"The Politics of the Conservation of Nature"
Commentary on the articles in this special issue of Environment and History, “Ecological Visionaries/Ecologised Visions.”
Commentary on the articles in this special issue of Environment and History, “Ecological Visionaries/Ecologised Visions.”
Hugh Bennett, then Chief of the United States Soil Conservation Service, paid a two-month official visit to South Africa in 1944, a trip that threw into relief, inter alia, the administrative division between the Department of Agriculture, responsible for soil conservation on white-owned farms, and the Department of Native Affairs, responsible for soil conservation in so-called ‘native areas.’
Rhododendron ponticum is the most expensive alien plant conservation problem in Britain and Ireland.
This paper explores the social and political factors that historically limited the national nature conservation movement’s influence in Japan, and outlines recent developments which may lead to both a greater emphasis on the greater participation of non-governmental organisations in the political process, and a greater emphasis on the protection of the natural environment.
Alice B. Kelly Pennaz traces the complex history of the United States (US) Park Ranger through time to show how the Ranger as an outward embodiment of state power has been contradicted by administrative and practical logics directing rangers to educate, welcome, and guide park visitors.
Kamaljit Kaur Sangha and Jeremy Russell-Smith propose an integrated ecosystem services (ES) valuation framework for an indigenous savanna estate in northern Australia, describing how capabilities along with biophysical and socio-cultural ES benefits play a vital role for peoples’ well-being.
Allison L. Mayberry, Alice J. Hovorka and Kate E. Evans use qualitative methods to explore human experiences with elephants and perceived impacts of elephants on human well-being in northern Botswana. They emphasize the importance of investigating both visible and hidden impacts of elephants on human well-being to foster holistic understanding of human-elephant conflict scenarios and to inform future mitigation strategies.
Sudeep Jana Thing, Roy Jones, and Christina Birdsall Jones investigate the recent participatory turn in nature conservation policy and practices through an ethnographic investigation of the experiences of the marginalised Sonaha (indigenous people of the Bardia region) in relation to the conservation discourses, policies, and practices of the Bardia National Park authorities in the Nepalese lowland.
Crystal A. Crown and Kalli F. Doubleday explore media representation of Human-Leopard Interactions (HLI) in India, focusing on detecting agenda-setting and framing in articles, and whether these differ with the level of association with HLI. They conclude that the largely negative depiction, and differences in representation between geographic locations, could hinder mitigation strategies and policy by presenting stakeholders with incomplete information.
Monika Krause and Katherine Robinson follow up on the observation that charismatic species attract a disproportionate amount of attention and resources in international conservation by investigating how cultural schemas and organizational routines shape resource allocation in conservation more broadly.