The ethnic politics of nature protection in Africa

Dawson, Stephen, Haass, Felix and Muller Crepon, Carl ORCID: 0000-0001-8536-7861 (2025) The ethnic politics of nature protection in Africa. Journal of Politics. ISSN 0022-3816 (In Press)

Text (DHMS_protected_areas_202511) - Accepted Version Pending embargo until 1 January 2100. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (3MB)

Abstract

Nature protected areas are hailed as an institutional solution to the global biodiversity crisis. However, conservation entails local economic costs for some communities and benefits for others. We propose that the establishment of protected areas in Africa follows an ethno-political logic which implies that governments distribute protected areas such that their ethnic constituencies are shielded from their costs but enjoy their benefits. We test this argument using continent-wide data on ethnic groups’ power status and protected area establishment since independence. Difference-in-differences models show that political inclusion decreases nature protection in groups’ settlement areas. However, this effect is reversed for protected areas that plausibly generate tourism income. We also find that ethno-political inclusion is linked to legal degradation of protected areas. Our findings support long-voiced concerns by activists that politically marginalized groups carry disproportional costs of conservation. This has implications, given the likely expansion of protected areas the decades to come

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Government
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences J Political Science
Date Deposited:	11 Nov 2025 12:30
Last Modified:	12 Nov 2025 14:54
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/130111

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