Private Protected Areas: Reconciling Global and Local Motives

In the past few decades, there has been a global increase in the establishment of protected areas, areas with restricted human activity to safeguard biota, with the wave of conservation efforts responding to the growing threat of global warming. Protected areas are an essential component of conservation efforts as they provide a safe-haven for biota, especially large carnivores, that would otherwise go extinct in the presence of humans or community-based conservation systems. Along with ethical reasons, conserving these local ecosystems is important as they are beneficial for nearby agricultural communities, stabilize the Earth’s macro-ecosystem, and hold information useful for scientific and medical research. Protected areas manifest themselves in different ways, most commonly as national parks or natural reserves, but one of the latest trends has been private protected areas (PPA), defined as privately owned land tracts (individual, NGO, or corporate ownership) with the explicit goal of conservation. Private protected areas are most commonly found in developing countries where governments often do not have the financial or organizational resources to undertake all environmental responsibilities. While PPA’s are beneficial in conserving valuable ecosystems, they can also be contentious, especially with regards to the displacement of local peoples and cultural impingement.

Douglas Tompkins & Pumalin Park

Global Motives: Eco-Philanthropy

At first glance, PPA’s appear to be the ideal solution for conserving ecosystems around the world where local resources are lacking. This was certainly the case with Tompkins and Pumalin Park in Chile. Since the 1970’s, when the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) deregulated the socialist state of President Allemande, Chile has had a strongly neoliberal economy which emphasizes limited government interference and privatization. This privatization and deregulation has allowed extractive industries, predominantly mining and logging, to turn into some of the wealthiest, and thereby most powerful, entities in Chile. So, while the Chilean government did establish some protected areas throughout the twentieth century, the majority of natural land was either owned privately, a result of Pinochet’s privatization, or controlled by powerful logging companies. Furthermore, the national parks that were established mostly covered land that was not useful commercially, with regulatory frameworks deemed “scattered and fragmented” by the IUCN. With a weak regulatory structure, limited resources and in competition with powerful logging companies, the Chilean government has not had the resources to establish necessary protected areas, a cost-intensive process which requires purchasing private land tracts and developing park infrastructure.

In the absence of government action, Tompkins was able to use

his vast financial resources to step in, buy land deeds and establish a private protected area. Here, the immediate advantage of PPA’s becomes apparent: a non-reliance on governments in the developing world, many of whom also feel pressure to support resource extraction in order to fuel their growing economies. As opposed to the powerful, economically developed global north, these governments often do not have the luxury of being able to set aside exploitable land for conservation, even if they recognize its importance. Tompkins’ establishment of Pumalin Park preserved nearly a million acres of fragile Patagonian forest, and all of his protected areas in Chile store an estimated eighty million tons of carbon, which show the conservational relevance of Tompkins’ actions at both local and, perhaps even more, at global scales. The way in which Tompkins achieved his conservation goals is also notable and perhaps a bit paradoxical; he used his wealth and capitalist strategies, from the consumerism culture he disavowed, to achieve success in Chile’s neoliberal system. For example, Tompkins raised serious capital for the park by leveraging his global business connections and using tactical corporate-esque marketing. This is the crux of the success of PPA’s and eco-philanthropists; they have the wealth and business know-how to effectively achieve conservation goals, especially in countries with capitalist systems like Chile where wealth is the true source of power. Without Tompkins’ intervention, it can be presumed that this land would have eventually fallen to the other wealthy, and thereby powerful, entities in Chile: logging companies. Tompkins’ connections to the business world continued to reap conservation benefits as after his investments in Chile, he gained global recognition, made eco-philanthropy fashionable and spurred further investment in the region by others such as Tom Brokaw, George Soros and Goldman Sachs.

Local Peoples

The impacts of PPA’s on humans, which can be easily forgotten, must also be taken into account when analyzing their holistic effectiveness. Local populations of rural Chile mostly consist of campesinos, or local farmers, and indigenous peoples, predominantly the Mapuche, both of whom largely depend on the land for their livelihoods. PPA’s can positively impact these local communities through the creation of jobs and an eco-tourism industry. While developing Pumalin Park, Tompkins hired locals to develop park infrastructure and work as rangers or guides. The establishment of the park also created a stream of eco-tourism that revitalized the economies of local communities who provide hospitality services and sell handmade goods to eco-tourists. While there is no comprehensive survey data of Pumalin Park, a study of a similar nearby PPA, Huilo Huilo, shows that local communities supported the development of the park for these economic reasons. However, at the same time, inequity in the distribution of park jobs and eco-tourism profits led to internal tensions within the broader local community. The Huilo Huilo study reveals that only some communities, often due to location, reap economic benefits from the park, while many others do not see any benefits. In fact, the nearby presence of the PPA has negative economic impacts, such as elevated land prices which can price locals out of their homes. It is important to recognize that PPA’s, while economically beneficial to some, can actually lead to economic and even political instability for other community members.

Another side effect of PPA’s, perhaps of greater concern, is the displacement of local peoples and the loss of cultural identity. In Southern Chile, irregular land tenure is common due to Pinochet-era policies, which means that many rural communities do not actually have legal documentation for their land. To gather land for Pumalin Park, Tompkins bought land deeds from absentee landowners, leading to the evictions of local peoples who had actually been living on those plots for years. This displacement was disruptive to these peoples, both campesino and indigenous communities, who financially depend on the park’s natural resources and whose cultures are deeply rooted in their natural surroundings.

Left to Right: Mapuche Woman, Chilean Campesino, Eco-Tourism Interactions, Lodge at Huilo Huilo

Virtualization of Nature

The establishment of PPA’s displaces local people from the land not only literally, but figuratively as well. In offering a chance to experience nature and the wilderness, PPA’s inherently assume a split between humans and the natural environment. This Western conception, termed a “virtualiz[ed] vision” of nature, creates an imagined space of nature with no human presence; a conception that in fact makes it easier to physically displace locals. PPA’s explicitly propagate this idea through their marketing as shown by the website of Pumalin Park, which is plastered with natural imagery but has few references to cultural history.

This virtualized vision of nature comes into direct conflict with local peoples’ cultures and livelihoods, which are intertwined with their natural environments. For example, both campesinos and indigenous people have a rational-use relationship with the land, in which they respect the land yet still believe in using its resources responsibly. This directly conflicts with PPA’s vision of nature in which any human presence is unnatural. In Huilo Huilo, Mapuche communities commented on their frustrating inability to use natural resources around them as they were accustomed to, while campesinos commented on their inability to raise livestock freely. Furthermore, PPA’s separation of human and land leads to the loss of indigenous culture which is tied to the land. In Pumalin Park, surrounding local communities comment on the loss of their cultural norms and traditions, such as the drinking of mate or asado, within the park. And it is not only the virtualized vision created by the PPA that can lead to cultural tensions; the aforementioned mere fact that Tompkins established the park as a foreigner drew skepticism from Chileans. While these skeptics were eventually assuaged by Tompkins’ donation of the park to the Chilean government, it is not always the case globally that PPA ownership is handed back to the local country, which can exacerbate tensions. While PPA’s intentions are not to impact local people in this way, these side-effects of displacement and cultural impingement are harmful to local communities struggling to maintain their cultural identity. However, it is also important to note that this impact is variable, while many are negatively impacted in this way, there are some communities that do reap economic benefits and have better relations with PPA’s.

Reconciling Local and Global

The tension between local cultural issues created by PPA’s and global motives of nature conservation can be hard to reconcile as they are operating on such different scales of local and global. There is definite significance to both sets of motivations; steps must be taken in order to conserve the Earth’s ecosystems before it is too late, and simultaneously, the cultural sovereignty of rural and indigenous people, already marginalized groups, cannot be violated. Yet, there is no clear-cut resolution to negotiate these two motivations. An easily accessible solution would be splitting land between PPA’s and indigenous peoples whose wise-use practices still aid with conservation. Yet, this is problematic for several reasons. First, this solution essentializes indigenous peoples as “noble savages” and mounts the unfair assumption that their lifestyles and cultural practices must adhere to pre-industrial forms. In fact, many indigenous peoples live modern lives, raising complicated questions about degrees of indigeneity and what degree permits an indigenous group to stay on their land. Second, this solution also assumes that individuals will always make the correct decision surrounding conservation, which is simply not the case. With economic struggles or generational changes, some may not consider long-term impacts and may decide to sell their land to extractive companies for short-term gain.

A Global Phenomenon