Reviewed by: Cultivating Nature: The Conservation of a Valencian Working Landscape by Sarah R. Hamilton Judit Gil-Farrero (bio) Cultivating Nature: The Conservation of a Valencian Working Landscape By Sarah R. Hamilton. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018. Pp. 312. Cultivating Nature: The Conservation of a Valencian Working Landscape By Sarah R. Hamilton. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018. Pp. 312. The protection of natural areas has generated extensive literature in many different disciplines, including environmental history. In Cultivating Nature, Sarah R. Hamilton presents the complex history of the Albufera de Valencia, a freshwater lagoon and estuary located on Spain's Mediterranean coast, 10 km south of the city Valencia. The issues addressed in this book feature in other works on protected areas, such as by Roderick P. Neumann (Imposing Wilderness, 2002), Emily Wakild (Revolutionary Parks, 2011), Patrick Kupper (Creating Wilderness, 2014), or Karl Jacoby (Crimes against Nature, 2014). In Spain, a growing number of doctoral theses analyze landscapes in transformation and conflict, like those of geographer Francesc Romagosa i Casals (2007) and historian of science Judit Gil-Farrero (2018). Hamilton's monograph, winner of the 2019 Turku Book Award from the European Society for Environmental History, contributes to the literature on protected natural areas by focusing not on a fragment of apparently unspoiled nature, but on a territory that has been transformed, cultivated, and worked for centuries, like so many other protected natural areas around the world. The author chronologically traces the changes in this landscape between 1874 and 2012, based on a wide variety of sources, including archives and collections, newspapers, journals and newsletters, legislation, and stakeholder interviews. Each chapter contains basic information to place the reader in the political, social, and economic context of the historical period treated. Hamilton then describes the transformations in the [End Page 939] Albufera environment at that time. These changes go hand in hand with the development and application of various techniques and technologies, ranging from the construction of irrigation canals, to enclosure and land reclamation, or the use of machinery and agrochemicals. Cultivating Nature narrates how, over the course of 150 years, the territory and the access, use, and management of the natural resources it offers have been a source of conflict that changed depending on both Spanish and international political, economic, and social trends. The main tension today is between rice farmers and those wanting to conserve the area, but there are also hunters; developers interested in urbanizing the land to attract sun and beach tourism; industries and towns that dump their waste untreated into the lagoon canals; and towns located upstream, whose water use reduces the amount that reaches the Albufera. Hamilton captures the inherent complexity of environmental issues very well. First, the number and diversity of stakeholders, their different interests, and their ideas make it difficult to reach agreements that satisfy everyone. Second, the different levels of Spanish politics (European, national, regional, and municipal) create different areas of power with conflicting competencies. Third, although environmental issues are intrinsically multidisciplinary, they are divided into policies on the environment, industry, agriculture, or tourism. Finally, the existence of environmental regulations does not necessarily imply that they are enforced. These themes flow throughout the book, but come to the fore when the area became protected as Albufera Natural Park in 1986. Spanish Natural Parks aim to make compatible the conservation of the environment, the rational use of resources, and the public use of nature. However, neither the new regulations nor the compatibility of uses reduced the tension among the various stakeholders. Although time and European economic contributions have relieved some of the friction, it has never completely disappeared. Also noteworthy is the discussion between what is natural and what is artificial in any environment. Farmers claim the legitimacy of the tradition they represent; developers argue that they will improve the natural landscape. The park's managers applied active rewilding techniques in certain areas, creating new landscapes in order to diversify and increase its ecosystems. The Albufera Natural Park has been and is a changing landscape, far from the mistaken perception of landscape as a static and immobile image over time. Understanding this dynamism is what will allow this unique space and others...