Peasant Reserve Zones (ZRC) Around National Natural Parks (PNN) in Colombia: Between Conservationism and Extractivism

Abstract

The establishment of Peasant Reserve Zones (ZRC) in the Colombian Amazon has been a process historically marked by stigmatization and parsimony of the State, which is opposed to the compatibility of human presence with the conservation of National Natural Parks (PNN) and has promoted extractive activities in the territory. Based on the case of the ZRC Losada Guayabero, adjacent to the Tinigua and Cordillera de los Picachos National Parks in the Amazon basin, this article documents the historical process through which a peasant community struggles to formalize collective land tenure, while transforming production practices and discourses to fit the conservation objectives of protected areas around two axes. On the one hand, collective land tenure in the face of dispossession processes; and, on the other hand, political agency accompanied by productive systems compatible with the conservation of local biodiversity, in the face of extractivism and climate change. These two axes are articulated in a conception of peasant environmental justice that invites us to consider the ZRC as allies of conservation.