Wilpattu Forest Complex, comprised of the Wilpattu National Park and adjoining forest areas in north-western Sri Lanka, was at the centre of a dispute over biodiversity conservation, deforestation and resettlement of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPSs), Muslim minorities at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war – 1983-2009. This paper traces how the majority Buddhist and the minority Muslim cleavages have ethnicised this conflict. Militant Buddhist nationalists have framed resettlement as “illegal encroachment” since 2014. However, in the following year, environmentalists took on the issue from the standpoint of biodiversity conservation leading to members of the Muslim community reacting against perceived injuries. The subsequent contradictory responses by Sri Lankan state representatives highlighted its factionalised character regarding conservation policies and territorial planning, further exacerbated existing ethnopolitical divisions. Data has been gathered through field research and a literature survey, and has been analysed using a political ecology approach. The paper contributes to the literature on conservation and violence and shows that in post-conflict situations, the territorial reconfiguration of protected areas is deeply intertwined with conflict legacies and on-going power struggles within post-civil-war societies.

中文翻译：

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有争议的保护、民族政治和国家：Wilpattu Forest Complex 案例，斯里兰卡

Wilpattu 森林综合体由 Wilpattu 国家公园和斯里兰卡西北部毗邻的森林地区组成，是关于生物多样性保护、森林砍伐和国内流离失所者 (IDPS) 重新安置、穆斯林少数民族的争议的中心。斯里兰卡内战——1983-2009。本文追溯了大多数佛教徒和少数穆斯林分裂如何使这场冲突种族化。自 2014 年以来，激进的佛教民族主义者将重新安置定性为“非法侵占”。然而，在接下来的一年，环保主义者从生物多样性保护的角度着手处理这个问题，导致穆斯林社区成员对感知到的伤害做出反应。斯里兰卡国家代表随后的自相矛盾的反应突显了其在保护政策和领土规划方面的派别性质，进一步加剧了现有的民族政治分歧。通过实地研究和文献调查收集了数据，并使用政治生态学方法进行了分析。该论文为保护和暴力的文献做出了贡献，并表明在冲突后情况下，保护区的领土重组与内战后社会中的冲突遗产和持续的权力斗争密切相关。