Environmentalism for Sovereignty’s Sake

Dec 12, 2022 | Peter Schwartzstein
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Egypt’s Gebel Elba National Park is, by all accounts, a spectacular place. But it better be to justify the fuss it takes to visit. First you have to apply for a permit. If that’s approved (and almost none have been in recent years), you need to travel with an approved tour operator. Even then, you must be accompanied by police at all times.

Keen to assert sovereignty over threatened or disputed frontier territories (or territories that they deem to be threatened), many states have transformed parts of their peripheries into tightly controlled parkland. The consequences have been predictably messy in places, fueling a securitization of conservation, while frequently delivering little ecological good for troubled natural landscapes.

But there’s a truly dangerous flipside to this. The securitization of these parks can bleed into the securitization of protected areas in general. Worst yet perhaps, frontier parks can also make tense relations with neighbors all the more likely.