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Rationalization and Conservation: Ecology and the Management of Nature in the United Kingdom
Author(s) -
Adams W M
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
transactions of the institute of british geographers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.196
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1475-5661
pISSN - 0020-2754
DOI - 10.1111/j.0020-2754.1997.00277.x
Subject(s) - rationalization (economics) , ideology , ecology , nature conservation , sociology , environmental ethics , political science , biology , politics , law , philosophy
Nature conservation in the UK comprises not only a response to the perceived impacts of rationalization on nature but is itself a dimension of that process of rationalization. The paper describes the development of conservation institutions and ideologies in the UK and considers the ways in which ecology (and particularly ideas of nature as equilibrium) have provided the intellectual framework for conservation. Ecology underpinned the establishment of government conservation institutions, provided intellectual strategies for classifying and objectifying nature, and provided the knowledge base for the control and management of nature. The paper discusses the implications of non‐equilibrial ideas in ecology for ideas and practice in conservation and the implications of responses to them in the form of re‐rationalization.