Forest as ‘nature’ or forest as territory? Knowledge, power, and climate change conservation in the Peruvian Amazon

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the implications of climate crisis governance for rural communities in the Amazon of Peru. It draws the attention to the shared political economy behind the resistance of diverse rural populations particularly, Indigenous and Colono communities. Based on an analysis of two local conservation interventions in the region of San Martín—one involving indigenous communities and the other peasant settlers—this study argues that narrow authorized knowledge obscures the wider historical and agrarian macro context of uneven institutional and ecological arrangements that lead to the reproduction of injustices related to the land, the underlying causes of deforestation, and the authoritarian relationships of these local communities with the state.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• rural movements
• forest conservation
• climate justice
• indigenous movements
• Amazon
• deforestation

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Danitza Gil and Nicole Enrico for their excellent research assistance, Miguel Valderrama for the great support during the fieldwork, and Maria-Therese Gustafsson for her generous comments on an early version of the paper. This article is the results of the FONDECYT/PROCIENCIA Project 2020-PI0446 of CONCYTEC/Peru.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Nor do they share the same value equivalence system of nature that extractivist markets try to impose on their ecosystems (Li 2015).

2 We thank our anonymous reviewer for reminding us of the necessity of reflecting on intangible dimensions and complexity of addressing these in processes of policy making.

3 Chomba et al. (2015), Holmes and Cavanagh (2016), and Schmidt-Soltau and Brockington (2007) are some studies describing these same problems in other contexts.

4 See Regional Directorial Resolution N° 212-2017-DRASAM-GRSM.

5 Its signatories commit not to expand the agricultural frontier to avoid deforestation and to adopt sustainable practices. In addition, they receive technical assistance, supplies, and work materials from the managing NGO.

6 SUNARP, Property Registry File No. 6838- R, Volume 40, Folio 1407; Supreme Decree No. 038-2001–AG regulates the Law of Protected Natural Areas (Law No. 26834).

7 Rondas (community patrols) are a form of rural autonomous policing and community justice organization that were initially created in the northern Andes and then spread to other areas in the Andes during the period of political violence (1980–1992), but also to the colonized areas in the Amazon (Thorp and Paredes 2010)

8 The Master Plan is the highest level-planning tool for the Alto Mayo Protected Forest. It establishes the general strategies and objectives for the management of the area.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico/PROCIENCIA: [Grant Number PERU- PI0446].

Notes on contributors

Maritza Paredes

Maritza Paredes is a Professor of Political Sociology in the Department of Social Sciences and Director of the Ph.D. Program in Sociology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Parede’s research focuses on political and environmental sociology, as she has conducted extensive research mobilization and conflicts related to extractive industries, illegal economies, indigenous peoples politics and most recently climate change. She holds a Ph.D. in International Development from Oxford University.

Anke Kaulard

Anke Kaulard, PhD in Sociology (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú). Specializes in local agrarian and environmental institutionalism and studies multiscalar and intersected inequalities. She holds a master's degree in Latin American Regional Sciences at the University of Cologne, Germany. She is co author (with Maritza Paredes) of ‘Fighting the Climate Crisis in Persistently Unequal Land Regimes: Natural Protected Areas in the Peruvian Amazon.’ Journal of Cleaner Production Vol. 265. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121605