The counterinsurgency/conservation nexus: guerrilla livelihoods and the dynamics of conflict and violence in the Virunga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Abstract

The growing militarisation of nature conservation has refocused attention on the relations between counterinsurgency and conservation. This contribution analyses how these two phenomena entwine in Virunga National Park, located in the war-ridden east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It examines how this entwinement relates to dynamics of conflict and violence, and how these dynamics shape and are shaped by the livelihood and resistance practices of local inhabitants. As it shows, a particularly important form of resistance is 'guerrilla livelihood' activities, or cultivation, (prohibited) fishing and logging within the boundaries of the park, which often take place under the protection of armed groups. By studying the interplay among such unauthorised exploitation of natural resources, different types of conflict, and insurgent mobilisation, it is demonstrated that strict law enforcement and joint operations of the Congolese army and park guards fuel, rather than mitigate, the dynamics feeding into armed mobilisation.

Public Authority and Conservation in Areas of Armed Conflict: Virunga National Park as a ‘State within a State’ in Eastern Congo

“…Faced with this dilemma, the Virunga Foundation convinced the government to place a part of the army under the command of Virunga's chief warden. To make this deal palatable to the FARDC, it promised a large sum of money and petrol to the FARDC commander then in charge of the operational sector covering Virunga (Verweijen and Marijnen, ). The foundation would also provide material, uniforms, transport, additional daily allowances and three meals per day for both the guards and the soldiers in the mixed battalions .…”

“…These expulsions have had a counterproductive effect, reinforcing connections between armed groups and the population, especially since the former started offering protection to expelled people in exchange for ‘fees’, allowing them to return and resume their illegal activities. This has led to resettlement in the park and increasing militarization (Verweijen and Marijnen, ). The uneven way in which the park management exercises its authority contributes to a sense of injustice among the population and compromises its local legitimacy.…”

Linking green militarization and critical military studies

“…Such engagement is increasingly translating into green militarization or Òthe use of military and paramilitary personnel, training, technologies, and partnerships in the pursuit of conservation effortsÓ (Lunstrum 2014, 814). This is a trend we see across parts of Africa (Duffy 2014(Duffy , 2016Dunlap and Fairhead 2014;Marijnen 2017;Marijnen and Verweijen 2016;MassŽ and Lunstrum 2016;Verweijen and Marijnen 2016) and Asia (Barbora 2017), with military builup also unfolding in protected areas in Latin America (Devine 2014;Ojeda 2012;Ybarra 2012). 4 Indeed, there has been a long history of military involvement in conservation (Devine 2014;Ellis 1994;Lunstrum 2015a;Spence 1999;Wels 2015).…”

Counterinsurgency for wind energy: the Bíi Hioxo wind park in Juchitán, Mexico

“…This paper thus builds upon the notion of the greening of counterinsurgency outlined by Dunlap and Fairhead (2014), which roots 'green violence' within a specific military doctrine and history emerging from asymmetric colonial wars that has become increasingly popular, gaining widespread application within militaries (Owens 2015), police departments (Williams 2007;Williams, Munger, and Messersmith-Glavin 2013), resource extraction companies (Rosenau et al, 2009;Javers 2011) and even marketing agencies (Copulsky 2011). Not only does counterinsurgency establish a strong historical link with previous military, paramilitary and police operations within a region, but it also unravels the 'conflict management' approaches of dominant public, private and non-governmental actors (Verweijen and Marijnen 2016;Duffy 2016;Dunlap and Fairhead 2014;Peluso and Vandergeest 2011). The following case of Bíi Hioxo wind park illuminates the relevance of adopting counterinsurgency as a lens to analyze efforts to break popular opposition to wind energy development in the name of mitigating anthropogenic climate change.…”