Local conicts rect historical shifts in the regional political economy, intervention by state ocials, and what has become an increasingly global discourse of environmentalism. However, people make sense of these transformations through cultural practices that take place in particular social and historical contexts. The simultaneity of symbolic and material struggles is played out across landscapes rich in meanings and productive resources. Contestations over these meanings, in turn, shape the outcome of environmental politics (Moore, 1996: 140- 141).