Protected and extractive spaces: a political ecological analysis of conservation and mining around the Junín National Reserve, Peru

Abstract

Conservation and mining are distinct forms of natural resource management that have dissimilar impacts on environments and communities and represent contrasting ways of understanding the landscape. Convergences of conservation and mining in the same area, moreover, can have complex social-ecological and spatial implications. The Junín National Reserve (RNJ), located in the highland regions of Junín and Pasco in central Peru, is one such case – yet it remains considerably overlooked by existing literature. Using a political ecology framework, this thesis examines how the intersection of conservation and extractivism around the RNJ produces space across the landscape. An actor-oriented approach is utilized to consider how different actors such as Peru’s protected area service, mining corporations, NGOs, regional authorities, and local communities understand and use resources and space. Interviews with diverse actors were conducted and illuminated a web of power-laden relations that extends far beyond the study site. Pervasive entanglements of both conservation and mining with social life (re)produce emergent spaces and conflicting hegemonies throughout the landscape of highland Junín and Pasco. Ultimately, this thesis argues that the spatialities of conservation activity and subsoil mineral extraction serve to co-produce one another. These insights underscore the political nature of resource governance convergence and suggest that social-ecological systems analysis would benefit from critically engaging with production of space perspectives