Doctoral Dissertation Research: Another Botswana Success Story? People and Park Relations in Chobe National Park, Botswana

这个项目的中心是对博茨瓦纳北方乔贝国家公园周围的人与公园本身之间关系的个案研究。在这里，四十年前，公园的建立剥夺了当地人获得附近森林产品和牧场的权利，公园边界和政策的侵犯率很低，也没有出现明显的反对公园的抵抗运动。这种情况是不寻常的，因为许多类似的“堡垒保护”模式导致了大量偷猎和当地居民与公园当局之间的严重冲突。如何解释这个看似反常的博茨瓦纳案例？出于什么原因，通过什么机制，乔贝飞地村民对公园和附近保护区的存在有一定程度的默许？博士学生克莱尔古普塔，在路易丝福特曼博士的监督下，在加州大学伯克利分校将探讨这种独特的关系之间的乔贝国家公园和乔贝居民。 研究这种非典型的情况下，当地人似乎已经制定了一定程度的同意野生动物公园的存在，公园的“成功”的一个潜在的措施，该项目旨在确定一些保护区的可持续性的有利条件。 在这项研究中，非洲主义人类学的农业资源利用和农村生产模式的变化理论将被应用到了解人们生活在乔贝国家公园的边缘重新工作他们的生计做法，在更广泛的政治经济条件的背景下，其影响。此外，最近的考虑关键的人类地理学家在南部非洲的城乡互联将被用来了解如何乔贝国家公园影响了经济和社会关系，连接农村飞地到其他地方，这些不断变化的连接表明在博茨瓦纳北方乔贝地区的生计和人口变化的过程。这项研究将寻求扩大政治生态学的研究范围，建议随着时间的推移，人们可能能够重新建立他们与景观的关系，以应对公园和保护区的建立。该研究包括两个目标：第一，研究在飞地的个人和家庭所采用的生计策略是否以及如何改变，以应对公园的存在;第二，确定这些改变的生计策略对村庄人口组成，家庭结构和不同年龄和性别的家庭成员之间的社会关系（如角色和责任）的影响。为了研究这些变化，将采用混合方法，其中包括调查、访谈和审查政府统计数据（例如人口普查和土地申请数据）以及其他相关的二手文献。这项研究的研究地点位于博茨瓦纳的乔贝地区;然而，这项工作的社会意义超出了这些边界。如何协调野生动物保护的目标与生活在荒野地区附近的当地人民的需求是一个紧迫的问题，特别是在当今全球南方的大部分地区。由于缺乏长期的数据，人与公园的关系，这项研究将提供特别有用的信息，如何以及为什么人与环境的相互作用随着时间的推移而变化，并将建议保护项目的实施和可持续性的实际影响。在研究影响人们应对不断变化的环境条件的方式的关键社会，经济和政治因素时，研究将突出静态环境管理计划和可持续性举措中通常未考虑的一系列复杂过程。通过这种方式，研究将有助于更大的辩论，无论是不断变化的社会环境关系的性质和实际的方式，野生动物保护和农村生计之间的冲突可能会得到解决。

This project is centered on a case study of the relations between people around Chobe National Park in northern Botswana, and the Park itself. Here, where forty years ago the creation of the park dispossessed local people of their access to nearby forest products and grazing lands, transgression of park boundaries and policies is low and no visible resistance movement against the park has developed. This situation is unusual given numerous similar paradigms of "fortress conservation" that have resulted in high poaching and severe conflict between local residents and park authorities. What explains this seemingly anomalous Botswana case? For what reasons and through what mechanisms has a certain level of acquiescence for the presence of the park and nearby protected areas emerged amongst Chobe Enclave villagers? Ph.D. student Clare Gupta, under the supervision of Dr. Louise Fortmann at the University of California - Berkeley will explore this unique relationship between the Chobe National Park and Chobe residents. Study of this atypical case where local people seem to have developed a certain level of consent for the presence of a wildlife park, a potential measure of the park's "success," this project seeks to determine some of the enabling conditions for protected area sustainability. For this study, Africanist anthropological theories of agrarian resource-use and changing modes of rural production will be applied to understand how people living on the edges of Chobe National Park have re-worked their livelihood practices in relation to the park, and its effects within the context of broader political economic conditions. In addition, recent considerations of critical human geographers on rural-urban interconnections in southern Africa will be employed to understand how Chobe National Park has influenced the economic and social relations that connect the rural Enclave to other places, and what these changing connections indicate for processes of livelihood and demographic change in the Chobe region of northern Botswana. The research will seek to broaden political ecology's line of study by suggesting that over time, people may be able to re-make their relationship with the landscape in response to the establishment of parks and protected areas. The research is comprised of two objectives: first, to examine if and how livelihood strategies employed by individuals and households in the Enclave have shifted in response to the presence of the park; and second, to determine the implications of these altered livelihood strategies for village demographic composition, household structure and social relations (e.g. roles and responsibilities) between family members of different ages and gender. To study these changes, a mixed methods approach will be used that will include surveys, interviews and reviews of government statistics (e.g. census and land application data) as well as other relevant secondary literature. The study site for this research lies in Botswana's Chobe region; however the societal significance of the work extends beyond these borders. The question of how to reconcile the goals of wildlife conservation with the needs of local people living near wilderness areas is a pressing one, particularly in large parts of the global South today. Given the shortage of long term data on people and park relations, this research will provide particularly useful information on how and why human-environment interactions change over time and will suggest practical implications for the implementation and sustainability of conservation projects. In examining the key social, economic and political factors that influence the ways in which people respond to changing environmental conditions, the research will highlight a complex set of processes often unaccounted for in static environmental management plans and sustainability initiatives. In this way, the research will contribute to larger debates on both the nature of changing society-environment relations and the practical ways in which conflicts between wildlife preservation and rural livelihoods might be potentially resolved.