WRITING SAMPLE
GLOBALIZATION IN NEPAL
UNRAVELING THE COMPLEX ENGAGEMENTS OF
FRICTION IN CHITWANNATIONAL PARK
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
IN
POLITICAL SCIENCE
MAY 2010
By
Elizabeth R. Urbanczyk
Thesis Committee:
Sankaran Krishna, Chairperson
Michael Shapiro
Ehito Kimura
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1.
Globalization in Nepal...... 1
Chapter 2.
Friction in the Terai of Nepal:
Unraveling the Collaboration of the Rhino Translocation...... 24
Chapter 3.
Environmentality in ChitwanNational Park:
Technologies of Government in the Changing Spaces of Conservation...... 45
Chapter 4.
The Illicit Flow of the Rhinoceros Horn:
Illegal Poaching and the International Wildlife Black Market in Nepal...... 68
Chapter 5.
Conclusions:
Interlaced Relationships of Globalization in Nepal...... 93
Chapter 2
Friction in the Terai of Nepal
Unraveling the Collaboration of the Rhino Translocation
Relationships in the Terai form a chaotic web of connection. In this chapter I try to unravel some of this pandemonium to paint a clearer picture of globalization in action in Chitwan National Park, Nepal. This will be done using the translocation of the greater one-horned rhinoceros from CNP to BardiaNational Park. Anna Tsing’s theory of friction will be the lens used to look at relationships of globalization as they occur in the event of the rhino translocation. There is a chaos that is the reality and propulsion of globalization in a local context. For a brief moment there is a clear solution, resolution, or victory. In a flash this tumbles into a mixed-up mess as new problems arise. Dissecting this one conservation strategy reveals the revolving trajectory of friction that defines globalization. Too many poor people are landless, land reforms occur, overpopulation and overuse of the land result. The rhino is then endangered, so protected national parks are created. The parks reduce access to land and create conflict among the people, animals, and the army, so buffer zones and wildlife corridors are established. Buffer zones create new competition and restructure local political relationships. In this mess, tourism to view the exotic rhino is introduced. Translocations are conceived to save the species and redistribute the rhino. And then a new spiral of frictions and issues begins. The rest of this paper seeks to explain in greater detail these cycles and frictions.
In March of 2002, from my safe seat atop an elephant, I surveyed the scene before me in Nepal’s ChitwanNational Park. I saw dozens upon dozens of elephants loaded to capacity with eager observers and participants. We were gathered to help corral three greater one-horned rhinoceros for a trained marksman shoot and tranquilize. These particular rhinos were loaded into makeshift rhino wagons and relocated to their new home in RoyalBardiaNational Park in the far western Terai of Nepal.The premise of rhino translocations is conservation of the species by forced redistribution of the population; in many regards it has been a successful conservation strategy for preserving this endangered species.The translocation project in the Terai serves as a blueprint for similar efforts in other regions such as Africa.
The event described above was funded, backed, and implemented by a combination of the following: headlining and executing were the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), His Majesty’s Government (HMG), NepalDepartment of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, and the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation (KMTNC).These groups were supported by: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service;Rufford Foundation-UK; and the Asian Rhino and Elephant Action Strategy (AREAS), a WWF program.[1]
Within the event of the rhino translocation are numerous engagements in friction among people, animals, and ideas.Conservation of the rhino is only possible with the collaboration and participation of, to name a few: all the agencies coordinating the event, the local peasants and business owners, foreign donors, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), local Nepalese NGOs, the Nepalese government, and the Nepalese army.One force of globalization has been the interaction of different people and groups who did not historically collaborate, much less pursue goals with enough similarity to force an overlap of interests.Interconnection propels cooperation in the form of non-traditional engagements in pursuit of different goals.The complexity of the web of global, regional, and local relationships makes collaboration involuntary. As an event, the 2002 rhino translocation, a novel idea to preserve an endangered species, is a chain of events and relationships that has brought together different collaborators, each inspired to participate in pursuit of a unique outcome.Anna Tsing’s concept of friction is one way of examining these relationships that helps to put into perspective some of the factors that compel participation in the rhino translocation, sometimes seemingly against their own best interests.[2]I define friction as the necessary engagement between different interests who must interact together to achieve their desired goal.We can consider the rhino translocation project as one strand in the elaborate web of relationships interacting in the Terai of Nepal to try to preserve the environment, species, and both sustain and increase human livelihood.
These interactions of friction over conservation are both elucidating and constraining.For example, there is conflicting motivation for local people to both conserve and to use.The conservation movement has nurtured a new understanding of the scarcity of resources, but what expectations should we place on those who use these resources?There is an inherent dilemma between trying to save for the future and using right now what is available before it is all gone.Who is given power and authority over resources is not predetermined, but is instead an outcome of friction.These collaborations have rearranged cultural and political relationships in the Terai.
Proponents of globalization suggest that cooperative homogenization fueled by neo-liberal characteristics of freedom and equality is creating a better world for everyone.[3] In contrast, poverty and underdevelopment persist. In the face of massive foreign aid campaigns, Nepal remains a least-developed country.[4]To understand the reality at the local level in the Terai of Nepal, it is useful to interpret globalization as being instead a force that brings about unequal encounters that can result in either concession or empowerment, instead of homogenization.The rhino translocation is a stage for sources of global, national, and local power to play out friction.This is easier to demonstrate by looking at some of the players acting in the rhino translocation, understanding their motivations, and how they are engaging with the other actors.
Starting at the local level, the businesses and peasants who live outside ChitwanNational Parkare more often than not marginalized in their encounters with international actors and the national government, but it is a misconception that local residents are silently being bowled over by global power.[5] However, if the local population is negatively affected by the rhino translocation projects, why do they continue to participate?The rhino translocations are projects of environmental conservation.Conservation in the Terai, and globally, has proved to be a much more complicated goal than initially predicted. Non-state actors who are proponents of conservation, such as various non-governmental organizations, academic researchers, and scientists may have more money, power, and influence over local residents in Chitwan, but attainment of their environmental goals is completely reliant on coercing or appeasing these same people to cooperate. There is an intrinsic duality in that each conservation victory often produces a new problem.I will show how on the one hand an incentive has been created for local involvement in the conservation of the rhino, while at the same time this very participation and resulting success have created new hardships for the local residents.
Human-Animal Conflict
Growing rhino populations, and the reintroduction of the rhino throughout the small nation through translocations, has created competition between humans and the animal.Primarily this comes in the form of crop damage and physical confrontation between the rhino and humans.Increased funding through international aid organizations has established anti-poaching units that make the consequences for retaliation against the animal and poaching increasingly harsh. In addition, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation is endowed with legislative power to impose serious fines and jail time on offenders. As a result, local residents find themselves largely helpless to deal with a large mammal capable of destroying a precarious livelihood.In friction with this reality are the incentives for locals to participate in rhino conservation; ironically helping to save the animal plaguing them. An example of such an incentive is the promise of economic gain from tourists coming to view the rhino. A more subliminal incentive that preserves the habitat of the species is teaching people that excessive foraging for fodder and fuel wood can result in flooding that damages crops. The integration of human development and environmental conservation often leaves both sides feeling they are being neglected in the new arrangements.[6]
Globalization often brings the byproducts of industrialization to developing states. Environmental conservation is often trying to reverse these effects. For example, strict regulations that prevent the felling of timber for sale are conservationists’efforts to repair and prevent damage inflicted by the destructive forces of industrialization and the byproducts of commodification.[7] To battle against this foe, conservation has in some ways had to commodify itself and become an industry. This translates into the creation of a local tourism industry to save the environment, or the national campaign for the Nepal Tourism Year 2011, which places tourism as a top priority in the economic plans of the nation.[8] If the state can no longer fell timber to foster the industry, they must turn elsewhere for economic stability. In Nepal, this has been tourism. I have come to identify local incentive to actively protect an animal that can destroy their livelihood as one byproduct of this commmodification. I felt the power of these incentives to motivate a community with my personal experience of a rhino translocation in Chitwan.
It is difficult to encapsulate the enthusiasm I felt and experienced during the 2002 rhino translocation.It was a super-charged, week-long event.A tangible excitement replaced the dullness of everyday routine.The entire community came out to lend a hand with the project; this was a big, big, deal.The small village surrounding the location was inundated with representatives from every group with a stake in the Terai. Nothing compares to watching about 800 Nepalis simultaneously try to help load a zonked-out rhinoceros into the craziest-looking jury-rigged truck.Here was an event of global significance to save biodiversity and prevent the extinction of a species, using elephants and what might pass as a 2 x 4 to roll an enormous rhino up a plank into the truck.There was a collective yelp of excitement when the marksman made his shot to tranquilize the wild rhino, and the crowd involuntarily lurched back when the rhino woke to find herself trapped in an enclosed and seemingly breakable cage.
Local businesses, for which I had had the honor of being the only customer for the previous three months, overflowed with people eating, drinking, and connecting.Hotels hardened to months of zero occupancy were full.I suspect this one week may have sustained many businesses for the season, particularly because 2002 was a dismal year for tourism in general.[9]
As mentioned earlier, in contrast to negative feelings toward the rhino, there is also a substantial sense of pride in the local community that Chitwan National Park contained the only remaining rhinos in the country. From the production before me, I would not have known that many of these people harbor deep resentments toward the animal. Do not be fooled by their poverty; these people are well aware in a global sense that these rhinos are special, and that makes them special.The rhino translocation requires a conjuring of the three different spaces of foreign, national, and local.[10]In Chitwan, the universal of species conservation requires the interlocking of all three, each participating with vigor, even though they all arrive with different motivations and leave with a different result.The following is my interpretation of each actor’s motivations and perceived incentives.The international conservation NGOs—for example the World Wildlife Fund—has a mission to save the rhino and satisfy donors.The national government—HMG Nepal—envisions a profit from their cooperation and participation with the foreign.Lastly, the local resident is aware that their participation is crucial to the success of the event, and this importance encourages active engagement.Secondly, the event will most likely occur with or without their consent, so involvement is the most likely path to reducing marginalization and possibly reaping benefits. Thirdly, who could not get caught up in the energy of such a spectacle?
The ideology of conservation has evolved from the traditional top-down approach that favors isolated protection of nature.The World Wildlife Fund, one of the largest aid donors in the Terai and a world conservation leader, stated, “WWF’s ultimate goal is to build a world where people live in harmony with nature.”[11]The continued unattainability of this goal lies in how it is pursued. The list of actors engaged in “building a world where people live in harmony with nature” is endless.Each actor enters into the relationship with different values and perceptions of not only how to achieve this goal, but even what constitutes that harmony.With the emergence of a new conservation ideology, the emphasis shifted to an understanding that sustainability would come from programs that were conscious of the intertwined relationship with humans. In Nepal, WWF has adopted several programs that attempt to quell the increasing animosity of local Nepalese to the rhino; and WWF conservationists persistently tinker with different tactics aimed at creating rhino and human harmony.Besides translocation of the rhino, other efforts to be discussed later in this paper include: creating buffer zones around protected areas, establishing wildlife corridors between protected areas, education encouraging acceptance of the rhino, and the establishment of alternative livelihoods (to subsistence farming) that will not require further encroachment into rhino habitat.[12]These solutions entail enormous changes in the culture (accepting the rhino and nurturing an appreciation of the animal), socio-economics (creating entirely new markets and jobs to be filled by the poorest subsistence farmers), and politics (bufferzones are organized and run by community groups that must interact and vote in new local political arrangements.)[13]
The current situation in the Terai—poverty and overpopulation coupled with environmental degradation—was a result of the international political climate of the Cold War. In the 1950s, Nepal became the recipient of significant amounts of funding from the United States, India, and China.[14]Unilateral interest in directly funding Nepal began to diminish in the 1970s, while there was an increasing role in the small kingdom of large multi-lateral aid organizations such as the United Nations, World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.[15]Eradication of malaria from the Terai led to massive land reforms in the Terai in the 1960s that resulted in heavy in-migration that rapidly depleted natural resources and quickly contributed to diminishing already meager populations of several animal species, including the greater one-horned rhinoceros, Bengal tiger, gharial, gangeticdolphin, and Asian elephant.[16]While the Nepal of the 1960s and 1970s did not lose its geopolitical significance between India and China, the Terai region gained some additional popular international attention as the habitat for these exotic species.[17]In the conservation world, Chitwan National Park (CNP) is a great success story.Efforts to revitalize populations of the rhino are evidence of this success.In 1968, there were approximately 100 rhinos remaining in all of Nepal, the entire population residing in CNP.[18]Heavy anti-poaching aid and accompanying policy contributed to a count of 544 Rhinos in 2000. (This number has fallen off to 435 in 2008. The drop is attributed to political turmoil in the Maoist uprising and their subsequent control of the parks.)[19]Within this time period through rhino translocations, the species was reintroduced into Royal Bardia National Park located in the western Terai and a breeding population was created in Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve.
Table 4. Numbers of Rhinoceroses Translocated from CNP
S No. / Year / Sex / Release Site / TotalMale / Female
1 / 1986 / 8 / 5 / Bardia National Park, Thakurdwara / 13
2 / 1991 / 8 / 17 / Bardia National Park, Babai Valley / 25
3 / 1999 / 4 / — / Bardia National Park, Babai Valley / 4
4 / 2000 / 8 / 8 / Bardia National Park, Babai Valley / 16
5 / 2000 / 1 / 3 / Sukhlapanta Wildlife Reserve, Ranital / 4
6 / 2001 / 2 / 3 / Bardia National Park, Babai Valley / 5
7 / 2002 / 5 / 5 / Bardia National Park, Babai Valley / 10
8 / 2003 / 3 / 7 / Bardia National Park, Babai Valley / 10
TOTAL / 39 / 48 / — / 87
Rhino translocations from Chitwan to Bardia and Sukhlaphantahave occurred eight times between 1986 and 2003, including the one that happened when I was there.[20] Recreating populations of the rhino in other parts of the country could spread human-rhino conflicts into other areas. However, Chitwan is unique in its overpopulation of both humans and rhinos. There are fewer reports and research indicating a similar level of conflict around other national parks. There are several reasons for dispersing the population of rhinos throughout the country.Dispersion protects the species against regional specific disease, natural disasters, and overpopulation (large mammals need a certain amount of space in which to thrive).[21]Translocationsare also one of the primary strategies to deal with some of the negative repercussions this small conservation victory has had on the local people living around CNP who are less than enthusiastic about the increased population of dangerous large mammals threatening their livelihoods.Thus, again the flipside to the pride of sharing an environment with the endangered greater one-horned rhinoceros is that you are, well, sharing an environment with a rhinoceros.