CONTRADICTIONS ALONG THE COMMODITY ROAD TO ENVIRONMENTAL STABILIZATION - FORESTING GAMBIAN GARDENS

In the past decade a shift in ecological politics has set off a scramble to ''protect'' and ''defend'' putatively pristine ecosystems in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. This aggressive program bespeaks a new sense of manifest ecological destiny among environmental organizations and donors and has given rise to a ''politics of stabilization'' characterized by new forms of property and labor relationships. This paper traces the impact of ecological policies on commodity production in Gambia where communal market gardens run by women's groups are being converted into privatized orchards managed by male landholders in a state-directed, donor-funded initiative designed to meet stabilization goals. The zealous pursuit of commercial objectives has come at the expense of critical food entitlement and livelihood strategies which currently form the basis of the rural Gambian political economy. The paper uses this evidence to urge reconsidering the politics of environmental intervention.