Conservation and people’s livelihoods in Colombia

This paper seeks to focus on the way in which land transformation related to the grabbing process are directly involved in people’s livelihoods and life projects. We use the term territorial grabbing instead of green grabbing (or just land grabbing), because even though the case that we illustrate in our work can be describe as a green grab, we make a call for the necessity of a comprehensive analysis of the socio-spatial implications that polices such as the governmental environmental conservation agenda can implicate for individuals and communities in terms of impacts, influences, and [re]significations of their territories and territorialities. Therefore, our objective is to go beyond the discussion on the appropriation of land and resources for environmental purposes (and therefore the discussion of land dynamics in relation to globalization, foreign investment, markets liberalization, violence, and control) to bring also into the debate the diverse socio-spatial implications and meanings that create a geographical imagination capable of having profound influences on the way in which people and groups understand their place in the world.