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New Ecologies for the Twenty-First Century
Conservation Is Our Government Now: The Politics of Ecology in Papua New Guinea
A significant contribution to political ecology, Conservation Is Our Government Now is an ethnographic examination of the history and social effects of conservation and development efforts in Papua New Guinea. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted over a period of seven years, Paige West focuses on the Crater Mountain Wildlife Management Area, the site of a biodiversity conservation project implemented between 1994 and 1999. She describes the interactions between those who ran the program—mostly ngo workers—and the Gimi people who live in the forests surrounding Crater Mountain. West shows that throughout the project there was a profound disconnect between the goals of the two groups. The ngo workers thought that they would encourage conservation and cultivate development by teaching Gimi to value biodiversity as an economic resource. The villagers expected that in exchange for the land, labor, food, and friendship they offered the conservation workers, they would receive benefits, such as medicine and technology. In the end, the divergent nature of each group’s expectations led to disappointment for both.
West reveals how every aspect of the Crater Mountain Wildlife Management Area—including ideas of space, place, environment, and society—was socially produced, created by changing configurations of ideas, actions, and material relations not only in Papua New Guinea but also in other locations around the world. Complicating many of the assumptions about nature, culture, and development underlying contemporary conservation efforts, Conservation Is Our Government Now demonstrates the unique capacity of ethnography to illuminate the relationship between the global and the local, between transnational processes and individual lives.
West reveals how every aspect of the Crater Mountain Wildlife Management Area—including ideas of space, place, environment, and society—was socially produced, created by changing configurations of ideas, actions, and material relations not only in Papua New Guinea but also in other locations around the world. Complicating many of the assumptions about nature, culture, and development underlying contemporary conservation efforts, Conservation Is Our Government Now demonstrates the unique capacity of ethnography to illuminate the relationship between the global and the local, between transnational processes and individual lives.
352 pages, Paperback
First published May 10, 2006
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About the author
Paige West
3 books2 followersPaige West is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University.
There is more than one author with this name
There is more than one author with this name
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 5, 2018
This is one of the best ethnographies I’ve read. A+ to West for her collaborative work, transparency, and accessible writing.
January 11, 2012
This is a good introduction to conservation-as-development, conservation-and-development, etc. West writes very accessibly, and switches easily from theory to anecdote in relation to her time living and working with the people of Maimafu, Papua New Guinea.
She writes about Crater Mountain (the site of various conservation activities) as a produced space where the problems have been framed in such a way as to legitimize the interventions. She talks at length about the tension between how local people 'see' the forests and the exchange relations they've entered into, and how outsiders 'see' these same things.
I think this quote sums it up:
“Environmental interventions in PNG and elsewhere are not only acts of conservation, but also complex processes of social engineering and development where ‘fundamental’ notions of self, social relations, and the environment are engaged.”
She writes about Crater Mountain (the site of various conservation activities) as a produced space where the problems have been framed in such a way as to legitimize the interventions. She talks at length about the tension between how local people 'see' the forests and the exchange relations they've entered into, and how outsiders 'see' these same things.
I think this quote sums it up:
“Environmental interventions in PNG and elsewhere are not only acts of conservation, but also complex processes of social engineering and development where ‘fundamental’ notions of self, social relations, and the environment are engaged.”
January 26, 2021
The first conservation book written by a women I’ve ever read. And what a difference - this book is filled with a diverse perspective, understanding of place and positionally of the narrator, empathy, connection and curiosity.
September 29, 2021
While this is an academic text it is really engaging and she does an excellent job discussing the dynamics between the Gimi people and the conservationists.
September 24, 2019
This is a fascinating and depressing book about an integrated conservation-development program at Crater Mountain in PNG. West has lived in the village community of Maimafu for years and is intimately familiar with the social disruption that conservation and commoditization have wrought. For its analysis of commodification of nature and of how broken promises of development (schools, healthcare, etc.) made by conservationists affect the community, this should be essential reading for all conservation staff and researchers.
My one critique - and it is substantial - is that West is often too accepting of broad generalizations of how Gimi see the world, even when their own voices presented in the text provide alternate and less "othered" interpretations. That reality is constructed from social exchange relations in Melanesia is undoubtedly true to some extent, but it is not a totalizing difference that is incommensurable with the viewpoints of Westerners and urban New Guineans. I think the nuances and failures of this conservation program would emerge more in the narrative if West didn't create so high a wall between mutual understanding - one that the narrative itself doesn't necessarily support. I saw the actual story as one of broken promises rather than incommensurability - a more damning critique, imo.
My one critique - and it is substantial - is that West is often too accepting of broad generalizations of how Gimi see the world, even when their own voices presented in the text provide alternate and less "othered" interpretations. That reality is constructed from social exchange relations in Melanesia is undoubtedly true to some extent, but it is not a totalizing difference that is incommensurable with the viewpoints of Westerners and urban New Guineans. I think the nuances and failures of this conservation program would emerge more in the narrative if West didn't create so high a wall between mutual understanding - one that the narrative itself doesn't necessarily support. I saw the actual story as one of broken promises rather than incommensurability - a more damning critique, imo.
April 16, 2013
What a great book! If you are interested in environmentalism, conservation, nature, wild places, NGO's, or even the broader topic of public engagement, this book is a must-read. I read it as part of a university anthropology course on political ecology, and it is easily the most enjoyable assigned reading of my schooling. Yes, there are some sections that will likely be a bit theoretical for the casual reader, but they are accessible--or you can simply skip over them.
Paige West is an anthropologist researcher and this book tells of her time in the New Guinea highlands with a people referred to as the Gimi. She chronicles a "conservation-as-development" program that was implemented in the region by some conservation NGO's and the Gimi people. It tells the story of differences in ways of seeing the world, differences in culture and understanding, and differences in understanding what the real objectives are. As West states towards the end of the book, these ideas between the two groups are "mutually exclusive". A thought provoking a analysis full of well-written prose.
Paige West is an anthropologist researcher and this book tells of her time in the New Guinea highlands with a people referred to as the Gimi. She chronicles a "conservation-as-development" program that was implemented in the region by some conservation NGO's and the Gimi people. It tells the story of differences in ways of seeing the world, differences in culture and understanding, and differences in understanding what the real objectives are. As West states towards the end of the book, these ideas between the two groups are "mutually exclusive". A thought provoking a analysis full of well-written prose.
December 31, 2007
Sure, this book isn't for everyone. But- if you happen to be an anthropologist, this is a very good ethnography. Paige West's study of Papua New Guinean's relationship with conservation activists is thought-provoking and insightful. Especially interesting for people who are interested in the ways that mostly-western non-profits impact subaltern communities.
January 4, 2008
This is the most dynamic ethnography I have read in a long time! Completely engaging and thought-provoking!
May 2, 2011
It was a well narrated depiction of a serious issue in Papua New Guinea.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews