TThe two prominent scholars quoted above

represent the fields of biology and geogra-

phy respectively. The first author is commit-

ted to the preservation of biological diversi-

ty worldwide, the second to global social

justice in the form of equitable relations of

production. The biologist goes on to tell us

that the biosphere is infi-

nitely richer from an eco-

logical standpoint than we

previously imagined, but

that human ignorance will

destroy most of its wealth

by the end of the present

century if drastic measures

are not adopted posthaste.

Given the dominance of

capitalism, the failures of

large-scale command economies, and the

fact that the earth’s finite “natural capital”

(arable land, ground water, forests, marine

fisheries, petroleum, species, and ecosys-

tems) is being destroyed by economic prac-

tices that fail to account for the value of the

living world, he maintains that first-world

capital can and should pay for large-scale

conservation and development in less-devel-

oped countries. This, he avers, should be

done through debt-for-nature swaps and

similar accounting schemes.^1 In contrast,

the geographer, a Marxian theorist and self-

proclaimed socialist, holds that the dis-

course of impending ecological collapse too

often legitimates environmental policies that

favour the powerful and further victimise

the oppressed. Thus he invokes the princi-

ple that “projects to transform ecological

relations are [or should be] simultaneously

projects to transform social relations, and...

transformative activity (labour) lies at the

heart of the whole dialectics of social and

environmental change.” At this point it may

be useful to reiterate the oft-cited fact that

modern nature conservation evolved in

19th-century Western democratic societies

with laissez-faire economies and concep-

tions of humans and nature peculiar to the

ideological and material conditions of a spe-

cific time, place, and people.^2

While both positions point to the enormity

of the crises associated with globalisation,

they lack pragmatic, critical, and compre-

hensive recommendations for grounding

social justice and nature conservation chal-

lenges in practicable frameworks appropri-

ate to a wide range of spatial scales, envi-

ronments, and social conditions. In part

because of the necessity to limit the scope

and theoretical concerns of conservation

research, few commentators can make

meaningful connections between politics,

social history, and environmental change.

Conservation aas ccultural aand ppolitical ppractice

political ecology at micro- and meso-scales. Present-day tiger recovery efforts in China exemplify how
complex, historically constructed conceptions of highly charismatic species like the tiger may not only
change with the political economic relations of the times, but also lead to conservation schemes that can
easily fail to meet the needs and interests of the local people and other less powerful residents of the host
country.

For every person in the world to reach present U.S. levels of consumption with existing tech-

nology would require four more planet earth.

E.O. Wilson, 2002

We can never ignore the conditions (social, political, economic) under which we appropriate

and transform the world around us in accordance with our needs, wants, and desires.

David Harvey, 1998

the ddiscourse oof

impending eecologi-

cal ccollapse ttoo ooften

legitimates eenviron-

mental ppolicies tthat

favour tthe ppowerful

and ffurther vvic-

timise tthe ooppressed.