A companion volume to Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth, Protecting the Wild provides a necessary addition to the conversation about the future of conservation in the so-called Anthropocene. Even as the biodiversity crisis accelerates, a growing number of voices are suggesting that protected areas are passé. Protecting the Wild offers a spirited argument for the robust protection of the natural world.
National parks have always been an emotive and iconic symbol, ever since the first parks of the modern era were created in the mid-nineteenth century.
Is it time to embrace the so-called “Anthropocene”—the age of human dominion—and to abandon tried-and-true conservation tools such as parks and wilderness areas? Is the future of Earth to be fully domesticated?
A vast number of national parks and protected areas throughout the world have been established in the customary territories of indigenous peoples. In many cases these conservation areas have displaced indigenous peoples, undermining their cultures, livelihoods, and self-governance, while squandering opportunities to benefit from their knowledge, values and practices.
Nature New South Wales is published quarterly, with news and features on nature conservation and national parks, by NPA Publications.
