TY - JOUR
T1 - Neoliberal conservation in central Kalimantan, Indonesia
T2 - Evaluating the approach to environmental education of the transnational conservation organisation Rare1
AU - Acciaioli, Greg
AU - Afiff, Suraya
N1 - Funding Information:
We wish to acknowledge the Australian Research Council for funding the research on which this article is based through its Discovery Grant DP130100051 ‘Fostering Pro-Environment Consciousness and Practice: Environmentalism, Environmentality and Environmental Education in Indonesia’. The second author’s field work was also linked to the team research funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand that supported their research through the Marsden Fund. We also wish to thank the Department of Anthropology within the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Indonesia for acting as local sponsor of this research. We would also like to express our appreciation to the members of the Rare office in Bogor who took the time to talk to us. Despite our criticisms of the approach of Rare and its Pride campaign managers in this article, we acknowledge the commitment of Rare and all its local partners to the cause of conservation and applaud the real accomplishments of its programmes. We recognise the limitations under which they must work in challenging contexts. We also appreciate the commitment and successes of the Yayorin team in protecting orang-utan habitats in Central Kalimantan. We would also like to thank the villagers of Tempayung and Bual Baboti for their generosity and time taken in responding to interviews on the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve Pride campaign. Finally, we would like to express our appreciation to the editors of Indonesia and the Malay World for their patience and good cheer, as well as to the two anonymous referees for their cogent suggestions as to how we could improve this article. All remaining shortcomings in the article remain our responsibility as authors.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, © 2018 Editors, Indonesia and the Malay World.
PY - 2018/9/2
Y1 - 2018/9/2
N2 - Neoliberal conservation encompasses initiatives and measures depending upon market mechanisms to achieve conservation objectives. Such mechanisms have transformed aspects of nature and its care into commodities to produce a ‘green economy’ as the basis of conservation and sustainable development. Although many such programmes have been subjected to critical analysis, their role in environmental education has received far less attention. This article focuses on how environmental education efforts are conceptualised and operationalised by Rare, a transnational conservation organisation whose approach exemplifies neoliberal objectives through using ‘social marketing’ tactics in its Pride campaigns in order to ‘sell’ conservation values via a network of local partners managing these campaigns. As a case study, we concentrate on the Pride campaign conducted in two villages bordering the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve in Central Kalimantan, evaluating its claims to success in redirecting local farmers away from use of fire in land clearing for swidden agriculture and oil palm cultivation. We conclude that Rare's focus on transforming individuals’ motivations and behaviours, in line with neoliberal environmentality, fails to address the barriers to conservation stemming from the structural drivers in the larger political economic context.
AB - Neoliberal conservation encompasses initiatives and measures depending upon market mechanisms to achieve conservation objectives. Such mechanisms have transformed aspects of nature and its care into commodities to produce a ‘green economy’ as the basis of conservation and sustainable development. Although many such programmes have been subjected to critical analysis, their role in environmental education has received far less attention. This article focuses on how environmental education efforts are conceptualised and operationalised by Rare, a transnational conservation organisation whose approach exemplifies neoliberal objectives through using ‘social marketing’ tactics in its Pride campaigns in order to ‘sell’ conservation values via a network of local partners managing these campaigns. As a case study, we concentrate on the Pride campaign conducted in two villages bordering the Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve in Central Kalimantan, evaluating its claims to success in redirecting local farmers away from use of fire in land clearing for swidden agriculture and oil palm cultivation. We conclude that Rare's focus on transforming individuals’ motivations and behaviours, in line with neoliberal environmentality, fails to address the barriers to conservation stemming from the structural drivers in the larger political economic context.
KW - Central Kalimantan
KW - Dayak
KW - Rare
KW - environmental education
KW - environmentality
KW - neoliberal conservation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85056116469&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13639811.2018.1531968
DO - 10.1080/13639811.2018.1531968
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85056116469
VL - 46
SP - 241
EP - 262
JO - Indonesia and the Malay World
JF - Indonesia and the Malay World
SN - 1363-9811
IS - 136
ER -