Identity and Native Species Conservation: Similar Historical Ecologies from Idaho to Spain

Abstract

Controversies around conservation management have elicited a growing interest in examining indigenous and local attitudes towards these initiatives. This paper argues that these attitudes not only relate to local and indigenous groups? concerns and rights, but also their particular interactions with the surrounding environment and the role this plays in collective self-definition. To do so, we compare two contrasting case studies on how different groups interpret and deal with the conservation of native species. In Idaho, Nez Perce historic interactions with wolves, livestock producers, and the State of Idaho government underpin members? perceptions of and efforts toward the reintroduction of Canis lupus. In Spain, local farmers struggle and contest the conservation measures introduced in the Cabo de Gata-Nijar Natural Park, revealing the manifold implications of their notion of ?being local?.