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The ‘green militarisation’ of development aid: the European Commission and the Virunga National Park, DR Congo

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  • Esther Marijnen

Abstract

To ‘save’ the Virunga National Park, located in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the European Commission (EC) allocates development aid to the paramilitary training of the park guards, their salaries, and mixed patrols of the guards together with the Congolese army. Moreover, the ‘development’ projects the EC supports around the park have militarising effects as they are based on a soft counter-insurgency approach to conservation and to address dynamics of violent conflict. This amounts to the ‘green militarisation’ of development aid. This article describes how a personalised network of policymakers within the EC renders militarised conservation-related violence and controversy around the Virunga park invisible, by framing contestations and violence in and around the park as solely caused by economic factors and motivations. Moreover, by ‘hiding’ the fact that the EC aid is used to fund armed conservation practices, policymakers circumvent political debate about the use of development funds for (para)military expenditures. While the existing literature focuses on the importance of securitised discourses to explain the militarisation of conservation, this article indicates that in addition, it is important to focus on these more mundane practices of securitisation within international organisations that ultimately fund the militarisation of conservation.

Suggested Citation

  • Esther Marijnen, 2017. "The ‘green militarisation’ of development aid: the European Commission and the Virunga National Park, DR Congo," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(7), pages 1566-1582, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:38:y:2017:i:7:p:1566-1582
    DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2017.1282815
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    Cited by:

    1. Massé, Francis & Margulies, Jared D., 2020. "The geopolitical ecology of conservation: The emergence of illegal wildlife trade as national security interest and the re-shaping of US foreign conservation assistance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    2. Esther Marijnen, 2018. "Public Authority and Conservation in Areas of Armed Conflict: Virunga National Park as a ‘State within a State’ in Eastern Congo," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(3), pages 790-814, May.

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