Non-Territorial Nature Conservation? On Protected Areas in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Protected areas are regarded as central instruments for the implementation of global nature conservation objectives and have been conceived to serve the purpose of conserving and safeguarding biodiversity. Most protected areas have been designated during the past decades and comply with strict territorial considerations: they have strong local roots and are very narrowly defined due to the negotiation processes involved in determining the demarcation, as well as the established administrative boundaries and precise zoning. This method is implicitly based on the assumption of the constancy and immutability of the natural and social environment of protected areas. The following article calls this into question and reveals that the territorial concept of protected areas appears difficult to sustain in light of the complex processes of a constantly changing environment on the one hand, and when viewed against the background of ever expanding nature conservation objectives, on the other hand. Furthermore, the contribution confronts essential underlying assumptions of nature conservation with complexity-theoretical considerations and illustrates that the basic assumptions pertaining to nature conservation require a fundamental revision, which would also have far-reaching consequences in practical conservation work. The considerations are presented within a framework provided by the thesis of the Anthropocene, which fundamentally challenges established dualisms such as nature/culture.