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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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The Divine Mission of Nature Business. Religion, philanthropy, and public-private partnerships in nature conservation in southern Africa
| Panel |
68. Exploring new dimensions of religion and entrepreneurship
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| Paper ID | 658 |
| Author(s) |
Spierenburg, Marja ; Wels, Harry
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | The paper investigates the increasingly important connections between the private sector and nature conservation agencies. More specifically, the focus will be on the ideological aspects and influences of business philanthropy on nature conservation; on the way many philanthropists express their concerns about nature in religious terms. Yet, the philanthropists’ involvement also appears to result in the adoption of an increasing neo-liberal approach to nature conservation which emphasises the need to establish public-private partnerships to economically exploit the values of biodiversity. The paper hence aims to study the conceptual connections that philanthropists and nature conservations establish between religion, nature, and political-economic ideologies.
Conservation organisations around the world increasingly turn to business philanthropists to fund their activities, and promote the concept of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) (Chapin 2004; Hutton et al 2005). The Peace Parks Foundation in Stellenbosch, South Africa, for instance, one of the main facilitators and sponsors of the establishment of Trans Frontier Conservation Areas in (southern) Africa, funds its activities mainly through channels of business philanthropy, e.g. through their ‘Club of 21’-initiative, ‘with membership fees set at $1 million’ (Domisse 2005: 385). Members are multinationals (for instance Philips, DaimlerChrysler, Cartier), financial institutions (like the Deutsche Bank) and wealthy (former) captains of industry or royalty (for instance the late Anton Rupert, Paul Fentener van Vlissingen and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands).
Business philanthropists involved in conservation often express their motives in (quasi-)religious terms, stressing their responsibility to protect that what is vulnerable and threatened. In the case of Afrikaner business philanthropists, like the late Anton Rupert, the link with religion can be made even more explicitly. In the process of Afrikaner social identity construction and Afrikaner nationalism in South Africa, mythology about the relationship of the Afrikaner with God and nature - and nature conservation - plays and important role (see e.g. Carruthers 1995). One of the major myths in this respect is the story of the Voortrekkers, who are depicted as rugged individuals who lived close to and of the land (Sparks 1991). The Great Trek in 1836 and especially the ox-wagon symbolises this intimate relationship, and also symbolises the ‘covenant’ of the Afrikaners with the Christian God. In 1938 the same symbol of the ox-wagon was taken by Verwoerd to announce the Second Great Trek which was aimed to Afrikanise the cities, commerce and industry’ (Bloomberg 1989: 121). An economic and political powerhouse of Afrikaner Nationalism, also labelled Christian Nationalism, was the result from 1948 onward when the Nasionale Partij came to power. Despite this ‘Trek to the cities’, the mythological relationship between Afrikaner social identity and nature remained a powerful impetus for even the most sturdy Afrikaner capitalist businessmen, and many became involved in nature conservation and / or wildlife utilisation, stressing their religious responsibility to preserve and conserve God’s creation on the African continent. The paper examines how such discourses on nature conservation obscure other ideological influences resulting from the involvement of business philanthropists such as the promotion of PPPs, which is closely associated with a neo-liberal discourse.
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