Abstract
This paper examines the social and cultural processes through which conservation policy is derived. Focusing on the management of pinewoods in Abernethy Forest, Scotland, it explores the cultural politics involved in developing appropriate management practice. Calling upon participant observation, semi-structured interviews with site managers and the analysis of texts, it traces the gradual moves from a policy of minimum intervention towards more complex management regimes. The paper explores the social construction of the forest’s naturalness that underpinned the early policy of minimum intervention and then the ways that the forest was reconstructed as the managers debated the merits of minimum intervention and the degree to which they should intervene. The paper illustrates how managers have considered different forms of intervention and how they have tried to balance their concern with the naturalness of the forest with a need to intervene on behalf of particularly important species. It highlights the importance of conservationists’ culturally derived understandings of nature and suggests that an awareness of these cultures of nature is vital if conservationists are to develop robust policies.
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Notes
The ambiguity of the term ‘naturalness’ is apparent here. On the one hand, the naturalness of the ancient semi-natural areas of forest is protected by not intervening, but, on the other hand, the naturalness of the whole forest is enhanced by intervening. In this case, the semi-natural areas are understood to be relatively undisturbed and so relatively natural in the untouched sense; intervention would be seen as detrimental. At the same time, however, the naturalness of the whole forest can be enhanced by altering plantations and removing exotic species because naturalness in this context refers to natural character. The managers want to intervene to shape the pinewood so that it achieves a set of characteristics that would be apparent in a natural forest in the untouched sense. Thus the ambiguity of the term ‘naturalness’ gives rise to the apparently paradoxical situation where intervention is seen as harming nature in some situations but enhancing it in others.
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Acknowledgements
The research upon which this paper is based was funded by the Caledonian Research Foundation and undertaken in the Department of Geography, University of Edinburgh. I would like to thank all my interviewees and the management team at Abernethy for participating in the research and I am grateful to Charles Withers, Hayden Lorimer Claire Waterton, Phil Macnaghten and Bill Adams for their useful comments and suggestions. I am also grateful to Lee Collier at SNH for producing Fig. 1 and to Andrew Warren for giving permission to reproduce Fig. 2b. The paper is based on research undertaken by Andrew Midgley and does not represent the views of Scottish Natural Heritage.
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Midgley, A.C. The social negotiation of nature conservation policy: conserving pinewoods in the Scottish Highlands. Biodivers Conserv 16, 3317–3332 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-006-9133-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-006-9133-7