The assistive conservation approach for community-based lands: the case of La Ventanilla
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Fecha
2014
Autores
Vargas-DelRío, David
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Editor
Royal Geographical Society
Resumen
Descripción
The assistive conservation approach includes strategies for conserving community-based lands basedon a complex combination of traditional and modern scientific knowledge. It enjoys broad legitimacyand seems promising for conserving territories with autochthonous populations. However, as a novel strategy, it has been applied mostly to societies and environments that are fragile in conservationist terms. This paper critically analyses the evolution of environmental discourses on nature conservation, assesses their related strategies and methodologies, and shows how emerging
discourses have been assimilated to produce a qualitative shift from ‘top-down’ to ‘bottom-up’ models of environmental management, but without eliminating considerable dependence. It reviews earlier
critiques of the protected areas approach associated with this emerging concept. Finally, it revisits the evolution of an important early case of assistive conservation, La Ventanilla (Oaxaca, Mexico), to
assess processes of dependence and this emergent strategy’s potential to face challenges of environmental degradation. It concludes that, over time, this concept makes local ecologies more
vulnerable to social and environmental degradation, especially as traditional management institutions once responsible for ecological integrity become obsolete.
Palabras clave
Political Ecology, Conservation, Natural Areas, environmental discourses, Community Conserved Areas, Environmental Discourses
Citación
Vargas-DelRío, D. (2014). The assistive conservation approach for community-based lands: the case of La Ventanilla. The Geographical Journal, 180, pp.377-391. doi: 10.1111/geoj.12055