Invisible losses and the logics of resettlement compensation.
The necessity of compensating people negatively affected by conservation and other development projects has been widely acknowledged. It is less widely acknowledged that because conventional compensation assessments focus on material resources and their economic equivalents, many important losses incurred by resettlers are invisible to project authorities. Through ethnographic observations and interviews, we documented losses identified by people facing resettlement from Mozambique's Limpopo National Park. We also examined resettlement planning documents to determine why decision makers' assessments of natural resource use and value neglect losses residents identified as critical. Identifying, preventing, and mitigating invisible losses in resettlement planning necessitates a better understanding of intangible benefits residents derive from resources, which are often as or more important than their readily apparent material properties. These benefits include but are not limited to decision-making authority linked to owning land versus having the use of fields; ancestral identity and social belonging linked to gravesites; the importance of tree roots that provide a powerful sense of security because they suppress hunger in periods of scarcity; and the importance of people's location within social networks and hierarchies as they determine the benefits versus risks that will be incurred through resettlement.
['Witter|Rebecca|R|', 'Satterfield|Terre|T|']
D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources D004641:Emigration and Immigration D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008297:Male D009073:Mozambique D009790:Occupations D012111:Residence Characteristics D012424:Rural Population
invisible loss compensation Limpopo National Park Banco Mundial Parque Nacional Limpopo World Bank compensación conservation-related resettlement desarticulación social pérdida invisible repoblación relacionada con la conservación social disarticulation