Conservation by relocation looks to move people, and there destructive activities from areas of rich biodiversity.
I will begin by looking at the case of conservation in the Serengeti. During the 1970’s the Western view on conservation was to establish state protected areas and enforce laws prohibiting the access this land for natives. The aim was to create a barrier between ecosystems and what conservationists view as unsustainable uses of land practised by indigenous people and therefore allowing the area to flourish naturally.
However, this view undervalued the role people have on the ecosystem. Early conservationists looked at conservation projects with a “western notion of wilderness” (J. Adams, 1997: XVII) where they neglected to appreciate that in areas like the Serengeti the wilderness did not have clearly defined borders in the sense that the native Maasai would utilise the wide expanses of the land as they have done over the course of their history. Grzimerick rejected this notion and viewed man as disrupting the natural conservation area, and by 1979 the Tanzanian government banned agriculture throughout the Ngorongoro section of the Serengeti national park. This action led to conflict between the native Maasai and the conservationists. The Maasai were forced off their native land onto marginal land outside the national park, leading to the Maasai over-grazing on the limited land and forced them to farm/graze illegally in areas of the state park. This resulted in overgrazing and disruption of the ecosystem in protected areas, thereby undermining conservation efforts. The Maasai’s behaviour in this instance contrasted to their traditional sustainable use of land that involved crop-rotation, a technique which allowed them to make the most efficient use of their land because it was critical for their survival.