Global Conservation and the Politics of Scale

J. Peter Brosius, Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia

Abstract: 
At the beginning of the 21st century, as global environmental change proceeds at an unprecedented pace, conservation has become a central element in civic and political debates in the nations of both the North and the South. Responding to these debates, new forms of conservation practice are continually emerging. In this discussion I focus on the recent proliferation of strategic approaches to conservation, most clearly seen in the linked enterprises of ecoregional conservation planning and conservation finance. I examine some of the implications of this strategic turn, particularly with reference to its implications for linking conservation and the social sciences.

Biographical Sketch: 
J. Peter Brosius, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia. Teaching in a graduate program that is focused on Ecological and Environmental Anthropology, Brosius is Director of the Center for Integrative Conservation Research at UGA. He is an Associate Editor of the journal Human Ecology, past President of the Anthropology and Environment Section, American Anthropological Association, and in 2005 he was awarded the Lourdes Arizpe Award in Anthropology and Environment. He is also a member of the IUCN Commission on Economic, Environmental and Social Policy (CEESP) and the World Commission on Protected Areas. He is a founding member of the Society for Conservation Biology Social Science Working Group. His research in Environmental Anthropology focuses on political ecology and on the cultural politics of conservation at both local and global scales. Previously his research focused on international environmental politics in Sarawak, especially as this pertained to the international campaign focused on Penan. Recently he has been working with the Kelabit community in Sarawak to develop a project called "Protected Area Planning and Implementation in Pulong Tau National Park." He continues a research trajectory focused on global conservation trends, with a particular focus on ecoregional planning and conservation finance. His recent publications include Communities and Conservation: Histories and Politics of Community-Based Natural Resource Management (co-edited with Anna Tsing and Charles Zerner). Brosius has published in journals such as American Anthropologist, Current Anthropology, Conservation Biology, Ambio, Global Environmental Change, Society and Natural Resources, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Identities and Human Ecology.