Copper, conservation and the Jordanian mining frontier: Narratives of copper exploration in the Dana Biosphere Reserve

In August of 2021, the announcement that the borders of the Dana Biosphere Reserve would be redrawn to facilitate copper exploration caused national controversy in Jordan. Whereas mining actors centred the potential for copper mining to generate thousands of local jobs and billions of dollars in mining revenues, conservationists stressed the destructive impacts of mining on local environments and livelihoods. In the media storm that followed the announcement, these actors competed over visions for development, narrations of nature and legitimate access and control over the exploration area. While the Jordanian government eventually suspended the reserve border amendment until copper mining proves economically feasible, they have since framed the project as part of an ambitious national expansion of the mining sector. This thesis conceptualises the copper project in Dana and the national mining expansion as a process of frontier-making. Specifically, it examines the leading narratives about the copper project in Dana, and analyses how these narratives work to enable or challenge the expansion of the Jordanian mining frontier. It argues that mining actors’ win-win narrative of the project has thus far been successful in legitimising and facilitating exploration work in Dana, and is supported by a national development discourse that positions mining expansion as a vital vehicle for national and local economic progress. While conservationists’ counter-narrative has contributed to protecting the core area of the reserve from exploration, strengthening environmental governance of the project and halting the reserve border amendment, its focus on local and environmental concerns unique to the reserve has limited its implications for the broader expansion of the Jordanian mining frontier.