ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses several cases of conservation projects in Jamaica to show how traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and cultural knowledge were effectively integrated with formal science in managing the Blue and John Crow Mountains, whereas in the mountains of the Cockpit Country, the different forms of knowledge ended up in contestation. It argues that these differences were due to variation in how formally trained natural scientists engaged with local holders of TEK. Local contestation, involving competing interpretations of state obligations by participants with beliefs and references formed by TEK and by formally educated science, is especially likely to occur in the protected areas regime complex, particularly in developing countries. Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park managers were more willing to include local cultural understandings and TEK in governance than managers in Cockpit Country. Scientists and technocrats can and do sometimes make space for informally generated knowledge and TEK.
