Wildlife, cattle, and people in the limpopo national park: a more-than-human political ecology of conservation-induced displacement and resettlement

Abstract

"Established in 2001, the Limpopo National Park (LNP) in Mozambique joined South Africa's Kruger and Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou National Park a year later to form the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park with the aim of creating a ""borderless"" mega park for wildlife. Like many conservation initiatives, communities living within the LNP have suffered negative consequences including a loss of access to land and resources, the destruction of livelihoods, human-wildlife conflict, and resettlement outside of park boundaries. Of particular importance to these processes is the place of nonhumans, namely wildlife and cattle - the most abundant animal species in the park. In this thesis I examine displacement of people and livestock from within the LNP and their resettlement elsewhere. Specifically, I tum the analytical lens towards wildlife and cattle to demonstrate how non-humans and the socio-material networks in which they are entangled are at the heart of understanding conservation-induced displacement and resettlement. "