Yara Lotfi

Narratives of the Sea: Nature and Conservation on the Surin Islands Yara Lotfi

Narratives of the Sea analyzes how the global process of in situ conservation is discursively created and implemented among Moken hunter-gatherers living in the Surin Marine National Park located off the coast of Northwest Thailand. In this book, the author considers the possibilities and problems associated with a new generation of wildlife conservation and sustainable development. Through ethnographic fieldwork this book answers the question of how conservation practitioners respectively Moken people conceive of the environment on the Surin islands. Following political ecology and ethnoecology approaches this book aims at understanding how international conservation shapes nature and people, and further, how conservation measures create new understandings of nature, people and place. The author argues that conservation linked to sustainable development leads to new ways of valuing nature. Further taking a critical look at the ecosystem approach the author argues that conservation rhetoric is defined through generalized notions of balance which marginalizes local understandings and practices.