Escaping the Border, Debordering the Nature: Protected Areas, Participatory Management, and Environmental Security in Northern Patagonia (i.e. Chile and Argentina)

Abstract

This paper focuses on the management of protected areas in transboundary contexts and centres on the contemporary evolution of the border between Chile and Argentina in Northern Patagonia, which is a region that has witnessed the creation of numerous protected areas that are currently claimed by Mapuche organisations and communities as part of their customary territory. In response to these claims, both states have progressively integrated Mapuche communities into the management of protected areas through specific agreements. Many of these protected areas have also been included in a Transboundary Biosphere Reserve proposal for UNESCO. A new environmental governance model that includes the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights is under construction not only along but also across the border between Chile and Argentina. Therefore, we discuss how participatory management could be viewed as a tool for redefining borders by linking environmental security in protected areas to human security in Mapuche communities. The article seeks to understand the role of environmental governance in shaping and/or overcoming political boundaries, and analyse how strategic mobilisations of the environment can advance the achievement of competing territorial projects led by different actors in different periods.

Keywords:

• environmental security
• transborder protected areas
• participatory management
• indigenous sovereignty
• Mapuche people
• Northern Patagonia

Acknowledgements

The authors especially thank Harlan Koff and Carmen Maganda, as well as all the participants of the RISC Writer's Workshop on ‘Environmental Security in Transnational contexts: What Relevance for Regional Human Security Regimes?’ for their comments on a previous version of this article. We also gratefully acknowledge the additional advices of Nelson Martínez and the revision of formal aspects by Fernanda Kalazich during the preparation of the article. Comments made by the anonymous reviewers eventually helped to improve this published version.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We use the terms ‘indigenous’, ‘aboriginal’, and ‘native' interchangeably because they all refer to the first and oldest inhabitants of a specific land or territory. We therefore consider that ‘indigeneity [ … ] connotes belonging and originariness and deeply felt processes of attachment and identification, and thus it distinguishes “natives” from others' (Merlan, 2009, p. 304). In this respect, indigeneity may be used in the context of post-colonial societies by specific groups to gain ethnic legitimacy in the reclamation of their customary territories.

2 Law n°18.362 of the Ministry of Agriculture, enacted on 8 November 1984.

3 Retrieved December 17, 2013, from http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C169

4 Retrieved December 17, 2013, from http://www.cbd.int/convention/articles/default.shtml?a=cbd-08

5 See, for example, Mapuexpress: http://www.mapuexpress.org/ and Azkintuwe: http://www.azkintuwe.org/ websites.

6 Retrieved December 18, 2013, from http://www.mapuche-nation.org/english/main/feature/m_nation.htm

7 Resolution n°4.050, retrieved December 17, 2013, from http://intranet.iucn.org/webfiles/doc/IUCNPolicy/Resolutions/2008_WCC_4/English/RES/res_4_050_recognition_of_indigenous_conservation_territories.pdf

8 A People's Area aiming at including some indigenous communities had been previously created by the park authority, whereas the NPA opened a ‘Department of Human Settlements' in 1991 at the national level to include indigenous realities within top management.

9 This section is based on results deeply developed in a previous article published in Territoire en Mouvement (Sepúlveda, 2011).

10 In addition, Stoll-Kleeman, De La Vega-Leinert, and Schultz (2010) note that the Biosphere Reserve Program especially ‘[emphasizes] the goal of sustainable natural resource use, with community participation as a key method to achieve this', and further precise that ‘the emphasis on a partnership approach is based on the conviction that BRs and their local communities are better equipped to respond to external political, economic and social pressure' (Stoll-Kleeman et al., 2010, p. 228).

11 Between 2008 and 2010, the CMN also engaged with the Chilean NGO Observatorio Ciudadano in comparative research on the participatory governance of protected areas in Argentina and Chile. The final report is available at http://www.observatorio.cl/sites/default/files/biblioteca/informe_final_proyecto_cmn_oc.pdf (retrieved September 24, 2013).

12 See the official website at: http://www.theconservationlandtrust.org/eng/our_mission.htm (retrieved July 18, 2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bastien Sepúlveda

Bastien Sepúlveda is a geographer working on Indigenous issues in Chile and Canada, where he worked with various Indigenous communities and organisations. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Studies (ICIIS), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His current research project focuses on Indigenous territorial reconfigurations and dynamics in Chilean urban areas.

Sylvain Guyot

Sylvain Guyot is Associate Professor at the Université de Limoges, France. He is the director of the ‘Environmental Capital’ research team of UMR GEOLAB CNRS 6042. His research interests and work are in the fields of Human Geography and Political Ecology, and he has done fieldwork in South Africa, Chile, and Argentina. His current research is on the links between ecological frontiers and site-specific art in South Africa (Eden to Addo Corridor), the USA, and France.