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Local Conservation Practice and Global Discourse: A Political Ecology of Sea Turtle Conservation

2007; American Association of Geographers; Volume: 97; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1467-8306.2007.00538.x

1467-8306

Lisa M. Campbell,

Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

Abstract Abstract This article employs political ecology and common property theory to examine sea turtle conservation, how it is articulated and executed at different sociopolitical and geographic scales, and the consequences for local rights of access to resources. It draws on ten years of research at various field sites in Costa Rica, and on sea turtle conservation policy in general, to show that although most sea turtle conservation policy is legitimized in the language of ecology, beliefs about rights to sea turtles as a resource underlie ecological arguments. This becomes clear through analysis of the local, national, and international scales, where ecological arguments are employed differently in order to discount or promote certain types of property rights and to promote particular types of conservation interventions; thus, promoting conservation action at a particular scale is not simply a matter of ecological necessity. The article's main purpose is to outline a political ecology of sea turtle conservation; it also contributes to political ecology and common property theory, and illustrates the productive combination of these for analyzing conservation. Furthermore, it addresses questions about the appropriate scale at which conservation should take place and the rights of local people to use and manage resources, both of which are topics of considerable debate in the wider conservation community. Key Words: common propertyCosta Ricapolitical ecologyscalesea turtles Acknowledgments Most of the research summarized in this article was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Zoë Meletis provided comments on early drafts of the manuscript, and my thinking regarding the links between common property, political ecology, and issues of scale has been greatly enhanced through ongoing discussions with Noella Gray. Matthew Godfrey checked my turtle "facts" and formatted figures. The final article benefited substantially from the insights of three anonymous reviewers. Notes 1. Due to the breadth of work drawn on in this article, limited information on study sites, methods, and results is provided in footnotes in specific sections. Readers are directed to related publications for further detail. 2. The public popularity of sea turtles is reflected in an Internet-based study by Ellis (2003) Ellis, C. 2003. Participatory environmental research in tourism: A global view. Tourism Recreation Research, 28(3): 45–55. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], who found that the third most popular type of volunteer tourism opportunity (i.e., working expeditions for tourists who pay financially and in-kind to participate in research and conservation projects) is to work with sea turtles, behind the general categories of "marine mammals" and "terrestrial mammals." A recent special issue of the Maritime Studies journal (MAST 2005 MAST. 2005. Special issue: Marine turtles as flagship. MAST 3 (2) and 4 (1) [Google Scholar]) examines sea turtles as flagship species. 3. At the time of writing, membership of the MTSG has been dissolved and a reappointment process is underway. Prior to this, there were 293 members. Approximately 60 percent of these were from developed countries, and 35 percent were from the United States. 4. The success or failure of the national parks model is open to interpretation and depends on criteria adopted by the assessors. "Failure" here refers not to the absolute number of parks and protected areas in developing countries, which has increased dramatically over the past three decades (Zimmerer 2006 Zimmerer, K. S. 2006. Cultural ecology: At the interface with political ecology: The new geographies of environmental conservation and globalization. Progress in Human Geography, 30(1): 63–78. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), but to the failure of the exclusionary national parks approach to recognize wider socioeconomic realities, and to the conflicts between parks and people that have resulted. Traditional conservation activities have often proved inappropriate in developing countries where subsistence rural livelihoods are at stake, where limited funds are available for state-financed exclusionary protection, and where perceptions of nature as "sacred" and "separate" do not necessarily hold true with the local human population. The results can have negative impacts on biological conservation, but also raise concerns about the justice of a protected-areas approach. 5. In total, forty-two experts from Canada, the United States, and Costa Rica were interviewed in 1995 and 1996. Interviews were semistructured and guided by broad questions related to changing conservation policy and the emergence of sustainable use and community-based conservation as popularly promoted conservation tools. More specific questions about Costa Rican case study sites were included, although the amount of time spent on these varied greatly according to the experience of the interviewee. Interviews were conducted in the interviewee's home or office and lasted anywhere from fifty minutes to over two hours. Interviews were taped and transcribed verbatim, and have been analyzed from a variety of perspectives (Campbell 2000 Campbell, L. M. 2000. Human need in rural developing areas: Perceptions of wildlife conservation experts. The Canadian Geographer, 44(2): 167–81. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2002a Campbell, L. M. 2002a. Conservation narratives and the "received wisdom" of ecotourism: Case studies from Costa Rica. International Journal of Sustainable Development, 5(3): 300–25. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2002c Campbell, L. M. 2002c. Science and sustainable use: Views of conservation experts. Ecological Applications, 12(4): 1229–46. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Although the interviews are now ten years old, the author is in regular contact with many of the interviewees and is involved in debates about sea turtle conservation policy. Instances where expert views have evolved or changed significantly are noted in the text, but overall the original analysis of expert views holds true today. 6. For the purposes of this article, tourists viewing sea turtles on nesting beaches are considered as exercising withdrawal rights. They are not physically obtaining a resource unit (at least not in the short term), but they are "withdrawing" an experience, one based on the presence of sea turtles. Their desires to do so often conflict directly with those of local people to access more traditional withdrawal rights. 7. The summary of the Ostional example is based on research conducted by the author in Ostional during 1994 and 1995, and on follow-up research conducted in 2004 and 2005. Research included in-depth interviews with key informants and 10 percent of the adult population, a household survey (conducted in both 1995 and 2004), and participant observation during eight months of residency in Ostional. Full results and analysis of the early field work can be found in Campbell (1998 Campbell, L. M. 1998. Use them or lose them? The consumptive use of marine turtle eggs at Ostional, Costa Rica. Environmental Conservation, 24: 305–19. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 1999) Campbell, L. M. 1999. Ecotourism in rural developing communities. Annals of Tourism Research, 26(3): 534–53. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. 8. The summary of Costa Rica's approach to wildlife conservation is based on fieldwork undertaken in Costa Rica and at the specific field sites beginning in 1995, and on additional field work undertaken by the author and her graduate students since. Research methods have included interviews (and to a more limited extent surveys) with local residents, tourists, and employees of NGOs and government agencies working in the area, analysis of related management documents, and participant observation during field work (with individual seasons lasting anywhere from two weeks to four months). Methods and results associated with specific studies are detailed in Campbell (2002a) Campbell, L. M. 2002a. Conservation narratives and the "received wisdom" of ecotourism: Case studies from Costa Rica. International Journal of Sustainable Development, 5(3): 300–25. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Campbell (2002b) Campbell, L. M. 2002b. Conservation narratives in Costa Rica: Conflict and co-existence. 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[Google Scholar], 2006) Campbell, L. M. and Smith, C. 2006. What makes them pay? Understanding values of conservation volunteers in Tortuguero, Costa Rica. Environmental Management, 38(1): 84–98. [Crossref], [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]. 9. The summarized analysis of the IAC is based on a more detailed analysis that used contemporary concepts in wildlife conservation to assess the extent to which the IAC accounted for these when it was originally crafted (see Campbell, Godfrey, and Drif 2002 Campbell, L. M., Godfrey, M. H. and Drif, O. 2002. Community based conservation via global legislation? Limitations of the Inter-American Convention for the Protection and Conservation of Sea Turtles. Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy, 5: 121–43. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). 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Akademie van Wetenschappen—Amsterdam, 74(4): 396–404. [Google Scholar] also found movement of olive ridleys between beaches on either side of the border between French Guiana and Suriname. 12. Costa Rica passed a law for the protection, conservation, and recovery of sea turtle populations in October 2000 (Law no. 8325). The law addresses various issues, including incidental capture of sea turtles in fisheries, regulation of turtle tourism, and punishments for illegal use of sea turtles. The collection of eggs by the Ostional EHP remains exempt from the latter under Article 6 of the new law. 13. Using the critically endangered status of the leatherback as a rationale, one Costa Rican biologist recently suggested to the author that the egg harvest in Ostional should be stopped because people cannot distinguish between the highly endangered leatherback and the legal olive ridley eggs supplied by Ostional (even though leatherback eggs can be identified by their larger size). 14. The full text of the convention can be found at http://www.iacseaturtle.org/iacseaturtle/English/texto.asp. 15. Delegates are listed at: http://www.iacseaturtle.org/iacseaturtle/English/download/DelegadosdelComiteConsultivo.pdf. 16. These comments were made during the course of normal conversation, rather than via formal research. One of the four biologists who made these comments in 2004 was interviewed in 1995, and at that time supported the continuation of the egg harvest. All of them are associated with study sites in Costa Rica, and thus their views on conservation and development in general have been formally captured in related research. 17. Troëng's work also shows that sea turtle biologists move outside their areas of expertise. Troëng and Drews' (2004) Troëng, S. and Drews, C. 2004. Money talks: Economic aspects of marine turtle use and conservation, Gland, , Switzerland: WWF-International. 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