Conflict and conservation : On the role of protected areas for environmental justice
Bontempi, Antonio (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Geografia)
Venturi, Pietro (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Del Bene, Daniela (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Scheidel, Arnim (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Zaldo-Aubanell, Quim (Universitat de Vic - Universitat Central de Catalunya)
Maneja, Roser (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Geografia)

Date:	2023
Abstract:	When are protected areas drivers of environmental injustices and conflict, and under which circumstances may they support customary users in protecting their lands and livelihoods against extractivist development? We address these questions by analyzing the diverse roles that protected areas play in the context of environmental conflicts. We build a global database of 474 environmental conflicts in protected areas by overlapping data from the World Database of Protected Areas and the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice. Through descriptive statistics and content analysis, we characterize the intersections between the two databases and discuss those cases where protected areas play an important role in the origin, dynamics, or outcomes of the conflicts. Our findings show that growth-oriented extractivism and development are major drivers of conflicts in protected areas, where these latter can both jeopardize and support environmental justice. While several cases describe protected areas as drivers of injustices and conflicts, they can also become tools that support peoples' struggles against controversial extractivism and development projects. The diversity of possible interactions between conflict configurations, movement claims, and forms of conservation thus require a nuanced understanding of the complex implications of protected areas for environmental justice.
Grants:	European Commission 695446 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca FI-SDUR 464 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación SRYC2000I029088XV0
Note:	Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UAB
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Protected Areas ; Conservation ; Environmental Conflicts ; Environmental Justice ; Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas) ; World Database of Protected Areas (WDPA)
Published in:	Global Environmental Change, Vol. 82 (September 2023) , art. 102740, ISSN 1872-9495

DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102740

14 p, 4.6 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles