Co-opting conservation: migrant resource control and access to national park management in the Philippine uplands

Dressler W.H., . (2005) Co-opting conservation: migrant resource control and access to national park management in the Philippine uplands. [Proceedings Paper]

Often the history of political and economic inequality in forest villages can shape how and why resource use conflicts arise during the evolution of national parks management. Increasingly in the Philippine uplands indigenous people and migrant settlers co-exist and compete over forest resources and in the process have shaped how conservationists preserve resources through national parks. This paper examines how migrants have claimed lands and shaped production and exchange relations among the indigenous Tagbanua to built on shape and benefit from otherwise coercive park management on Palawan Islands the Philippines. Migrant control over productive resources has shaped who among each group could sustain agriculture in the face of the states dominant conservation narrative: valorizing migrant paddy rice and criminalizing Tagbanua swidden cultivation. Upon settling migrant farmers used new political and economic strength to tap into provincial political networks to be eventually hired at Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park. As a result migrants shaped conservation to support paddy rice while criminalizing the cultivation od swidden among Tagbanua and poorer migrants. While state conservation policy shapes how parks influence local resource access and use older political economic inequalities in forest villages build on such policies thereby influencing how management affects poor households.

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Abstract

Often the history of political and economic inequality in forest villages can shape how and why resource use conflicts arise during the evolution of national parks management. Increasingly in the Philippine uplands indigenous people and migrant settlers co-exist and compete over forest resources and in the process have shaped how conservationists preserve resources through national parks. This paper examines how migrants have claimed lands and shaped production and exchange relations among the indigenous Tagbanua to built on shape and benefit from otherwise coercive park management on Palawan Islands the Philippines. Migrant control over productive resources has shaped who among each group could sustain agriculture in the face of the states dominant conservation narrative: valorizing migrant paddy rice and criminalizing Tagbanua swidden cultivation. Upon settling migrant farmers used new political and economic strength to tap into provincial political networks to be eventually hired at Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park. As a result migrants shaped conservation to support paddy rice while criminalizing the cultivation od swidden among Tagbanua and poorer migrants. While state conservation policy shapes how parks influence local resource access and use older political economic inequalities in forest villages build on such policies thereby influencing how management affects poor households.

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Item Type:	Proceedings Paper
Additional Information:	1 ill. 18 ref.
AGROVOC Term:	NATIONAL PARKS
AGROVOC Term:	MIGRATION
AGROVOC Term:	STORAGE
AGROVOC Term:	SHIFTING CULTIVATION
AGROVOC Term:	PHILIPPINES
Geographical Term:	MALAYSIA
Depositing User:	Ms. Norfaezah Khomsan
Last Modified:	24 Apr 2025 05:28
URI:	http://webagris.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/16681

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