SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Conservation projects and displacement are two facets of the relationship between the state and the environment. Conservation projects aim to address the threats to the environment and its biodiversity that are undoubtedly real in contemporary times. At the same time, they are based on an exclusionary framework in approach, practices, and understanding. They begin with the process of identification, distinction, division, and demarcation of what is to be preserved and conserved. Hence, state-led conservation becomes top-down, instrumental, and forceful. My thesis argues that such practices of conservation projects become untoward and unsustainable, victimising people, and destroying nature. It fails to both understand people and the environment and to address the problems. The approach denies an ecology whereby both the people and the environment share a symbiotic relationship, and displacement becomes a common outcome. Displacement of people from a conservation project is not just about the physical removal of the people from their habitats but also the erasure of their history, memory, and representation (Schama 1996 cited in Brockington and Igoe, 2006) and fails to recognize complex and enduring human-nature interactions. Consequently, it disrupts ecosystems in the name of conservation. My thesis critically examines and analyses the issues of conservation and displacement from a bottom-up approach, that is, from the experiences of the displaced. It studies a prominent ‘tiger conservation project without tiger’, namely the Dampa Tiger Reserve (DTR) in the state of Mizoram, India, its disruption of local ecosystems it was established to conserve and the resulting environmental and socio-economic crisis. I investigate socio-cultural and historical factors affecting the human-nature relationship in the DTR. The Dampa Tiger Reserve (DTR) conservation project demonstrates the importance of understanding local ecosystems and conservation that challenges the state-led conservation practices resulting in displacement of both people and nature.