The Crumbling Fortress: Territory, Access, and Subjectivity Production in Waza National Park, Northern Cameroon

This paper explores the rise of a new era in biodiversity conservation, whereby older protected areas lose management and funding to the point that they become open access spaces. Using Waza National Park as a case study, the paper shows that while the enclosure of this protected area had serious detrimental effects for local natural resource users, it offered limited advantages to those who were able to negotiate “insider” status. I argue that the dissolution of this enclosure and the loss of the ability to exclude “outsiders” or negotiate differential use of the protected area's resources created a situation that was even more harmful to local people's physical and food security than the initial enclosure. Taking a historical view of territory, subjectivity, and access in and around Waza, this paper shows who is able to benefit from various legal and practical territorial components of landscapes, when, and how.