law to exclude the desperately poor Maya from accessing natural resources in the Sarstoon-Temash National Park. Still they are denied the right to hunt, to fish, or cut logs for their home. But when it comes to a wealthy foreign corporation, the government says they can set off dynamites, extract oil, and they don't even have to prepare an environmental impact assessment or a monitoring or damage mitigation plan The law is indeed a double edge sword. It can be used by the 230

241 people to defend their rights against greedy men who think they are above it. The sworn affidavit handed over to the Supreme Court today charge that the Minister of Environment violated the law of the land when he issued a permit for U.S. Capital to conduct seismic testing in the Sarstoon-Temash National Park. Neoliberal Subjects and the Will to Conserve? Despite efforts by SATIIM to de-politicize the organization s resistance to oil exploration by basing their opposition strictly on environmental and managerial concerns, SATIIM s stance was interpreted by state officials as a highly political act of resistance. Moreover, state officials drew direct and explicit connections between SATIIM s opposition to oil exploration in the STNP to past Maya efforts to block development in Toledo. On May 17th, the Belize Times (the media wing of the governing PUP party) ran the story PUP Supports the Maya (Belize Times, May ). While emphasizing that the state had given its unconditional support to the Maya and ensured development for the people of Toledo the article chastised SATIIM for a clear attempt to misinform and mislead the Maya into opposing mere seismic study in a small area of the Sarstoon Temash National Park in Toledo (Belize Times, May ). Moreover, the article asserted that the seismic testing proposed by the company would be non-intrusive and low impact: The seismic testing conducted at the National Parks has minimal impacts on its environment. There is no need for bulldozers and other heavy equipment, as some would want the Maya to believe. Simply, a geologist enters the park with a GPS on hand, he removes brushes to form a trail and once he finds a spot, he digs a hole. A small and rather harmless explosive 231

242 is then placed into the hole and it is detonated, giving off sound waves, which is then captured by satellites. (Belize Times, May ). In addition, the article blamed SATIIM for blocking an important opportunity for both local and national development, and asserted that the data derived from the seismic testing, if oil was found, would continue to create opportunities and ensure benefits for the Maya and other Belizeans in the Toledo communities. The article also aimed to further politicize the issue by insinuating that SATIIM s opposition to oil exploration was driven not by legitimate environmental concerns, but by foreign conservationists and the opposition UDP party, and therefore represented a selfish and dangerous political game (Belize Times, May ). The notion that SATIIM s opposition to oil exploration was being driven by foreigners and the political interests of the opposition UDP was re-asserted in another article in the Belize Times which ran under the heading Who is handling Gregorio Choc? (A photo essay) (Belize Times, June ). The article presented a series of photographs of SATIIM Executive Director Greg Choc speaking with conservationists, opposition politicians, and members of the media, with commentary suggesting these groups were driving his opposition to oil exploration. 86 Ironically, while just months earlier SATIIM s completion of a management plan for the park was hailed by the Minister of Natural Resources as historic for being driven not only by technical people, not only by foreigners, or by the World Bank but the 5 communities that live and depend around the Sarstoon-Temash National Park (Channel 7 News 2005), 86 The photos were taken May 15, 2006, in Belize City, the day SATIIM filed its suit against the seismic testing permit in the Supreme Court. 232

243 SATIIM s efforts to implement the plan and protect the park from oil exploration were denounced by the government as reflective of a foreign and politically driven agenda. The state s response to SATIIM s efforts to block oil exploration in the STNP points to one of the dangers of neoliberal conservation, and the fickleness of neoliberal environmental subjects (e.g. Büscher et al. 2012). Through a neoliberal approach to conservation, subjects are encouraged and expected to support conservation in pursuit of economic incentives. Recall from chapters 2 and 3 that through the 1980s and 90s, national and international conservationists lobbied Belizean politicians to embrace and promote conservation on the grounds that doing so would attract significant ecotourism revenues and foreign exchange into the country. Within this neoliberal framework, however, it was profit, and not conservation itself, that was promoted as the primary rational for protecting the environment. Indeed, it was precisely this neoliberal economic logic that the government used to justify its decision to allow oil exploration inside the STNP. On June 15, 2006, for example, a national forum for protected area managers was convened in Punta Gorda, largely to discuss the issue of oil exploration in protected areas. I was in attendance at the meeting, and was tasked with taking the meeting minutes. At the meeting, a representative of the Forest Department gave a presentation entitled Protected Areas and Belize Ecological and Development Rationale, Stakeholder Interests. The presentation adopted a distinctly neoliberal discourse of ecological value in explaining the Forest Department s position on oil exploration. As the representative explained: 233

244 If it is determined, for instance, there is commercial quantities of oil in Sarstoon- Temash National Park, then the stance of the department would be, if the government intends to explore for oil it should be done with the least environmental impact. But again I would like to urge that we need to take a stand and say that we first need to know what the value of these resources are because that would be a very powerful weapon when we deal with US Capital this is the value of protection versus this is the value of investment. The state official therefore suggested that the decision of whether to allow for development or resource extraction in protected areas should be based on assessment of value. Whichever option provides more value should be the path chosen. The Forest Department official further asserted that the government decision to allow oil exploration in the STNP was therefore the collective fault of protected area managers who had failed to demonstrate the economic value of conservation: What is happening today in terms of protected areas and development is our collective fault. We as the protected areas managers have not come together and, as I think someone has mentioned, quantified exactly the economic value of protected areas, the social and culture values. There will be more US Capital Energies coming in so collectively we are all at fault and we need to get our act together, to establish ourselves as protected areas managers who know what the value of our resources are. 234

245 Finally, the Forestry official mocked efforts to lock up protected areas and block them from development as stupidness : We should also get over the, I don t know what to call it, I think it is stupidness. To go to the minister or government and say that an area should be protected because it is a postcard area They don t see it like that. I also, as a conservationist don t see it like that. We cannot just lock these areas up and not realize that the resources are there. Some areas warrant full protection. I think if you asked any Belizean, what is the value of a forest, many of them, particularly Mayan communities would say there are social values, cultural values, spiritual values, but in addition to that they want to benefit from the forest. They want to benefit, so we need to stray away from this concept of protection, locking it up, and move more towards sustainable use of the resources. And that is also the stance of the forest department. State officials, however, were not the only neoliberal environmental subjects enticed by the potential profits from oil exploration in the STNP. Community members from STNP buffer villages, including former members and supporters of SATIIM, came out publically in support of US Capital Energy and denounced SATIIM s opposition oil exploration in the park. On May 31 st, 2006, two weeks after SATIIM officially filed a legal challenge of US Capital Energy s permit to enter the STNP, a group of approximately 150 villagers from the park buffer communities, many of whom had been 235

246 working with or supported US Capital Energy in its early seismic testing operations, traveled to Punta Gorda to protest coordinated by US Capital Energy. After gathering in the town s central square, villagers were provided with signs and placards by representatives of US Capital Energy. Many signs stated that those picketing supported oil exploration because they wanted jobs, while others stated that SATIIM did not represent them. Significantly, some of the most vocal supporters of oil exploration in the park were current and/or past members of SATIIM. In fact, one of SATIIM s board members, Beatriz Canelo (the Chairperson of Crique Sarco village), was flown by US Capital Energy to Belize City to conduct a number of newspaper, radio, and television interviews. During these interviews Cane announced her intention to resign from SATIIM s Board of Directors and condemned SATIIM s attempt to block oil exploration. Canelo argued that SATIIM was not representing the interests of the park s buffer communities. In fact, Canelo argued that rather than helping the communities, the park was limiting their ability to make a living. We don't agree with that. They shouldn't have made it a national park because right now we are facing a lot of problems with the national park. The people don't have freedom to go there and I believe that the trees, the animals and everything that is there belongs to the communities, the villages, and now the community finds it hard. If you want a leaf you have to ask permission. If you want to go and fish for you use at home you have to go and ask permission. If you want a piece of 236

247 stick you have to ask permission. It is not fair. The people are not happy about this. 87 Echoing these sentiments was one of SATIIM s original Board Members from Conejo village, Antonio Cucul, who explained that unfulfilled promises of tourism jobs and income had led many villagers to support oil exploration: I was along with SATIIM for nine years, we are telling them [buffer community villagers] that there is more jobs, it's for you and it's not for us. But right now we don't see any investment in the villages from SATIIM. I was on the board for nine years and nothing was change, the communities are on the same level. That's why we are supporting this company. 88 Of significance is that Cucul s statement emphasized the fact that villagers supported oil exploration for the same reasons they had originally supported SATIIM and the conservation of the STNP: jobs and revenue. In this context, conservation and oil exploration were not seen as qualitatively different, but as potential sources of income in a region that has few economic opportunities (Stinson 2013). As Cucul explains: I think there are persons that are working along with this seismic; Crique Sarco, Barranco, Sunday Wood and Midway. Yes everybody has a job, that's why there are 10 of us who goes along with oil drillers. That's why we have over Available at: accessed May 10, Available at: accessed May 10,

248 people. We don't have any job, there is no salary, there is nothing that we have. We are glad that these company are here to help us to change our lives not in fiveten years but by step by step. As usual SATIIM will say that people from the villages don't want to work with oil companies. That is automatically a lie I don't see how these people are saying that we don't want to work. We need the job because we want to live a better life. Even if the company is here for three months, at least we get job for three months. 89 In my own discussions with Q eqchi Maya villagers in , many expressed frustrations with their restricted access to resources in the park, while promised revenues and employment opportunities from ecotourism and other alternative livelihoods had failed to materialize. Thus, despite continuous promotion, tourism to the STNP and its buffer villages remains extremely low, if not non-existent. 90 SATIIM s annual report for 2010, for example, noted that visitation to SATIIM s resource centers in each of the park s five buffer communities dropped from approximately 550 to 180 people from (SATIIM 2010). 91 In addition, SATIIM s 2011 annual report noted that there were no recorded tourist visitors to the national park (SATIIM 2011: 18). 92 Rather 89 Available at: accessed May 10, Yet despite the obvious appeal of Toledo as an ecotourism destination, the region draws few tourists. Visitors to Toledo are estimated to be only about 1% of all visitors to Belize. Thus, of the 220,574 overnight arrivals to Belize in 2003, for example, only 2200 traveled south to Toledo. Assuming that potentially half of these visitors to the district could be considered ecotourists, Iandi Consultants estimate the eco-tourist segment in Toledo could be as low as 1000 visitors annually (Iandi Consultants 205: 41). 91 No information is given as to the types of visitors these numbers represent (e.g. tourists, scientists, students, government officials etc.). Moreover, it is not mentioned in the report whether any of these visitors to park visitor centers located in park buffer villages actually entered the park or participated any tourist activities in the communities. 92 SATIIM did host a cross-border exchange that involved the participation of youth representatives from 12 communities along the Guatemalan and Belizean sides of the Sarstoon River, the five community rangers who represent communities buffering the Sarstoon Temash National Park and representatives from the coastal Garifuna Community of Barranco. According to the report, the exchange consisted of a guided 238

249 than producing a will to conserve, SATIIM s neoliberal promotion of economic incentives had created expectations that ultimately failed to materialize. As one former employee of SATIIM explained: When people heard that SATIIM was going to clean trails and build bridges for tourists in the national park people were excited and said jobs were coming. Because some people have chainsaws to cut the lumber. If SATIIM had done that before the company had come, I think they would have supported SATIIM. But they said nothing is out there. Its just thick jungle and swamp. And I can see that SATIIM is saying that tourists go there, tourists do kayaking there, but there are no tourists coming to do the kayaking. If people had seen one or two people doing that I think they would have said at least SATIIM is helping one or two people from the village. Here again it is significant that even in their critiques of SATIIM, villagers articulated their support for the rationale of neoliberal conservation. The wife of a man who had been laid off by US Capital Energy in 2006 due to SATIIM s legal challenge, explained that: Sometimes we feel it is hard because you know, it is the money. Well we all say that it is good to have the oil company because it is hard to find a job, especially because we are far from town and can t find no jobs. Especially in town we can t find no job. Worse that fuel is very expensive now. Well I feel kind of sad tour of the Sarstoon Temash National Park and a community visit to Barranco Village (SATIIM 2011: 18). 239

250 because when I see my husband get a good pay and he hasn t done that in a long time. I can t say that SATIIM is not good or SATIIM is bad, SATIIM is still good, but it s the jobs. SATIIM is good but only a few people are working, and you know how people they want work. Its kind of sad only few people are working, not like everyone is working and everyone is happy. Another former Board member of SATIIM similarly voiced his frustration that SATIIM had not followed through on promises of jobs: I don t know what SATIIM is doing. It looks like they have funding but I don t know where they are spending the money. That was the main complaint from people. What does SATIIM do with the funding they got from the World Bank What kind of jobs are they providing? And most of the time people say that most of the people that are working in the office are not from the five surrounding villages. But we have people that have finished high school who can do the job. That is the big problem because Greg promised that he would hire people from the surrounding villages in the buffer zone. But I don t see him doing that. As scholars have shown, rather than cultivating environmental consciousness or environmental subjectivity in local populations, economic incentives like ecotourism may actually produce the opposite. As Vivanco explains: 240

251 This is the case of the Monarch Butterfly Reserve in Michoacan, Mexico, where in spite of the presence of a self-declared ecotourism industry and hundreds of thousands of people who come to see the spectacle of butterflies every year, impoverished peasants continue to violate the reserves ban on logging. This is happening even though peasants are aware of the importance of forest conservation, and precisely because ecotourism development there has not offered any meaningful economic opportunities or self-sufficiency for the majority of people. (Vivanco 2002: 28). Similarly, in Belize, Mastney (2001) explains that many local Belizeans have become frustrated with their diminishing access to popular caving sites, in some cases leading to acts of violence against tourists, as many of these locations are now located on foreign owned lands that curtail local access while monopolizing ecotourism profits. Jill Belsky has also reported similar findings from the community of Gales Point, where she found that ecotourism had fostered social conflict and resistance to conservation and tourism within the community. As Belsky asserts: Over the course of six years, income from ecotourism was too sporadic, insufficient, and concentrated to make much difference in village livelihood security, or change conservation attitudes and behaviors. On the contrary, ecotourism brought unanticipated consequences: it exacerbated intra-community differences and inter-community and state rivalries, produced a violent backlash against conservation, and instigated a privatized approach to tourism development 241

252 with unknown social and ecological impacts. (Belsky 1999: 662) Despite the emergence of a vocal opposition to SATIIM s anti-oil advocacy, local support for the organization and the conservation of the park remained relatively high overall. As the survey results presented in Chapter 5 indicated, 80% of villagers in Crique Sarco supported the conservation of STNP, even at the height of the oil conflict in Thus, while those villagers most effectively positioned to benefit from tourism where quick to support oil exploration, the majority of villagers that continue to rely on subsistence production seemed to support SATIIM s attempt to block oil exploration in the park. As one villager explained to me: I think to me it was very good you know, because when an oil company comes they are the ones that will benefit off of it. We are not the ones. Because all the trees like this we will never find again. It will be lone desert. Some people think it will be good you know. It might be good for a year, 2 years, but when they find the oil it is lone engineers that will work here. We will be a slave next. So I try to support SATIIM because to me it is good that they tried to stop the oil company. We have to think for the future. Some people they don t think for their sons, for their kids. They just want to work. But we people, we are not educated people. We can t do all kinds of engineer jobs. But some people don t realize that. All they think is that they want to work. But its just for a while you know. When you want to build a house you will not find trees. But they don t realize that. They 242

253 believe in money. They don t believe in what is coming. You have to think about your life.that s why I m glad they are protecting the place for the national park. Especially the rivers. They have a lot of fish. This river has a lot. It is rich. From Neoliberal Nature to Indigenous Land With tensions escalating between the state and SATIIM, as well as within the communities in the STNP buffer zone, SATIIM s legal case against the Ministry of Natural Resources and US Capital Energy went ahead at a preliminary hearing from June 5 th -June 8 th. On Thursday June 8, 2006, the Supreme Court of Belize agreed to a full judicial review of the case SATIIM vs. Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment and placed an injunction on US Capital Energy s oil exploration activities in the STNP, pending a full trial. The trial reviewed the legality of the government s issuing of the oil exploration permit in a protected area. On Wednesday September 27, 2006, the Supreme Court ruled that the permission issued to US Capital Energy to enter the national park to conduct seismic testing was illegal because an environmental impact assessment (EIA) was not conducted as required, and this violated Belize s Environmental Protection Act. The company was ordered to do an EIA for seismic testing before a permit could be issued. 93 Interestingly, not long after losing this case, the Minister of Natural Resources officially altered national Environmental Impact regulations. The new Statutory Instrument, passed in March 2007 eliminated the requirement for a mandatory EIA for petroleum exploration activities such as seismic surveys. Under the new regulations, EIAs are optional and up to the discretion of the 93 While members of SATIIM celebrated this victory, what they were seeking was a stronger judgment, one that would have found oil exploration including seismic testing to be illegal in national parks. This would have ensured that national parks remained permanently off limits for oil exploration in Belize. 243

254 Minister of Natural Resources to require them. Nevertheless, in early 2007, an EIA was carried out by US Capital Energy and ultimately approved by the National Environmental Appraisal Committee. While SATIIM had achieved a limited legal victory that required US Capital Energy to comply with national environmental regulations and conduct an EIA, oil exploration continued to be pursued. In response, SATIIM began pursuing other means of preventing US Capital Energy from commencing oil exploration activities inside the STNP. In collaboration with other Maya NGOs and with assistance from the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona, SATIIM re-initiated the processes of pursuing the legal recognition of Maya land rights. Consequently, on April 3, 2007, the STNP buffer community of Conejo, along with the Mopán Maya village of Santa Cruz filed a Supreme Court claim against the Government of Belize for a failure to grant Mayas communities ownership of their traditional lands as enshrined under the constitution of Belize. The foundation of the case rested on two basic premises: (1) The Maya people have maintained through history a unique land tenure system based on unwritten customary law that is central to their unique way of life; and (2) this system gives rise to forms of property that are protected by the Belize Constitution and international law (Grandia 2009: 161, also see Campbell and Anaya 2008). Legal proceedings were initiated in the Supreme Court and the case was heard from June 18 th to 24th, Since a key component of the trial was the necessity of the claimant communities of Conejo and Santa Cruz to demonstrate that customary Maya land tenure exists, SATIIM s studies of traditional ecological knowledge carried out as part of the 244

255 COMSTEC project played a key role. Moreover, the expert consultant (Dr. Liza Grandia) who carried out the study of Q eqchi Traditional Ecological Knowledge for the COMSTEC project served as an expert witness in the land rights case. In this regard, while the documentation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge through COMSTEC had not translated effectively into the STNP management plan, it was crucial to the legal assertion of indigenous land rights. As Grandia (2009: 161) explains, as the expert witness most familiar with Conejo s particular land use, I was charged with the task of making vividly clear Maya customary natural resource management for a cosmopolitan judge who likely had never set foot in a milpa. In this sense, the key function of Grandia s testimony was to describe how integral milpa agriculture was to other aspects of Q eqchi life and culture in short, to explain why milpa mattered (Grandia 2009:162). Another central piece of evidence presented at the trial was a boundary map of Conejo village that had also been created by SATIIM as part of the mapping component of COMSTEC (see Figure 10 below). 245

256 Figure 12: Conejo Village Boundary Map Source: SATIIM In 2007, the Supreme Court of Belize ruled that the village of Conejo bordering the STNP had indigenous land rights, and ordered the government to recognize and respect such rights, demarcate and title their land, and cease and abstain from interfering with their right to property. In 2010, all of the Maya villages in Toledo filed a claim in the Supreme Court asking the to court to rule that the 2007 judgment applied to all Maya communities throughout Toledo. The court again ruled in favour of the Maya, and issued an injunction prohibiting further concessions throughout Toledo. While these legal victories did not prevent oil exploration from occurring in the STNP, SATIIM s decision to support renewed efforts to secure indigenous land rights 246