Organising to protect: protecting landscapes AND livelihoods

This article reports on a case from Nicaragua of small-scale farmers struggling to have their area, Miraflor, declared a protected area. Adopting a political ecology perspective, the article explores the underlying motives for this apparent paradox of farmers wanting to have their land recognised as a protected area and thus accepting the potential restrictions on land use this entails.

The article analyses how the formulation of the management plan for Miraflor as a protected area, became the 'arena' for negotiation and alliance building between different segments of competing land users ranging from the virtually landless poor through the landed small-scale farmers to the resourceful, largely absentee land owners and how national and international external institutions - knowingly or not - are drawn into and take part in this negotiation.

Thus, the key instrument in protected area management – the management plan - is much more than a technical document building on sound ecological principles, solely related to issues of conservation. The issue at stake is not only protecting a landscape, but, perhaps more importantly, protecting livelihoods.