Power, Discourses, and Conservation in Cabo Pulmo National Park, Mexico

In this article, I review the proposal of Norman Long (2001) regarding the social interface in order to approach conservation not as a macro-policy, but as a discursive and situated practice. To do so, I examine the discursive context around Cabo Pulmo National Park (CPNP), Mexico, as the discourses surrounding the park claim that it is an example of environmental conservation because the biomass of its reef recovered remarkably thanks to the local community's request for the creation of the reserve and the giving up of fishing for its protection. However, as I analyse here, these discourses emerged from the encounters of actors with specific horizons and in response to particular critical situations. I also address the political implications of such discourses, insofar as some Pulmeños have used them to defend themselves against possible territorial dispossession, as well as to regulate the expansion of mass tourism. In doing so, following the reflections of Long (2001), I conclude that conservation is a mechanism of power and knowledge that is configured locally through the interaction of actors with different lifeworlds, as well as the articulation of meanings, values, and alliances. Abstract in Spanish: rb.gy/tg21k6