Rationalization and Conservation: Ecology and the Management of Nature in the United Kingdom

Nature conservation in the UK comprises not only a response to the perceived impacts of rationalization on nature but is itself a dimension of that process of rationalization. The paper describes the development of conservation institutions and ideologies in the UK and considers the ways in which ecology (and particularly ideas of nature as equilibrium) have provided the intellectual framework for conservation. Ecology underpinned the establishment of government conservation institutions, provided intellectual strategies for classifying and objectifying nature, and provided the knowledge base for the control and management of nature. The paper discusses the implications of non-equilibrial ideas in ecology for ideas and practice in conservation and the implications of responses to them in the form of re-rationalization.     

Neoliberal Capitalism and Conservation in the Post‐crisis Era: The Dialectics of “Green” and “Un‐green” Grabbing in Greece and the UK

“Green‐grabbing”, in which environmental arguments support expropriation of land and resources, is a recognized element in neoliberal conservation. However, capitalism's strategic interest in promoting the neoliberalization of conservation is accompanied by attempts to exploit hitherto protected natures without any pretence at “greenness”. In this paper we explore the dialectics between “green” and “un‐green” grabbing as neoliberal strategies in the reconstruction of nature conservation policies after the 2008 financial “crash” in Greece and the UK. In both countries, accelerated neoliberalization is manifested in diverse ways, including initiatives to roll back conservation regulation, market‐based approaches to “saving” nature and the privatization of public nature assets. The intensification of “green” and “un‐green” grabbing reflects capitalism's strategic interest in both promoting and obstructing nature conservation, ultimately leaving for “protected natures” two choices: either to be further degraded to boost growth or to be “saved” through their deeper inclusion as commodities visible to the market.     

Ethnographies of terror

Cultural Survival Quarterly. Death and Disorder in Guatemala. Volume 7, number 1. Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival, Inc., 1983. 53 pp. including 29 photographs, 8 tables, 1 map, and bibliography. $5.00 paper.

Cultural Survival Quarterly. Voices of the Survivors: The Massacre al Finca San Francisco, Guatemala. Occasional Papers of the Anthropology Resource Center, Number 10. Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival, Inc., 1983. ii + 105 pp. including 5 photographs, 2 maps, and glossary. $5.00 paper.     

Slavery and peasantry in the Caribbean

Sidney W. Mintz. Caribbean Transformations. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1974. xii + 355 pp. Figures, references, and index. $12.50.