Anthropology, Conservation and Development: Analysis of practices and representations of local populations affected by the implementation of the conservation project "Projet Grands Singes" in the Dja Reserve in Cameroon

Due to its large forest, the region of south-eastern Cameroon is regarded as a wildlife sanctuary, unfortunately subject to increasingly stronger pressures – massive deforestation, intensive end extensive agriculture, poaching – that threaten its natural resources. The area has thus been the target of conservation initiatives for decades. Not only do governmental measures regulate the access and use of forest resources, but many conservation and development projects keep coming and settling in the villages of the area. In spite of new approaches willing to improve relationships between local people and conservation agents, tensions and conflicts keep arising. The necessary collaboration with the locals implies a comprehensive knowledge of their conceptions and attitudes towards nature, forest and its resources. Moreover, the interactions between conservation agents and residents have unavoidable social, economic and political consequences at the local level that need to be understood and analysed.
The Projet Grands Singes, as well as great apes conservation initiatives worldwide tend to rely on a “western” perception of nature that is not universally shared. The Badjoué people living in the villages working with PGS have a long history of hunting traditions and have been consuming bushmeat for ages. Their lifestyle is inseparable from the forest as they interact with it on a daily basis and depend on it for their subsistence. However, their relation to their environment has historically been transformed many times in many ways and their previous experiences with conservation initiatives are still influencing their current attitudes toward PGS. It is thus essential to study the relations between those people, their forest, and conservation in a historical perspective, and confront it to the conceptions of the conservation agents in the field.
The Anthropology of Nature constitutes an optimal research tool to understand and describe encounters between very different world views while the Anthropology of Conservation and Development is essential to become aware of and analyze the relationships, dynamics and changes at work in the context of conservation. This PhD research thus falls within a will to combine those two approaches in order to reach a deep and overall comprehension of the situation in 6 villages at the northern periphery of the Dja reserve. In the end, a meticulous ethnography resulting from a long-term field study will enable us to offer suggestions regarding ways of reducing tensions and conflicts, pacifying the relationships and improving the general situation of great apes conservation in south-eastern Cameroon.
The achievements of 2013 mostly concern advances in data analysis as well as a final field trip in December, which was necessary in order to collect complementary data and to answer some remaining questioning. Among other findings, we highlight the fact that local villagers have different and varied practices and conceptions of the forest, the great apes and thus of conservation. Local attitudes vary according to a range of criteria such as gender, age, education, social, economic and political status, participation in development projects, subsistence activities, relationships with PGS staff, etc. This diversity and complexity has to be understood and taken into account if conservation initiatives are to achieve their goals of protecting nature whilst empowering the locals, improving their living conditions and their active participation in the management of their environment. Our analysis and suggestions will be based on comparisons between PGS and similar conservation initiatives worldwide through a detailed study of literature. By doing so, we aim to contribute to an anthropological approach of conservation that will benefit the situation of local people as well as the conservation practices at a larger scale.
Time line: PhD 2011-2015
Supervision: Véronique Servais (Liège University) | Nikki Tagg | Zjef Pereboom
Funding: Non-FRIA University of Liège

Project type:PhD project