the emergence of questions about nature in political debates, but the
progressive transformation of all matters of facts into disputed states
of affair, which nothing can limit any longer to the natural world
alone—which nothing, precisely, cannaturalizeany longer.
By translating the notion of ecological crisis in this way, we are go-
ing to be able to account for the strangest feature of political ecology,
one that runs entirely contrary to what political ecology claims to be
doing. Far fromglobalizingall that is at stake under the auspices of na-
ture, the practice of political ecology can be recognized precisely by
theignoranceit turns out to manifest about the respective importance
of the actors.^24 Political ecology does not shift attention from the hu-
man pole to the pole of nature; it shifts fromcertaintyabout the pro-
duction of risk-free objects (with their clear separation between things
and people) touncertaintyabout the relations whose unintended con-
sequences threaten to disrupt all orderings, all plans, all impacts.
What it calls back into question with such remarkable effectiveness is
precisely the possibility ofcollectingthe hierarchy of actors and values,
according to an order fixed once and for all.^25 An infinitesimal cause
can have vast effects; an insignificant actor becomes central; an im-
mense cataclysm disappears as if by magic; a miracle product turns
out to have nefarious consequences; a monstrous being is tamed with-
out difficulty.^26 With political ecology, one is always caught off-guard,
struck sometimes by the robustness of systems, sometimes by their
fragility.^27 It may well be time to take certain ecologists’ apocalyptic
predictions about the “end of nature” seriously.
The End of Nature
We understand now why political ecology has to let go of nature:if
“nature” is what makes it possible to recapitulate the hierarchy of beings in a
single ordered series, political ecology is always manifested, in practice, by
the destruction of the idea of nature.A snail can block a dam; the Gulf
Stream can turn up missing; a slag heap can become a biological pre-
serve; an earthworm can transform the land in the Amazon region
into concrete. Nothing can line up beings any longer by order of im-
portance. When the most frenetic of the ecologists cry out, quaking:
“Nature is going to die,” they do not know how right they are. Thank
God, nature is going to die. Yes, the great Pan is dead. After the death
WHY POLITICAL ECOLOGY HAS TO LET GO OF NATURE
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