Gentrifying the African Landscape: The Performance and Powers of for-Profit Conservation on Southern Kenya’s Conservancy Frontier

Abstract

Across eastern and southern Africa, conservation landscapes increasingly extend far beyond the boundaries of government-owned protected areas. Several countries have now granted full legal recognition to various types of private or otherwise nonstate conservation arrangements, thereby often seeking to create novel opportunities for ostensibly “green” capital investments in various for-profit conservation enterprises. Following the adoption of the 2013 Wildlife Conservation and Management Act in Kenya, for instance, nonstate conservancies now encompass 6.36 million hectares—or 11 percent of the country’s land area—with at least a further 3 million hectares proposed or in the process of territorialization. Examining the consequences of this precipitous rise of conservancies in southern Kenya’s Maasai Mara region, we suggest that—in addition to significant potential for considerable profit margins to be realized by individual firms—these investments retain a number of other unique powers or capacities to transform prevailing varieties of environmental governance. In this case, these capacities manifest in two interrelated forms: first, in the dissemination of environmental crisis narratives that stigmatize pastoralist communities and thus drive down land rents or values and, second, in the recapitalization of conservation territories and the reconfiguration of prevailing land uses in ways that enable novel forms of rural gentrification via the capture of heightened or differential ground rents.

非洲东部和南部各地的自然保护区面积不断扩大, 已经远远超出了国有保护区。对于不同类型的私人保护区或其他形式的非国有保护区, 目前囊括这些地区的几个国家已在法律上对它们予以正式承认, 为打着”绿色”旗号投资盈利性保护企业的行为创造新机会。例如, 肯尼亚在2013年通过了《野生动植物保护和管理法》, 如今该国非国有保护区的占地面积已达到 636 万公顷, 是该国总面积的 11％, 目前至少还有 300 万公顷的土地已提交申请或正在土地划分过程中。本文研究了肯尼亚南部马赛马拉地区激增的保护区可能产生的后果。我们认为只有个别的公司在此类投资中可能实现可观的利润, 但这些投资在还具有其他特殊的力量或能力, 将会彻底改变现行的各种环境治理方式。从这个角度而言, 这些能力体现为两种相互关联的形式：第一, 由于此类企业在环境危机方面的大肆宣传, 将责任甩给了当地草原的农村社区, 进而压低了土地租金或价值；第二, 随着各保护区进行资本重组, 主要土地用途发生变化, 可能会提高地租或造成地租差异, 进而催生出全新的农村高档化形式。

A través del África oriental y del sur, los paisajes de conservación crecientemente se extienden mucho más allá de los límites de las áreas protegidas de propiedad del gobierno. Varios países ahora han dado total reconocimiento legal a varios tipos de programas de conservación privados o de otro tipo no gubernamental, que con tal estatus buscan a menudo crear oportunidades novedosas de inversión de capital ostensiblemente “verde” en varias empresas lucrativas de conservación. Luego de la adopción de la ley de 2013 sobre Conservación y Manejo de la Vida Silvestre en Kenia, por ejemplo, las áreas de conservación no gubernamentales comprenden ahora 6.36 millones de hectáreas ––o sea el 11 por ciento de la superficie del país–– con por lo menos 3 millones de hectáreas más propuestas o en proceso de territorialización. Examinando las consecuencias de este ascenso tan pronunciado de los proyectos de conservación en la región Maasai Mara del sur de Kenia, proponemos que ––además del potencial significativo de considerables márgenes de ganancia que pueden obtener firmas individuales–– estas inversiones retengan un número de otros poderes únicos o capacidades para transformar las dominantes variedades de gobernanza ambiental. En este caso, estas capacidades se manifiestan en dos formas interrelacionadas: primero, en la diseminación de narrativas sobre la crisis ambiental que estigmatizan las comunidades pastoralistas y por tanto hacen bajar las rentas o valores de la tierra, y, segundo, en la recapitalización de territorios de conservación y reconfiguración de usos dominantes de la tierra con modalidades que habilitan formas novedosas de gentrificación rural por medio de la captura de rentas aguzadas o diferenciales del terreno.

Key Words:

• conservation
• gentrification
• political ecology
• property
• rent gap

关键词:

• 关键词：保护
• 高档化
• 政治生态
• 财产
• 租金差距

Palabras clave:

• conservación
• ecología política
• gentrificación
• propiedad
• vacío de renta

Acknowledgments

We thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on previous versions of this article and Michael Ogbe for his assistance in drawing Figure 1. Research clearance was obtained from Kenya’s National Commission for Science, Technology, and Innovation, which also provided helpful guidance on the conduct of fieldwork in Narok County. Most important, we would like to thank the citizens of Narok and Kenya more broadly for sharing their important perspectives and experiences with us.

Additional information

Funding

Fieldwork for this study was undertaken with support from the Research Council of Norway FRIPRO Toppforsk project ‘Greenmentality: A Political Ecology of the Green Economy in the Global South’ (Grant No. 250975). The second author also received additional funding from the Department of Geography at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) to cover fieldwork expenses.

Notes on contributors

Connor J. Cavanagh

CONNOR J. CAVANAGH is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the political ecology of conservation and agrarian change, novel economic valuations of nonhuman “nature,” and evolving property regimes in eastern Africa.

Teklehaymanot Weldemichel

TEKLEHAYMANOT WELDEMICHEL is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), 7491 Trondheim, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests broadly include the political ecology of conservation, environmental change, and social justice in Kenya and Tanzania.

Tor A. Benjaminsen

TOR A. BENJAMINSEN is Professor in the Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), 1432 Ås, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]. He works on issues of environmental change and conservation, pastoralism, land rights, resistance, and justice in the West African Sahel and East Africa, as well as in Arctic Norway.