Nature Unbound: Conservation, Capitalism and the Future of Protected Areas

by Dan Brockington

This groundbreaking volume is the first comprehensive, critical examination of the rise of protected areas and their current social and economic position in our world. It examines the social impacts of protected areas, the conflicts that surround them, the alternatives to them and the conceptual categories they impose.The book explores key debates on devolution, participation and democracy; the role and uniqueness of indigenous peoples and other local communities; institutions and resource management; hegemony, myth and symbolic power in conservation success stories; tourism, poverty and conservation; and the transformation of social and material relations which community conservation entails. For conservation practitioners and protected area professionals not accustomed to criticisms of their work, or students new to this complex field, the book will provide an understanding of the history and current state of affairs in the rise of protected areas. It introduces the concepts, theories and writers on which critiques of conservation have been built, and provides the means by which practitioners can understand problems with which they are wrestling. For advanced researchers the book will present a critique of the current debates on protected areas and provide a host of jumping off points for an array of research avenues

Genres: Environment

264 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 19, 2008

Reviews

[aster ❦]

read chapter 2 and 4 for environmental policy class and it taught me a bit about the history of nature conservation but honestly most of the information did not stick at all

[Oceans]

The prose of this book probably warrants 2.5 stars. This book is ambitious in its scope. It's main thesis is that the global conservation has expanded in the last three decades not as a response against or in accommodation of capitalism (as one may assume), but rather, that conservation and neoliberalism has both grown by working in lock-step to re-categorize the landscape, changing people's attitudes toward and relationships with 'nature'.

The book steps through a very comprehensive review of conservation literature. Each chapter tries to cover important themes in contemporary conservation, such as the history of protected areas, local management of natural resources, indigenous populations, various forms of ecotourism, and transnational conservation. True to political ecology, the authors problematize all these topics mainly via a Marxist critique, though a lot of mid-level theories also pervades. However, the synthesis of these ideas aren't articulated until the last chapter, where the authors tries to tie together as much of this stuff by arguing that conservation and capitalism have thus far mitigated the contradictions of Marxism through encouraging consumer fetishism of 'nature' and 'wilderness'.

The book can be better written and sometimes seems really confused about who its audience should be. Though ambitious, it falls somewhat short of its goals by failing to more concretely connect its impressive literature review with its thought-provoking thesis.