Cultural ecology: at the interface with political ecology - the new geographies of environmental conservation and globalization

Abstract

© 2006 Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd 10.1191/0309132506ph591pr I New conservation geographies amid globalization: introduction The worldwide expansion of conservation management areas is often showcased as a major success of modern global environmentalism. Protected-area coverage in particular has undergone extensive enlargements that are being coordinated, financed, implemented and monitored through global organizations (Brechin et al., 2003; Zimmerer et al., 2004). The global institutions supporting protectedarea conservation include the UN (especially UNESCO and the UNDEP, the United Nations Development and Environment Program); the World Bank and regional development banks (eg, the IDB, Inter-American Development Bank); and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The latter range from European-based NGOs that coordinate and promote protected-area conservation, such as the IUCN (the World Conservation Union), the WCMC (World Conservation Monitoring Centre) and the WCPA (World Commission on Protected Areas), to influential Washington-based counterparts, including Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, the Worldwide Fund for Nature, and the World Resources Institute. The latter’s World Resources reports and those of the IUCN have regularly updated the global status of protected areas, providing valuable sources to those interested in environmental conservation (eg, IUCN, 1985; 1992; WRI and IIED, 1986; WRI, 1990; 1992; 1994; IUCN and WCMC, 1998; IUCN and WCPA, 2001; see also Lightfoot, 1994). This essay explores how cultural ecology and related fields, particularly the cognate approach of political ecology, are developing a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives to offer fresh insights into the worldwide expansion of conservation areas. (The present essay is the second on topics unfolding at the interface of cultural ecology and political ecology; see also Zimmerer, 2004.) A variety of new geographical conditions is integral to the growth of conservation areas through globalization, with the ensuing intensification of nature-society interactions in this arena (Zimmerer, 2000; 2006; Neumann, 2004a; 2005). Recent contributions suggest that the worldwide expansion of the conservation Progress reports