Protecting a “pristine biodiversity” on Mount Mabu: Constructing Divides and Marginalizing Local Worlds 1

• In Event: Extractivism, Conservation, Science and Justice: Workshopping Emerging Approaches in Decolonial Science

Abstract

Mount Mabu became popular when in 2009 a group of scientists from the Kew Botanical Gardens first noticed it using Google Earth. It has since then been considered a “lost Eden on Earth” and “untouched by Man”. This has attracted a number of national and international scientists and NGOs who are interested in turning Mount Mabu into a conservation area. Currently, two NGOs, namely RADEZA – a local NGO and Justica Ambiental – Friends of Earth Mozambique are struggling to turn Mount Mabu into a conservation area, the first as a National Park and the latter as a Community Conservation Area. Both NGOs, Scientists and State officials frame the Mountain and the forest around it as a being separate from humans, a resource out there that needs to be protected. While these actors focus on the nature side, which is inherent to Western environmentalism, they fail to notice the wealth of relationships that cross the nature-culture divide which characterize the daily lives of local communities. Based on 11-months (and counting) worth of ethnographic data, during which interviews with state officials, NGOs, local leaders and community members as well as direct observations were carried out, this work will dwell on these different worlds that were put side by side by the power of capital and science and their possible repercussions on the future of the Mountain and the communities living with it.

Author

• Anselmo Matusse, University of Cape Town