National parks are not islands, but are tied to their surroundings ecologically, politically, socially, economically, and culturally. Acknowledging these relationships, this dissertation researches the impacts Celaque National Park in western Honduras has had on the Lenca populations relocated from within the boundary of the park. By situating the results within a peasant ecology theoretical framework, it is argued that the global model of exclusionary nature conservation has had social and ecological ramifications inimical to both the conservation of nature and the welfare of local populations.

In the face of growing pressures on the natural systems of the earth, the conservation of natural landscapes is indeed essential; yet the realized impacts on local human populations are often treated as collateral concerns. The regulations imposed on local populations can have negative impacts including limited access to natural resources and even physical relocation of local communities. Further, the creation of protected areas can serve as a magnet for increased development activities that threaten conservation goals. Celaque National Park, Honduras serves as a representative case as park regulations and policies have led to resident relocations, altered livelihood and land-use strategies, and resultant expansion of commercial agricultural activities encroaching within the park itself.

As the global conservation movement and its practice of exclusionary nature v protection becomes increasingly connected to the global political economy, it serves as a powerful vehicle for a new round of primitive accumulation. The result is the creation of land scarcity, semi-proletarianization of the peasantry, and the expansion of capitalist social relations of production in marginal peripheries of the world. Further, the practice of exclusionary protected areas disrupts the ecological relations of production of the peasantry, creating ecopolitical conflicts antithetical to the proffered goals of protected areas. Utilizing a peasant ecology framework, the broad objective of this study is to determine the alteration in the social and ecological relations of production for affected indigenous Lenca peasant communities relocated from Celaque National Park, Honduras.