In this Special Section on Familiarizing the Extraterrestrial / Making Our Planet Alien, edited by Istvan Praet and Juan Francisco Salazar, Jessica O’Reilly compares the paramilitary practicalities of Antarctic research station and field camp life with the visions of the Antarctic as a place of sublime wild nature, violent death, and climate disaster.

This article introduces this issue of Conservation and Society, and argues strongly for new place-based conservation through a multispecies lens.

Denis Byrne explores the 1880s reclamation of the Elizabeth Bay in Sydney Harbour, encountering historical influences such as sandstone wall constructions, buried objects, and colonial narratives. He argues in this article that archaeology has a role to play in bringing reclamations and other aspects of the Anthropocene into view.