The Pitfalls of conservation in an African rentier state

The case of Gamba, Gabon (1960s-2015)

Bibliographic Data

ID13068405
AuthorsJoseph N Mangarella (African Studies Centre, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume8
Issue4
Pages100995-100995
Publication date2021-09-20
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Extractive Industries and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2214-790X • E-ISSN: 2214-7918
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.exis.2021.100995
OpenAlexW3200435639
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited9

Gabon encompasses pristine rainforest and large, onshore reserves of crude oil. Since the 1990s, roughly half of the country's total production has come from the gigantic Rabi-Kounga onshore field, which supplies Rabi Light Crude to Shell Upstream's terminal complex in the coastal town of Gamba. The small town itself been an oil concession since the 1960s and sits between two vast national parks. But as oil production changed the social and political dynamics of the region, the local population have remained apathetic to both financial mismanagement and environmental degradation. During three months of original onsite fieldwork in Gamba and the Département de Ndougou (2015), I was able to conduct over 100 interviews with politicians, environmentalists (WWF and the Smithsonian Foundation), oil industry representatives, and locals with a stake in “la richesse du Gabon.” Supplemented with documentation and archival materials procured in 2018 (Libreville and Aix-en-Provence), I have concluded that the local population's apathy has its roots in political and social cultures adapted to the colonial and post-colonial realities of company-state duopolies and centralized bureaucratic power. After nearly a century of entanglement with British, German, and French concessionaires, Shell-Gabon's arrival in the 1960s perpetuated models of state-sanctioned security, private employment and discretionary philanthropy which allowed informal means of redistribution to prosper and which also fetishized imported material goods. With oil and industrial goods, however, came not only modern amenities but externally imposed environmental restrictions. Throughout the 1990s, environmental NGOs worked with ministerial authorities to zone park lands and create an ambiguous array of hunting and fishing restrictions. As these subsistence activities remained the lifeblood of many locals, the fiery “Man-Fauna”conflict has superseded any environmental concerns. Rentier theory can explain how people in a rural, administratively unincorporated region depending on corporate social performance are likely to contest environmental regulation

Bureaucracy · Colonialism · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · State (computer science · French Urban and Social Studies · Law · Mining and Resource Management · Natural Resources and Economic Development

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