The book: Conservation is our Government was written by Anthropologist Paige West in 2006. The author holds a doctorate in Cultural and Environmental Anthropology from the Rutgers University, New Jersey, United States of America (USA). She is currently Professor of Anthropology at Barnard College and a faculty of Columbia University, USA.
The book is 279 pages long with 7 chapters, based on field work in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG): Place – Maimafu Village, Society – Gimi, Environment – Gimi Forest.
This book is an Anthropological text about how space is conceived and birthed, in-turn creates place, society, environment and self. To illustrate the point, the author uses her field work in the Crater Mountain Wildlife Management Area (CMWMA). At the time of writing the book, the CMWMA was implementing the concept of Integrated Conservation and Development (ICAD). The ICAD concept started in the 1990s and was based on the idea that development can happen from conservation using biodiversity products instead of the large-scale environmentally destructive development projects. The author further explains the impact ICAD had Gimi social relations and political institutions.
This book review is focused on the lessons learnt from the implementation of conservation in the CMWMA. The point of view in this review is from a national conservation practitioner.
The CMWMA story starts in New York in the 1980’s in which the exotic Bird of Paradise (BOP) evoked awe and wonder and painted Papua New Guinea (PNG) as an ‘…. untouched exotic and spectacular place ‘. This imagery would become the driver for many conservation programs. This view was further strengthened by a news article in the New Yorker of a scientist overhearing a Gimi guide referring to the BOP as his ancestors. The New Yorker said, great this is where our values merge. We will create a space and bring our resources to protect the bird for its beauty and cultural value. The space was conceived from that point.
“Once space is produced it serves as a tool of thought and action, that in addition to being a means of production, it is also a means of control and hence domination, of power, yet that, as such, it escapes in part from those who would make use of it.”
Indeed, the newly created space gave birth to an animal that took a life of its own. Without a guide book, the project grew rapidly, attracting resources it needed to grow as well bringing its unique challenges.
The challenges faced were due to contradiction in expectations between two worldviews. These differences between the Gimi and the New Yorker existed from the beginning, but were never identified and resolved and eventually killed the project.
The project was run based on the Western worldview of ’protected area’ where nature was is put into a defined geographical space to be studied and managed to achieve long-term conservation. In contrast, culture is a way of life for the Gimi, and nature is the source of their livelihood. Conservation for the Gimi is a list of actions like regulated hunting, respect and fear for sacred areas and not a space.
The ICAD clashed with the existing systems by changing social relations and disrupted political institutions. The Gimi produces commodity from the natural resources, in which the value is in the labour that goes into transforming the resource into a product. The final product is then gifted to create and maintain relationships. In contrast, the ICAD, based on western capitalism models converted nature and culture into commodities by conferring them monetary value, thus removing the labour and the social relationship of labour from the product, taking the power and value of production away from the people.
The Western worldview assumed the indigenous people were happy to remain in grass huts and host the conservation project, without acknowledging the aspiration of the Gimi for ‘Western” development. Meanwhile the Gimi assumed the “white-skins’ knew the unspoken contract that went with giving of their land for conservation.
Furthermore, the project positioned itself as gate-keeper of information flow, production and eco-centric development – effectively positioning itself as a quasi-government to the people. Being so far from their own government and without power to control to own their production for development – the Gimi accepted conservation as their government.
This book is the Gimi (and the Melanesian) point of view on conservation. The author admits “They would never write about themselves like I write about them” Indeed, how could the Gimi know what to write when conservation is a Western quandary. The Gimi never waste sleep on issues of extinction and climate change.
The author is brave for keeping the Melanesian view and not changing the story to favour the colonial assumption of indigenous people as simple people with simple needs : an unfair charge given that the PNG societies until the 20th century had existed as independent tribal nations for thousands of years. The Melanesians had to adopt the western system in less than 100 years to qualify for a space in the pecking order, as ordered by the dollar.
Since the writing of this book, conservation in PNG has regressed and has become a black hole sucking resources without showing tangible results. I believe change can happen if we address the contradiction in expectations between the Melanesian and the Western worldviews on conservation. If the West is serious in undertaking conservation in PNG, then stop putting resources into a concept that is not working and let us go back to the drawing board to define the Melanesian conservation values and expectations and then combine this with the Western conservation values to make a product that is understood and accepted by the people for the sake of achieving conservation goals.
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