Navigating the FPIC Traps in Gabon’s Protected Area Expansion: A Path to Inclusive Conservation

Exclusive conservation has developed over thousands of years through protected area creation. Today, in order to achieve global conservation targets it is recognised that exclusive conservation can no longer be used. Rather, inclusive conservation has now become a rallying cry, and has been integrated into the Global Biodiversity Framework and the policies of various conservation NGOs. However, shrugging off thousands of years of baggage is hard. While there is the intent of including local communities in management systems in conservation, it lacks the recognition of their common property institutions by which they have been managing local common-pool resources (forests, wildlife, fisheries, etc) and which are more than just natural resources to be managed or protected but their territories of life and cultural landscape. Therefore, is apparent both at the global and local levels, the baggage linked to conservation acts like an anchor, resulting in the implementation of inclusive conservation not always being straight forward as the case of Batéké in southeastern Gabon show. Using the example of protected area expansion on their commons, this action-paper shows how the good intent to carry out inclusive conservation is fraught with difficulties, with historical, cultural and educational baggage even impeding the Free, Prior and Informed Consent process. This paper concludes with recommendations, that had previously been given to the various actors and communities implicated in the park expansion, by recognising their commons and the way of relatedness to their territories of life.