ABSTRACT
India’s Northeast has been an area of intrigue for conservation planners and policy makers in post-independence India. It provides a unique setting to appreciate the complexities of natural resource conservation. Most striking is how neoliberalism and conservation have merged in policy and practice through devolved initiatives, which can be termed ‘hybrid neoliberalism’. However, there is little debate on the process of this transition. Its near absence in the onslaught of modernity in Northeast India misses an important aspect of current narrative in the land relationship – the bio-cultural narrative. This chapter addressses three specific purposes with reference to the northeastern region (NER) and and its neoliberal connect: First, discussing multiple meanings of natural resource conservation, as absence of its appreciation affects the process of land acquisition in the pre- and post-neoliberal era; second, analysing the question of public purposes in the overall discourse of development of the region and to examine whether neoliberal thinking has introduced newer shades of development; and third, suggesting a pathway for future engagement for natural resource conservation.
