Call for papers : Seminar on Environmental Protection Drives : Politics and Unseen Challenges
Last Date : March 25, 2014

Call for papers
Two Days National Seminar
on
Environmental Protection Drives: Politics and Unseen Challenges
March 28–29, 2014
Organized by:
Department of Political Science, Maharaja Bodhchandra College, Imphal
Sponsored by:
Indian Council of Social Science Research, New Delhi

Concept note

Environmental protection is a practice of protecting the natural environment on individual, organizational or governmental levels, for the benefit of both the natural environment and humans. Preservation and conservation of the environment has become every person's utmost responsibility given that human existence is impossible without a harmonious relationship with her surroundings. But this wisdom remains unfulfilled. Due to the pressures of population and technology, the biophysical environment is being degraded, sometimes permanently. This has been recognized, and governments have begun placing restraints on activities that cause environmental degradation. Since the 1960s, activity of environmental movements has created awareness of the various environmental issues. There is no agreement on the extent of the environmental impact of human activity. However, central to recent environmental protection drives undertaken by governments of the nation states are the concepts of the "core" and "buffer" zones. In fact these have become a norm of standard setting across the globe or taken to be as an inescapable part of the ongoing globalization process with emphasis on environmental protection.

Birth of the nation states brought about changes in the understanding of nature and resources, say for example, nature came to be identified as environment, something that is manageable through human interference. What happened in the west, by 19th century, was that the centralization of political authority and the formation of nation states allowed experts to intervene more broadly, on a national scale, in planning and management of natural resources. It began to make sense to speak of "national forest," or of rivers as the property of the nation," where previously these resources were recognized largely as being locally owned and controlled, by villages, tribes, or communities.

Colonialism, especially settler, also brought about radical changes in the natives' relationship with its surrounding and introduced the ideas/practice of the core and buffer zones. The first-ever "international" environment took place in 1900 at London for the protection of wildlife in Africa. Characteristically for the times, there were no Africans present, the delegates to the meeting being the foreign ministers of European colonial powers who then controlled the continent: France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and pre-eminently Great Britain. The parties to the conference signed a "Convention for the preservation of Animals, Birds, and Fish in Africa." The London meeting was followed by the establishment of the first multinational conservation society, "Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire" in 1903 to halt the destruction of wild animals in the British colonies. Through the colonies, wildlife conservation followed a set pattern. The first step was to moderate demand by specifying closed seasons when animals could not be shot, and issuing licenses, the possession of which alone allowed hunting. The second step was to designate particular species as "protected".

The third step was to designate specific territories as "game reserves" meant exclusively for animals, where logging, mining and agriculture were prohibited or restricted. The final and most decisive step was the establishment of national parks, which gave sanctity to entire habitats, not merely to animal species dwelling within them. The creation of reserves was dictated by sentiment as well as science, to simultaneously allow space for wild species and to affirm a shared human past. In other words, the progress of conservation was linked to the development of distinct settler identity.

In these schemes of conservation the African did not fit anywhere. The white settler identified with the land but not with the men and women who had dwelt there long before their arrival. Wildlife conservation cemented a union between the Dutch and the English in southern Africa, but it also consolidated on the whole, white domination over the majority black population. In game reserves Africans were barred from hunting, while in national parks, they were excluded altogether, forcibly dispossessed of their land if it fell within the boundaries of a designated sanctuary. Conservation was even viewed as a part of white man's necessary burden to save the nation's natural heritage from African despoliation.

In the case of the Northeast India, too, harmonious relationship between man and nature, environmental consciousness as modern-day understanding put it, came under severe attack during the colonial period. On one hand was the non-intervention of the colonial state, in terms of maintenance and preservation of natural surroundings, as mentioned above, along with denial of the general population a free access and involvement. In the case of Manipur, for example, with the abolition of Lallup system, (clamed as an emancipator act informed by humanity and liberal ethos), which colonial British termed as "forced labour" or "corvee system", without understanding the socio-cultural and economic context of Manipur, the erstwhile practice of an individual's involvement in creating a harmonious relationship with nature came to an end. On the other hand, as a continuous part of the colonization project, there was the parallel phenomenon of overt commercialization and exploitation of the natural resources in the name of the empire or the state. Holistic understanding of the universe, where every being and innate object has a role to play came to an end during the era of British colonialism.

Modern state is pervasive in its action. Its power lies not only in its ability to exercise violence at will in the Weberian sense of the term but also in its ability to "enthuse" hope to its citizens. This dawn of the new age, associated with the idea of freedom and justice, attempts a break from colonial state, in the sense that it promises (through periodic elections) responsibility and accountability. Welfare is the catchword, wherein, it promises that arenas presumably unlooked or exploited or even uncared would be paid attention. Every available means would be used in the name of development for welfare and justice as well as environmental protection, yes, in the name of the people. However, it never bothers to pay attention to the structural violence unleashed in the process of undertaking development or preservation and protection project. As Ashish Nandy puts it, the modern state in terms of practices in formerly colonised societies, only ends up emulating the erstwhile colonial state.

The idea of "core" is nevertheless lost in the agenda of globalization if we accept the theory that international organization create/diffuse/script policy models to states and states adopt these models as mentioned above. The issue at stake, however, is that such policies, even in the case of environment, do not take into account ecological dimensions to the pattern of human development. Ideas about environment and movement aimed at focusing attention on the causes of its degradation and ways to protect it needs to be set in the specific socioeconomic and political contexts which gave rise to them. It is important to understand the often fundamental differences that separate Euro-American environmental activist and theorists and those who argue from the perspective of the post-colonial societies.

In the light of the above context, a Two Days National Seminar entitled, "Environmental Protection Drives: Politics and Unseen Challenges", shall be held on March 28–29, 2014 at the Maharaja Bodhchandra College, Imphal. The seminar is sponsored by the Indian Council of Social Science Research, Delhi. Broad subthemes of the seminar are as follows:
o Indigenous knowledge and practices on Environmental Protection/Conservation
o Modern Approaches to Environmental Protection/Conservation
o Wetland, water bodies and riverine system
o Environmental Protection: Threat to Livelihood and Induced Displacement
o Conservation of Forest and wild life
o Politics of Climate Change
o Others

Interested persons are required to submit an abstract of 500 words by February 24, 2014. Selected candidates have to submit full papers (5000-6000 words) by March 25, 2014 to the Seminar Convenor.

Seminar Convenor:
DR. HOMEN THANGJAM
Department of Political Science,
The Maharaja Bodhchandra College, Imphal, Manipur
e-mail: homenth(at)gmail(dot)com