2 WWF bankrolled rhino mercenaries The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has admitted that it provided funds to

Box 6.2 WWF bankrolled rhino mercenaries The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has admitted that it provided funds to

armed anti-poaching units in Namibia set up by a clandestine and proscribed oper- ation run by a team of British mercenaries.

Documents obtained . . . reveal details of three payments that the WWF has previ- ously denied making and which an independent inquiry failed to reveal. The WWF’s admission came a week after Scotland Yard’s international and organised crime branch submitted a file on the secret programme, codenamed Operation Lock, to the Director of Public Prosecutions . . .

The WWF was anxious to dissociate itself from Operation Lock when it was uncovered last year. It had been set up in 1987 by Prince Bernhard [of the Netherlands, a former WWF president] . . . and Dr John Hanks, then the WWF’s Africa programme director, to infiltrate the illegal trade in rhinoceros horns and identify individuals and countries involved.

They were concerned that little was being done to stem the decline in numbers of black rhino from 100,000 in 1960 to just 4,000 in 1987. Dr Hanks had appointed KAS Enterprises Ltd. to run the operation. KAS’s chairman was the late Sir David Stirling, founder of the Special Air Service. Many of its staff were former SAS members. It is thought they had little experience in rhino conservation.

In order to distance itself from the project, the WWF appointed Lord Benson . . . to conduct an independent inquiry. His report to the board of WWF International in Geneva is believed to have concluded that no WWF personnel other than Dr Hanks knew of the scheme and no WWF money was involved.

However, . . . a request for 109,400 Swiss francs (£43,760) was made to the WWF on 13 October 1989 by the Namibia Nature Foundation for ‘urgent short-term’ funding for anti-poaching units in Etosha and Damaraland. Dr Hanks said last week that those units were probably set up by Operation Lock and would have been armed for self-defence . . .

Robert SanGeorge, director of communications, . . . confirming the information received, . . . said a total of Sfr. 157,160 (£62,864) was paid between Nov. 1989 and Feb. 1991. ‘It would appear that we innocently and unwittingly funded anti- poaching units that were set up as part of Operation Lock,’ said Mr SanGeorge.

Asked how his investigation failed to identify payments made to anti-poaching units established by Operation Lock, . . . details of which were contained in a file labelled ‘Anti-Poaching Units’ at the WWF headquarters in Geneva, Lord Benson refused to comment.

Source: Boggan and Williams (1991: 6)

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14 Area

Number of sites 12

Number of sites (thousands) and Area (thousands of sq km)

Five-year period beginning

Figure 6.3 The global growth of protected areas Source: UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, UK, 2001

governments may devise their own categories and add other standards of protection to those internationally recognised.

countries at least, this rarely translates consistently into appropriate security of protec-

These categories of protection have a degree of legal standing, but, in Third World

tion on the ground, and many protected areas are suffering ‘serious and increasing degra- dation as a result of large-scale development projects, expanding agricultural frontiers, illegal hunting and logging, fuelwood collection and uncontrolled burning’ (Wells and Brandon, 1992: 1).

In a manner not dissimilar to the Biodiversity Convention’s promotion of debate and disagreement, the creation and protection of national parks, biosphere reserves and other protected areas have often been at the core of conflicts over land in Third World coun- tries. Thrupp (1990), for instance, views tourism development (particularly its emphasis on wilderness protection through the creation of parks and reserves) as largely serving the interests of the privileged upper-middle classes, mainly First World tourists and scientists.

Box 6.3, which recounts the observations of Chris McIvor from a debate about conser- vation in Zimbabwe attended by both international environmental agencies and local representatives, illustrates a few of the important points concerning such conflicts and underlines the significance of conservation as a discourse. First, there is a clear associ-

11111 ation of conservation with colonialism: reserved and protected areas were part of the

158 • Socio-environmental organisations Table 6.2 Protected area categories

Category Type

Description

I Strict Nature Reserve/ Protected area managed mainly for science or Wilderness Area

wilderness protection

Ia Strict Nature Reserve Protected area managed mainly for science Ib Wilderness Area

Protected area managed mainly for wilderness protection

II National Park Protected area managed mainly for ecosystem protection and recreation

III Natural Monument Protected area managed mainly for conservation of specific natural features

IV Habitat/Species Protected area managed mainly for conservation Management Area

through management intervention V Protected Landscape/

Protected area managed mainly for landscape/ Seascape

seascape conservation and recreation VI Managed Resource

Protected area managed mainly for the sustainable Protected Area

use of natural ecosystems

Source: IUCN (1994)

system of securing raw materials (such as timber) for the imperial infrastructure (Colchester, 1994). Second, there are sharply opposed views of the meaning and value of nature. As Colchester (1994) observes, national parks and other protected areas have ‘imposed elite visions of land use which have resulted in the alienation of common lands to the state’ (5). This has also resulted in the displacement and resettlement of people to make way for park conservation – the case of the Maasai in East Africa stands out here, but other examples, as well as that of the Maasai, are illustrated and discussed in Chapter 8. Third, there is the question of who exactly gains from the construction of parks. It rarely seems to be the local people and, indeed, part of the answer appears to be found in the removal of local rights and a loss or denial of ownership. Instead it is the relatively rich First World consumer with leisure time and wealth enough to be

a tourist who gains from the designation of national parks. The organisation Survival (previously Survival International) also round on conservation and its effects on tribal peoples: ‘When national parks are set up to protect wildlife, tribal peoples are often the first casualties. They are thrown off their land. Denied the right to graze their herds or hunt for food they sink into poverty and despair’ (undated: 4). In this way, such approaches directly contradict sustainable livelihood approaches to development that seek to build upon the assets, capabilities and activities of poorer communities (a point to which we return in a discussion of pro-poor tourism in Chapter 9).

Ecocentrism?

The final stream of environmentalism is ecocentrism. 2 Unlike the other environmental streams, ecocentrism does not place humans above other life forms and instead regards nature and environment of intrinsic value and of equal importance. As Table 6.1 docu- ments, this is a position adopted by the major environmental organisations such as Greenpeace and Earth First who take a holistic approach to nature. The similarities to preservationism in terms of programmes adopted are, however, detectable. Ecocentric environmentalists are especially concerned to protect threatened species, habitats and ecosystems and ‘strongly support the preservation of large tracts of wilderness as the best means of enabling the flourishing of a diverse non-human world’ (Eckersley, 1992:

Socio-environmental organisations • 159