Inclusive Protected Area Management in the Amazon: The Importance of Social Networks over Ecological Knowledge

Paula Ungar and Roger Strand
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Paula Ungar: Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Research on Biological Resources, Avenida Paseo de Bolívar (Circunvalar) 16–20, Bogotá, Colombia
Roger Strand: Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, University of Bergen, P.O. Box 7805, N-5020 Bergen, Norway

Sustainability, 2012, vol. 4, issue 12, 1-19

Abstract: In the Amacayacu National Park in Colombia, which partially overlaps with Indigenous territories, several elements of an inclusive protected area management model have been implemented since the 1990s. In particular, a dialogue between scientific researchers, indigenous people and park staff has been promoted for the co-production of biological and cultural knowledge for decision-making. This paper, based on a four-year ethnographic study of the park, shows how knowledge products about different components of the socio-ecosystem neither were efficiently obtained nor were of much importance in park management activities. Rather, the knowledge pertinent to park staff in planning and management is the know-how required for the maintenance and mobilization of multi-scale social-ecological networks. We argue that the dominant models for protected area management—both top-down and inclusive models—underestimate the sociopolitical realm in which research is expected to take place, over-emphasize ecological knowledge as necessary for management and hold a too strong belief in decision-making as a rational, organized response to diagnosis of the PA, rather than acknowledging that thick complexity needs a different form of action. Co-production of knowledge is crucial for governance, but mainly not for the reasons for which it is promoted.

Keywords: protected areas; knowledge; co-management; Colombia; Amazon basin (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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