Green Violence: Rhino Poaching and the War to Save Southern Africa's Peace Parks

Abstract

Over a thousand rhinos were killed in 2013 and 2014 as the poaching crisis in Southern Africa reached massive proportions, with major consequences for conservation and other political dynamics in the region. The article documents these dynamics in the context of the ongoing development and establishment of "peace parks": large conservation areas that cross international state boundaries. The rhino-poaching crisis has affected peace parks in the region, especially the flagship Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park between South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. In order to save both peace parks and rhinos, key actors such as the South African government, the Peace Parks Foundation, and the general public responded to the poaching crisis with increasingly desperate measures, including the deployment of a variety of violent tactics and instruments. The article critically examines these methods of 'green violence' and places them within the broader historical and contemporary contexts of violence in the region and in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park. It concludes that attempting to save peace parks through 'green violence' represents a contradiction, but that this contradiction is no longer recognized as such, given the historical positioning of peace parks in the region and popular discourses of placing poachers in a 'space of exception'. THE RHINO-POACHING CRISIS IN SOUTH AFRICA became a major national and international drama in 2013 when the number of rhinos poached reached 1,004. It seemed to represent the crossing of a threshold, engendering feelings of rage, retribution, and a stream of calls to action by the public, conservation agencies, and many others. In turn, the poaching crisis *Bram Büscher

War, by Conservation

“…However, these shifts are interesting because they are made possible by the 'neoliberal' phase or approach to conservation (see Büscher et al, 2012;and Massé and Lunstrum, 2015), since they rely on and normalise the use of the private sector to provide security within protected areas. A good example is the ways WWF has turned to private military companies (PMCs) to deliver security operations in protected areas that they manage on behalf of states.…”

“…The initiative links in with Crime Line and allows the public to give anonymous information via SMS. 33 Büscher and Ramutsindela (forthcoming, 2015) argue that such approaches rely on rebuilding the kinds of intelligence and surveillance networks that characterized the Apartheid regime in South Africa.…”

“…South Africa has received perhaps the greatest level of attention and particular projects have received large donations from philanthropists who are keen to support more forceful approaches to conservation (for a broader discussion of philanthropy in conservation see Ramutsindela, Spierenburg and Wels, 2011;and Holmes, 2012 SANParks (Massé and Lunstrum, 2015;Büscher and Ramutsindela, forthcoming 2015).…”

Nobody Likes Dichotomies (But Sometimes You Need Them)

“…Thus, according to Von Hellerman's interpretation, this 'illegality' needs to be questioned. Those that condemn anti-poaching efforts imply that the victims of these efforts are the poor local communities (Büscher and Ramutsindela 2016).…”

‘Rhino poaching is out of control!’ Violence, race and the politics of hysteria in online conservation

“…An 'attack' on the Kruger such as through rhino poaching, therefore, comes close to an attack on white affect and white capital, which together could be a potent source to legitimate violent counter strategies (Bu¨scher and Ramutsindela, 2016;Duffy, 2014;Humpreys and Smith, 2014;Lunstrum, 2016). One of these has been a wholesale 'green militarisation' of the Kruger that has led to hundreds of suspected poachers' and rangers' deaths (Lunstrum, 2014).…”