Abstract
Historically, the dominant model of conservation is one of the impositions of nature protection from above, by aristocratic landowners, by state agencies and increasingly by non-governmental organisations. While conservationists often talk about ‘community conservation’, top-down approaches still dominate. This chapter identifies five dimensions of contemporary top-down conservation—its global frame, its dependence on science, its corporate character, its engagement with neoliberalism and its dependence on hierarchical systems of knowledge. But not all conservation fits this model. The chapter ends by discussing the possibilities of a new conservation from below, an assembly of practices emerging from local and everyday engagements between human and non-human nature and shared social values and political organisation.
We work closely with communities, governments, businesses and many others because we make a bigger impact when we work together.
Website, Conservation International, http://www.conservation.org/Pages/default.aspx, 4 May 2015
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Adams, W.M. (2017). Conservation from Above: Globalising Care for Nature. In: Brightman, M., Lewis, J. (eds) The Anthropology of Sustainability. Palgrave Studies in Anthropology of Sustainability. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56636-2_7
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