As sites of global environmental degradation continue to emerge and pose significant threats to life on the planet, the world's natural resource managers persist in attempts to mitigate and reverse this degradation. While approaches to conservation have evolved over the years to include locals in the policy-making process, the experiences of those policies by locals - once in place - are often overlooked. This dissertation examines the socioeconomic and political changes associated with conservation projects from the perspectives and experiences of the people most affected by these projects. Through 128 individual interviews, 25 focus group discussions, and participant observation, I compare two approaches to Irrawaddy dolphin conservation: one in Myanmar that focuses on preservation of livelihoods and the other in Cambodia that focuses on economic development. I endeavor to bring local experiences and perceptions of these projects to the forefront to examine their impacts on livelihoods and to help identify potential gaps in policy intentions and effects. I also draw on political ecology theory to assess and critique the relationship of capitalism to international conservation. After explaining the unique issues and barriers associated with this project, I lay out the direct socioeconomic and ecological effects of each conservation project by comparing participant experiences and perceptions of the projects with those of conservation officials. I then compare conservation projects to examine the indirect effects of each approach. I trace the pathway of the capitalist conception of nature as commodities upward from 'developed' countries to its global institutionalization through the process of eco-governmentality and then downward to 'developing' countries through the delivery system of NGO governmentality. I explain how Myanmar blocked this delivery system while Cambodia embraced it and attribute the apparent shift from a 'communal ideology' to a 'consumerist ideology' in Cambodia, and lack of such a shift in Myanmar, to these opposing tactics. I then focus on the capitalist approach to conservation in Cambodia and show how this approach has led to the subsequent exacerbation of environmental and social problems it intended to fix. Lastly, I offer specific recommendations for each project, as well for international conservation in general, based on findings.

Biodiversity loss caused by human activities is considered to be one of the greatest challenges to the stability of our planet. Protected areas emerged as a solution to this challenge, but they are not always successful due to the exclusion and displacement of local communities that live in proximity to the protected area, especially in low income countries. The Maasai Mara conservancy model presents an opportunity to mitigate these problems by increasing wildlife habitat and simultaneously improving the livelihoods of surrounding Maasai communities. However, the model is threatened by the Covid-19 pandemic which has suspended the international tourism on which the conservancies rely. In order to understand how the model can potentially increase its resilience to future global shocks, I interviewed stakeholders about their experiences within the model, during the pandemic and relating to past global shocks. Using the concept of environmentality, I sought to evaluate the structure of the model, its historical roots and the governance tools which enable its function. Some already existing issues were emphasised by the impact of the pandemic, while new opportunities for evolution were also unearthed. The most prominent theme arising from these conversations was that of equity - between tourism partners and landowners, relating to the rights of women and to the place of Maasai youth in the future of the model. The colonial history of wildlife conservation also created discussions around the exclusion of local tourists and the underlying biases that may exist. Finally, I attempt to understand how the governance enacted within the conservancy model creates different kinds of environmental subjects. Although previous discussions on environmental governance have assumed that regulation is successful, I illustrate here that power is not unidirectional because resistance and negotiation by the governed population is common. By interrogating the different layers of environmentality and how they interplay, I trace the creation new environmental subjectivities in those who are involved in the conservation of wildlife in the Maasai Mara.

International efforts to promote REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest-carbon stocks) have enjoyed widespread support in climate negotiations. While proponents of this ‘payments for ecosystem services’ approach proclaim win-win benefits, others critique this commodification of forest carbon for contributing to social and environmental injustices that will undermine conservation and development in the longer-term. In this dissertation I respond to these concerns by critically examining how REDD+ initiatives emerge in the context of Lindi Region, Tanzania. I specifically investigate how REDD+ initiatives interact with local livelihood practices, local forest governance and the drivers of land use in order to interrogate the mechanism’s contribution to local development. I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in two villages, both characterised by relatively large forest areas and ‘shifting cultivation’, where different REDD+ projects are underway. In total I stayed in Tanzania for 11 months and applied qualitative and quantitative methods that resulted in 116 recorded interviews, one focus group discussion, innumerable journal entries from ethnographic interviewing and participant observation, 118 household surveys and data from document analysis. Drawing on debates within international development and neoliberalisation of nature I conceptualise REDD+ initiatives as processes promoting ‘inclusive’ neoliberal conservation. In doing so I point at the inherent contradictions of this mechanism that aims to combine a neoliberal conservation logic with inclusive development objectives. I empirically examine local livelihood practices to question popular notions of land use and argue that REDD+ initiatives must grapple with poverty, intra-village inequality and villagers’ dependence on land for crop production to contribute to inclusive economic development. I follow up on this argument by discussing the importance of material and discursive effects of REDD+ initiatives to the livelihoods of poor, middle income and wealthy households and to forest conservation. I then link these effects to an examination of how power and politics shape the implementation of REDD+ initiatives on the ground, specifically discussing the technically complex and politically contested process of territorialisation and the local practices of community-based forest management. I illustrate how seemingly technical REDD+ initiatives are inherently political, which gives them the potential to contribute to local empowerment. At the same time I question naïve assumptions over community conservation and good governance reforms by showing in detail how community-based forest management institutions are practiced on the ground and how this affects benefit distribution within the villages. My last empirical chapter examines how Conservation Agriculture is introduced in the villages as the best way to reconcile agricultural development with forest protection. I specifically discuss the role of social relations in shaping the dissemination and adoption of this new technology in rural Tanzania. Throughout this thesis I argue that local livelihood practices, power struggles and politics over land and people shape how REDD+ initiatives, as inherently contradictory processes of ‘inclusive’ neoliberal conservation, emerge on the ground and I empirically show what this means to different forest stakeholders.

This research examines the influence of tourism on migrants’ decisions to move to La Fortuna, Costa Rica, located in the buffer zone of Arenal National Park. Tourism is integral to Costa Rica’s economy and is closely connected to its national parks. Ecotourism is proposed as a non-extractive way for local people to benefit from natural resources, thus contributing to economic development and supporting conservation initiatives. However, if employment opportunities related to tourism encourage high rates of migration to edges of parks, then the resulting population growth could be detrimental to biodiversity conservation goals. Forty participants were interviewed for this project, which used cultural consensus analysis and semi-structured interviews to examine participants’ own behavior as well as shared cultural knowledge of factors that influence migration decisions. Results show that while employment opportunity was influential, other factors such as social stability and tranquility were equally important in participants’ motivations for relocating.