Neoliberal conservation and the potential for lawfare: New legal entities and the political ecology of litigation at Dwesa-Cwebe, South Africa

Scholarship in political ecology on the neoliberalization of conservation has given scarce attention to ways that neoliberalization may foster a turn to law and litigation as the vehicle for political struggle. Drawing on literatures on neoliberal conservation and legal anthropology, the paper illustrates how key features of neoliberal conservation-the constitution of communities as legal entities, downsizing of the state, fragmentation of sovereignty and the formation of socially and economically heterogeneous networks of actors - foster a turn to contract and law as the medium of relationships, conflicts and politics. Recent events around Dwesa-Cwebe Nature Reserve, South Africa, illustrate how the neoliberal reliance on law and legal forms reconfigures the political ecology of conservation: relations between communities, local government, and conservation authorities are newly characterized by recourse to law, while litigation is being used to overturn the governing board of the legal entity (the Dwesa-Cwebe Land Trust) that owns the Nature Reserve and a hotel within the reserve. Increasingly widespread conservation strategies that rely upon formalizing communities as legal entities carry both risks and opportunities, requiring political ecology to engage more closely with legal dimensions of neoliberalization. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.