Bringing a historical perspective to nature conservation
Conservation initiatives, including the rewilding movement, are rooted in the past. In fact, many contemporary nature conservation initiatives use specific ideas of the past to legitimise future conservation. “Nature conservation is often presented as forward-looking and ecological, but it frequently relies on selective images of the past – restoring untouched wilderness, traditional cultural landscapes, lost species and supposedly harmonious human–nature relations,” says Luregn Lenggenhager(opens in new window), assistant professor at the University of Basel Centre for African Studies(opens in new window). According to research done by Lenggenhager as part of the EU-funded PANATURE(opens in new window) project, such references to the past differ between, for example, Southern Africa and the European Alps. “They often reproduce older colonial binaries between ‘wild’ former colonies and ‘cultivated’ European landscapes,” he explains. Because the pasts invoked in conservation can shape contemporary land rights, belonging, exclusion and future environmental policy, Lenggenhager argues that historians and the wider humanities must be actively engaged with conservation debates. “Through the PANATURE project, I aimed to develop a more historically informed, socially just and critically reflective conservation,” he adds.
References to the past are central to rewilding
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions(opens in new window) supported project saw Lenggenhager connect very concrete local histories – both in rural Southern Africa and the European Alps – with larger debates on conservation, rewilding and environmental futures. Based on this research, Lenggenhager concluded that references to the past are central to rewilding and related conservation approaches, even when such projects claim to be future-oriented or to move beyond historical baselines. “History is not just background information for conservation, but part of how conservation is justified and made politically powerful,” he says. Lenggenhager is particularly proud that his research allowed for close and intense debates and exchanges with colleagues in Southern Africa, allowing them to start new projects as well as to conduct their own research in the Global North. “The project allowed me – together with my colleagues – to oppose some of the narratives of highly elite and influential conservation actors and bring to light histories of people affected by oppressive conservation projects,” notes Lenggenhager.
The future of conservation cannot be separated from the past
The PANATURE project has strengthened the role of historical research in current conservation debates while also challenging unequal, anti-poor and elitist conservation narratives and initiatives. “It shows that conservation futures cannot be separated from the histories that are used to imagine and legitimise them,” remarks Lenggenhager. A peer-reviewed article developing this argument is currently under review, and a public-facing article in ‘Geschichte der Gegenwart’(opens in new window) (website in German) translated some of the findings for a broader audience. The project also contributed to an accepted co-authored introduction to an edited volume with Ute Dieckmann(opens in new window) on nature conservation in Germany and Namibia. “I’m confident that these findings and publications will be empowering for those whose histories are left out and support them in asking even more clearly what social and ecological consequences these narratives have,” concludes Lenggenhager.
