Based on two contrasting understandings of a protected area in the Peruvian Amazon, this article explores the parallels and disconnections between Indigenous and state conceptions of what environmental sustainability looks like and who bears ultimate responsibility for achieving it. Based on long-term fieldwork and recent interviews in south-eastern Peru, the article first explores the contemporary Peruvian state's drive to divest itself of the responsibility and cost of environmental protection by shifting the burden onto local communities. This is then contrasted with local Indigenous perspectives that seek to draw representatives of the state into relations of enduring conviviality that implicitly place the responsibility for achieving the desired future on the state. While exploring the apparent incongruity between these two approaches the article shows how the current status quo of intermittent but recurring capacity development events works in the interests of all local parties in ensuring the continuing flow of outside support.
Killick et al. (Thu,) studied this question.