Political Ecology of Conservation Conflicts in the Cross River National Park Periphery

Conservation conflicts in and around Nigerian national parks reflect deeply rooted asymmetries of power, historical dispossession narratives, and competing development imaginaries that ecological and economic analyses alone cannot fully explain. The Cross River National Park periphery in Cross River State, within Nigeria's South South geopolitical zone, is a site of persistent and sometimes violent conflict between park authorities and adjacent communities that has been analyzed primarily through a park management lens, obscuring political and historical drivers. This dissertation applies a political ecology theoretical framework to analyze conservation conflicts in four communities on the boundaries of the Oban Division of Cross River National Park, combining 24 months of ethnographic fieldwork, critical discourse analysis of park management documents and government communications, oral history collection, and participatory research with 120 community members. Findings reveal that the discursive framing of conflict as primarily attributable to community ignorance or criminality systematically obscures the historical roots of land dispossession linked to park boundary demarcation under colonial and post-colonial governance. Power asymmetries between park management, conservation NGOs, and communities create conditions for recurring conflict despite repeated technical interventions. Original contributions include a political ecology model of conservation conflict dynamics specific to post-colonial African protected areas and a conflict transformation framework centered on land justice and recognition rights. Policy implications target fundamental governance reforms rather than technical management adjustments. Keywords: political ecology, conservation conflict, Cross River National Park, South South Nigeria, land justice