African Land Grabs and Conservation Propaganda

From [HERE] Amid the unprecedented global ecological crisis, Africa still supports one quarter of the world’s biodiversity and the largest assemblages of megafauna. Indigenous Africans of the rangelands, desert, and forests have always protected their fauna and flora. Land where they exercise traditional rights has proven  to be central for global biodiversity conservation. But today they are facing the threat of a colossal land grab  by Western conservation agencies, and their corporate and state allies, who advocate to double the coverage of protected areas around the world by setting aside 30 percent of terrestrial cover for conservation by 2030.

Protected areas are the national parks, forests, game reserves, and other places from which states evict original inhabitants for biodiversity conservation. They already cover 15.73% of the terrestrial surface. The Global South accounts for 66% of that coverage, primarily located in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. Many African countries have set aside between 35%-42% of their national territories exclusively for wildlife and biodiversity compared to 12.45% in the US. Indigenous and human rights activists are sounding the alarm, comparing the 30×30 plan  to the second Scramble for Africa , one that would further dispossess, militarize, and privatize the commons in Africa.

An overlooked yet critical perspective of protected areas is their primitive accumulation function to transfer wealth and immaterial values of nature from colonies to colonizers. They start with the violent dispossession of Indigenous communities, followed by militarized control over the territory, and commodification of lands and wildlife resources by the corporate imperialists. The 2022 book, The Violence of Conservation in Africa: State, Militarization and Alternatives , demonstrates why dehumanization and violence against Africans are permanent features of conservation in Africa, and how Western conservation agencies wield power to assault African states’ sovereignty, in order to gain political and economic control over vast areas rich in biodiversity. [MORE]