Endless/End-less Natures: Environmental Futures at the Fin de Millennium

Abstract

A t the of the an environf ^k mental debate of global significance was JL JL being played out over the construction ofthe Eden Project in east Cornwall, Great Britain (see Figure l).1 In the year 2000, the Eden Project was to be unveiled as the world's largest geodesic dome greenhouse, accommodating 10,000 rare and exotic plant species in a series of virtual ecosystems (Ove Arup & Partners 1997). At ?74 million, the Eden Project is an expensive exercise in environmental conserva? tion, although, as project directors Tim Smit and Jonathan Ball have suggested, it represents the practical application of the Rio Earth Summit's Agenda 21 remit to think globally, act locally (Ball 1998; Smit 1998). At a time when environ? mental futures have never looked so uncertain, the project's aspirations to protect the global environment appear laudable enough. But on further inspection, the Eden Project highlights the problematic issue over what constitutes na? ture and how, where, and when environmental conservation should take place. We address these issues by unfolding2 the relationship between nature and environmental conservation. In doing so, we want to steer away from the tactic of simply revealing nature as a construct, recognizing that this has lost much of its initial intellectual potency.3 Indeed, we examine some of the relevant constructionist literature and dismantle its insistence on relational dialectics as a way of reconstituting nature's reality (see for example, Braun and Castree 1998). The main aim of this paper, in con? trast, is to enter into a more open poststructuralist critique of the relationship between nature and environmental conservation. We trace impor? tant intersections between the environmental objectives, design, and architecture of the Eden Project and Jean Baudrillard's writing on the illusion of the end as an intellectual and social process at the current de siecle. Baudrillard's observations on the de siecle have been provocative, not least because they have highlighted how apocalyptic prophecies about the of nature have formed a mutually constitutive, but contradictory, relationship with the redemptive practice of environmental conserva? tion (Baudrillard 1994, 1997). Baudrillard's preoccupation with social responses to the de siecle has formed a rich seam of thought in his 1990s apocalyptic and nihilistic writing (1993a, 1994, 1996). For Baud? rillard and others, the simple translation of fin de siecle?end of the century?belies a complexity of intellectual, populist, and artistic pursuits that distinguish this particular moment in time (Thompson 1996:104). Fin de siecle is not just a point in centennial chronology, but a period of time when cultural tensions run high and apocalyptic ideas, outlooks, and practices come to the fore (e.g., Eagleton 1994; Ballard 1997; Ledger and McCracken 1995; Ledger 1997). Year zeros, such as the year 2000, appear not just as numerical voids, but as apocalyptic points (Thompson 1996:3). Although it is pos? sible to identify apocalyptic traits at other periods in the course of a century, a distinction can be made in terms ofthe accelerated pace or raised tempo of cultural at the de siecle, and the enhanced social anxieties that result. In? deed, in relation to the current de siecle, Smith (1998:271) noted that angst and optimism will surely quicken in the last moments of the second Christian millennium, while Rojek and Turner pointed out that the 1990s are pregnant with uncertainty and awash with change (1993:xii). Observing the de siecle in the 1890s, Holbrook Jackson (1913) argued that apocalyptic cultural traits in art, literature, and scholarly texts corresponded with many rapid social changes in British society. Indeed, Mestrovic (1991) has ar? gued that the 1890s bear comparison with the 1990s because similar social and cultural ten? sions emerged over the perceived loss of morality, community, and the condition of the environ? ment. As Thompson suggested, when accustomed