Muddy Waters: Conservation Discourse and the Politics of Power in Marine Park Co-Management in Belize

Abstract

<p>This research examines the complex local-national-global power dynamics that are a part of marine protected area (MPA) co-management in Belize using Friends of Nature (FON) a local NGO that manage two MPAs along the southern coast as an example. The first part of the thesis consists of a description and evaluation of marine conservation in Belize and the Friends of Nature experience thus far. The chapers document the system of MPA co-management in Belize, highlighting the distribution of power and authority between local national and global stakeholders involved in the process. In reviewing FON's management activities and its interactions with the communities it represents, I suggest a new way of understanding the notion of local empowerment as a component of co-management, lessons usefully shared, as well as areas for improvement.</p> <p>Part Two takes a more theoretically critical perspective on this experience, offering a different evaluation of the policies of marine conservation intervention. The chapters extent Part One's evaluation, but I shift the focus toward the discurve context in which co-management operates in one village, Placencia. The analysis presents the process-as a contested conceptual project in which local fishers' and global conservation organizations' notion of conservation come into conflict. The matrix of connections between global and local actors indicates that through a powerful conceptual apparatus, conservation discourse is not necessarily dominant. In many ways, fisher actively contested. In doing so they engage these discursive constructions of ecological problems and solutions by participating in FON in a highly strategic manner. This ultimately results in a continusouly shifting assortment of gains and deficits for all co-mangement participants, and highlights the limitation of positioning co-management as either 'empowering' or co-opting of local stakeholders.</p>