Çevrecilik Mekânı’nın Üretimi: Ekoturizm, Doğa Koruma ve Proje Alanları

Abstract

Bu çalışmanın amacı, liberal çevreciliğin mekânsal üretimini ortaya koymak ve Çevrecilik Mekânı olarak tanımlamaktır. Öncelikle, liberal çevreciliğe yöneltilen eleştirilere Henri Lefebvre’in geç kapitalizmdeki kent mekanın üretimi yaklaşımı entegre edilerek kuramsal bir çerçeve oluşturulmuştur. Buna göre Çevrecilik Mekânı üç farklı örnek üzerinden incelenmiştir; ekoturizm, doğa koruma ve proje alanları. Ekoturizm Alanlarında yaşayan yerel halk hediyelik eşya dükkânı satıcısı veya günlük tur rehberine dönüşürken doğal ekosistemler tüketim toplumunun ihtiyaç ve kaygılarını tatmin eden turistik metalara dönüşmektedir. Liberal çevreci seçkinlerin soyut planlarına göre tasarlanan Doğa Koruma Alanlarında, ‘gerçek doğal yaşam’ şehirleşmeden ve endüstrileşmeden uzakta var olabilmektedir. Böylece dünyanın geri kalanındaki tüm ekosistemlerin yıkımı ve çöküşü gizlenebilmektedir. Doğa Koruma Projesi yürütülen alanlarda ise yerel halk ve diğer aktörler ilgi gruplarına indirgenmekte ve aynılaştırılmaktadır. Çevresel sorunlara karşılık kazan-kazan çözümleri sunan ve proje alanı soyutlamasına meşruiyet sağlayan bilimsel uzmanlar, doğayı yeniden tanımlamakta ve çeşitli kullanım bölgelerine ayırmaktadır.

Örnekler göstermektedir ki, liberal çevreciliğin soyutlaması kenttekine benzer biçimde doğayı ve toplumu aynılaştıran tahakkümcü bir mekân üretmektedir. Devlet, sermaye, medya ve çevreci sivil toplum kuruluşlarının birlikte hareket ettiği bu tahakküm sürecinde doğa vahşi, tehdit altında, güzel ve bölgelere ayrılmış biçimde tasarlanmaktadır. Turistik, koruma veya proje amaçlı olarak çevrecilik mekânlarına dönüştürülen doğal alanlarda yaşayan yerel halk ise satıcılara, tüketicilere, ziyaretçilere ve paydaşlara indirgenmektedir.

Keywords

• Çevrecilik,Mekân,Ekoturizm,Toplumsal ekoloji,Doğanın şehirleşmesi

The Spatial Production of Environmentalism: Ecotourism Sites, Protected Areas and Conservation Project Fields

Abstract

This paper aims to reveal the spatial production of liberal environmentalism and calls it with a new term, Space of Environmentalism. First, the critique of liberal environmentalism is integrated with production of urban space in late capitalism by Henri Lefebvre as a theoretical framework. Space of Environmentalism is analysed with three different examples as ecotourism site, protected area and conservation project field. Local people of ecotourism sites become a shop owner or a tour guide, while a natural ecosystem becomes a touristic commodity in order to satisfy needs and concerns of consumer society. In protected areas, liberal environmentalist elites impose their abstract plan that ‘real’ wild nature can sustain in a protected area remote from urbanization and industrialization in order to hide the consumption, destruction and the collapse of remaining ecosystems of the earth. Local people and other agents in conservation project field are homogenized and defined as stakeholders while nature is defined and bordered by scientific experts provide legitimization to win-win solutions to environmental threats.

These examples show that the abstraction of liberal environmentalism produces spaces that homogenize and dominate nature and society like cities. State, capital, media and environmental NGOs act together to impose these spaces where nature is presented as wild, beautiful, and threatened to satisfy liberal environmentalist concerns and needs of a consumer society. Nature becomes homogenized as touristic, protected or conserved spaces where local people are changed into sellers, consumers, visitors and stakeholders.

Keywords

• Environmentalism,Space,Ecotourism,Social ecology,Urbanization of nature

References

1. Alonso, A. & Maciel, D. (2010). From protest to professionalization Brazilian environmental activism after Rio-92. The Journal of Environment & Development, 19(3), 300-317. doi:10.1177/1070496510378101.
2. Bernstein, S. (2000). Ideas, social structure and the compromise of liberal environmentalism. European Journal of International Relations, 6(4), 464-512. doi:10.1177/1354066100006004002.
3. Bernstein, S. (2002). The Compromise of liberal environmentalism. New York: Columbia University.
4. Blom, A., Yamindou, J. & Prins, H. H. T. (2004). Status of the protected areas of the Central African Republic. Biological Conservation, 118, 479-487. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2003.09.023.
5. Bookchin, M. (1991). The ecology of freedom: The emergence and dissolution of hierarchy. Montreal: Black Rose.
6. Bookchin, M. (1996). Ekolojik bir topluma doğru. (Toward an Ecological Society). (Abdullah Yılmaz, Trns.). İstanbul: Ayrıntı. (Original work is published in 1980).
7. Bookchin, M. (1999). Toplumu yeniden kurmak (Remaking Society). (Kaya Şahin, Trns.) İstanbul: Metis. (Original work is published in 1995).
8. Buttel, F. H. (2000). Ecological modernization as social theory. Geoforum 31, 57-65. http://ic.ucsc.edu/~rlipsch/EE80S/Buttel.pdf, accessed 04.09.2015.

9. Bührs, T. (2009). Environmental space as a basis for legitimating global governance of environmental limits. Global Environmental Politics, 9(4), 111-135. doi:10.1162/glep.2009.9.4.111.
10. Carruthers, D. (2001). Environmental politics in chile: Legacies of dictatorship and democracy. Third World Quarterly, 22(3), 343-358. doi:10.1080/01436590120061642.
11. Cheng, L. & Wang, T. (2010). Analysis on the Future policy tendency of ecotourism management based on the appropriation of benefits in western China. Society and Natural Resources, 23, 128-145. doi:10.1080/08941920802178164.
12. Dalton, R. J., Reccia, S. and Rohrschneider, R. (2003). The environmental movement and the modes of political action. Comparative Political Studies, 36(7), 741-773. doi:10.1177/0010414003255108.
13. Doyle, T. & McEachern, D.(2008). Environment and politics. New York: Routledge.
14. Eikenberry, A. M. & Kluver, J. D. (2004). The marketization of the nonprofit sector: Civil society at risk? Public Administration Review, 64(2), 132-140. doi: 10.1111/j.1540 6210.2004.00355.x.
15. Gottdiener, M. (1993). A Marx for our time: Henri Lefebvre and the production of space. Sociological Theory, 11(1), 129-134. doi:10.2307/201984. Hannigan, J. (2006). Environmental sociology. New York: Routledge.
16. Hay, P. (2002). Main Currents in Western Environmental Thought. Sydney: UNSF Press.
17. Heywood, A. (2011). Siyasi ideolojiler: Bir giriş (Political ideologies, an introduction). (Özgür Tüfekçi, Trns). Ankara: Liberte. (Original work is published in 2007).
18. Koens, J. F., Dieperink, C. and Miranda, M. (2009). Ecotourism as a development strategy: Experiences from Costa Rica. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 11(6), 1225-1237. doi: 10.1007/s10668-009-9214-3.
19. Lane, M. B. & Morrison, T. H. (2006). Public interest or private agenda? A mediation on the role of NGOs in environmental policy and management in Australia. Journal of Rural Studies, 22, 232-242. doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2005.11.009.
20. Lefebvre, H. (1991).The production of space. Oxford: Blackwell.
21. Levy, Y. & Wissenburg, M. (2004). Conclusion. M. Wissenburg and Y. Levy (Eds.), in Liberal Democracy and Environmentalism (pp. 193-196). London: Routledge.
22. Lyon, T. P. & Maxwell, J. W. (2004). Corporate environmentalism and public policy. New York: Cambridge University.
23. Newmark, W. D., Leonard, N. I., Sariko, H. I.& Gamasssa, D-G. M.(1993). Conservation attitude of local people living adjacent to five protected areas in tanzania. Biological Conservation, 63:177-183. doi:10.1016/0006-3207(93)90507-W.
24. Neuman, W. L. (2006). Social research methods, qualitative and quantitative approaches. Boston: Pearson International Education.
25. Pasqualoni, P. P. & Scott, A. (2006). Capitalism and the spirit of critique: Activism and professional fate in contemporary social movement/NGO. Max Weber Studies, 6(1), 147-169. http://e-publications.une.edu.au/1959.11/8122, accessed14.09.2015.
26. Pepper, D. (1993). Eco-Socialism: From deep ecology to social justice. New York: Routledge.
27. Protected Areas Categories. 2016. Retrieved from https://www.iucn.org/theme/protected-areas/about/protected-areas-categorie on 08.08.2016. Ritzer, G. (2011). Sociological theory. Boston: Mc Graw Hill.
28. Ritzer, G. & Stepnisky, J. (2014). Sosyoloji kuramlari. (Sociological Theory) (Himmet Hülür, Trns.) Ankara: Deki. (Original work is published in 2013).
29. Roussopoulos, D. I. (2015). The politvics of ecology and the ecology of politics. Eirik Eiglad (Ed.), in Social Ecology and Social Change (pp. 235-254). Porsgrunn: New Compass Press.
30. Schellhorn, M. (2010). Development for whom? Social justice and the business of ecotourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 18(1), 115-135. doi: 10.1080/09669580903367229.
31. Schmidt-Soltau, K. & Brockington, D. (2007). Protected areas and resettlement: What scope for voluntary relocation? World Development, 35(12), 2182-2202. doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2007.02.008.
32. Sundberg, J. (2003). Conservation and democratization: constituting citizenship in maya biosphere reserve, Guatemela. Political Geography, 22, 715-740. doi:10.1016/S0962-6298(03)00076-3.
33. The Environmental Space Concept. (2016, April 20). Retrieved from http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/92-9167-078-2/page003.html on 10.08.2016.
34. TIES announces ecotourism principles revision. (2015, January 7). Retrieved from https://www.ecotourism.org/news/ties-announces-ecotourism-principles-revision on 07.01.2016.
35. WWF programme standards. (2015). Retrieved from http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/how_we_work/programme_standards/ on 22.12.2015.