ENCLOSURE-BY-CONSERVATION: FORESTLAND FOR WILDLIFE AND CARBON CREDITS AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN THE CHYULU HILLS OF KENYA

Yildiz Atasoy

Todos os Trabalhos

Trabalho

DOI

10.29327/9786527226680.1434807

Título do Trabalho

ENCLOSURE-BY-CONSERVATION: FORESTLAND FOR WILDLIFE AND CARBON CREDITS AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN THE CHYULU HILLS OF KENYA

Autores

Yildiz Atasoy

Modalidade

IRSA - Congresso Mundial de Sociologia Rural (01/10/2025 a 20/01/2026)

Área temática

IRSA 38 - Commodity frontiers: actors, conflicts and territorial transformations

Data de Publicação

06/08/2026

País da Publicação

Brasil

Idioma da Publicação

pt-BR

Página do Trabalho

https://www.even3.com.br/anais/sober-irsa2026/1434807-enclosure-by-conservation--forestland-for-wildlife-and-carbon-credits-and-the-displacement-of-indigenous-people-

ISBN

978-65-272-2668-0

Palavras-Chave

enclosure-by-conservation, commodification of nature, militarization, carbon credits, ecotourism

Resumo

Increasingly tied to the UN-REDD+ programme within the general umbrella of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, conservation projects have come to operate within a general policy framework for market-based climate-change mitigation (e.g., carbon credits) and wildlife protection (e.g., ecotourism) to be carried out by private-public partnerships. The question of how conservation is implemented and its potential consequences for Indigenous communities who live in the frontlines where forestlands, grazing lands, and farmlands merge is poorly documented and not well-understood. This paper addresses this challenge by exploring the “conservation of forestlands for wildlife and carbon credits” implemented by the Chyulu Hills Conservation Trust (CHCT) on the farming/grazing/herding-forest frontier of Chyulu Hills National Park (CHNP) in Kenya where Maasai and Kamba Indigenous communities live. Based on data collected from interviews with one lead individual from each of the nine CHCT member organizations, publicly available documents and historical investigation, the paper unpacks the political ecology behind conservation that often relies on the use of military and paramilitary personnel, armed rangers, air/land surveillance technologies, and ‘shoot-to-kill’ anti-poaching activities. It pays attention to the existing literature which positions conservation within a “neoliberal developmentalism” (e.g., Büscher 2025; Fletcher 2023) that extends capitalist dynamics through nature commodification based on payment for ecosystem services, ecotourism conservancies, and REDD+ projects and carbon credits. My paper illustrates that conservation – implemented through (1) militarized conservation; (2) privatization of Indigenous land for ecotourism; and (3) REDD+ project and the commodification of carbon – connects the old colonial and new neoliberal practices within enclosure-by-conservation. This enclosure-by-conservation expands the frontiers of capital accumulation into Indigenous frontline land as an on-going process of dispossessive displacement and associated relations of material and epistemic inequality and violence.

Título do Evento: 16th World Congress of Rural Sociology and 64th Congress of the Brazilian Society of Rural Economics, Management and Sociology
Cidade do Evento: Porto Alegre
Título dos Anais do Evento: Anais do 64º Congresso da SOBER e XVI Congresso Mundial de Sociologia Rural (IRSA)
Nome da Editora: Even3
Meio de Divulgação: Meio Digital
DOI

Como citar

ATASOY, Yildiz. ENCLOSURE-BY-CONSERVATION: FORESTLAND FOR WILDLIFE AND CARBON CREDITS AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN THE CHYULU HILLS OF KENYA.. In: Anais do 64º Congresso da SOBER e XVI Congresso Mundial de Sociologia Rural (IRSA). Anais...Porto Alegre(RS) UFRGS, 2026. Disponível em: https//www.even3.com.br/anais/sober-irsa2026/1434807-ENCLOSURE-BY-CONSERVATION--FORESTLAND-FOR-WILDLIFE-AND-CARBON-CREDITS-AND-THE-DISPLACEMENT-OF-INDIGENOUS-PEOPLE-. Acesso em: 31/08/2026