“The park is the people”: World heritage as antipolitical and neocolonial environmental governance in mulu park,Malaysia

Abstract

Mainstream conservation practices are commonly rooted in capitalist logics of valuing nature for human use or enjoyment. Often facilitated by “big international non-governmental organizations” (BINGOs), environmental governance of land in conservation frequently drives adverse impacts on local communities in and around protected areas. The World Heritage Convention as a department of UNESCO, for example, uses technical and scientific justifications to conserve land for the “world” to enjoy, while neglecting and avoiding Indigenous participation. Using the example of Gunung Mulu National Park in Malaysia, this article shows how the site selection and evaluation process divorces the natural from the cultural and the global from the local in conservation. In so doing World Heritage uses anti-political strategies to neutralize opposition to land grabs, normalize “global” values in place, and displaces Indigenous residents and their values from the land.