Robert A. Voeks
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226547718
- eISBN:
- 9780226547855
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226547855.003.0009
- Subject:
- Biology, Plant Sciences and Forestry
This chapter reflects on the origins and impacts of environmental storytelling. It suggests that the “spectacle deficient” nature of environmental problems lends themselves to metaphor and narrative ...
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This chapter reflects on the origins and impacts of environmental storytelling. It suggests that the “spectacle deficient” nature of environmental problems lends themselves to metaphor and narrative building. In the case of the jungle medicine narrative, it was deployed by well-meaning scientists and environmentalists to address the destruction of the world’s tropical forests. It was successful in part because it appeared just as the West was beginning to take a more globalized view of environmental issues. By tapping into ancient determinist theories, the story rekindled and reconstructed long-held myths and stereotypes about nature and humankind in equatorial landscapes. Although this compelling story helped spread the gospel of “save the rainforest,” in fact no life-saving drugs were developed, no diseases were cured, no fortunes were made, and no tropical forests were protected.Less
This chapter reflects on the origins and impacts of environmental storytelling. It suggests that the “spectacle deficient” nature of environmental problems lends themselves to metaphor and narrative building. In the case of the jungle medicine narrative, it was deployed by well-meaning scientists and environmentalists to address the destruction of the world’s tropical forests. It was successful in part because it appeared just as the West was beginning to take a more globalized view of environmental issues. By tapping into ancient determinist theories, the story rekindled and reconstructed long-held myths and stereotypes about nature and humankind in equatorial landscapes. Although this compelling story helped spread the gospel of “save the rainforest,” in fact no life-saving drugs were developed, no diseases were cured, no fortunes were made, and no tropical forests were protected.
Roderick P. Neumann
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226322667
- eISBN:
- 9780226024134
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226024134.003.0004
- Subject:
- Biology, Biodiversity / Conservation Biology
Do human activities improve nature or diminish it? Neo-Malthusian environmentalist thought and the idea of humans as destroyers of nature's balance remain a powerful discourse shaping interventions ...
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Do human activities improve nature or diminish it? Neo-Malthusian environmentalist thought and the idea of humans as destroyers of nature's balance remain a powerful discourse shaping interventions in rural land uses in the colonial and postcolonial territories of European empire. Great uncertainty and absence of empirical evidence have led “environmental orthodoxies” or “degradation narratives” to dominate scientific understanding of environmental change and state-led nature conservation practices in the Americas and throughout the colonial world since the time of Marsh's Man and Nature (1864). In recent decades, ideas of wilderness, primeval nature, and stable climax communities have given way to ideas of nature–culture hybrids, socially produced nature, and second nature. Although some have attacked these as politically dangerous, the European Union has embraced hybridity, rather than duality, in biodiversity conservation strategy. This chapter positions the EU biodiversity narrative within a global one to illustrate deep philosophical and ideological differences in conceptualizing nature–society relations from one world region to the next, and examines EU policies as a first step toward rethinking the causes of and solutions for biodiversity loss in the Global South.Less
Do human activities improve nature or diminish it? Neo-Malthusian environmentalist thought and the idea of humans as destroyers of nature's balance remain a powerful discourse shaping interventions in rural land uses in the colonial and postcolonial territories of European empire. Great uncertainty and absence of empirical evidence have led “environmental orthodoxies” or “degradation narratives” to dominate scientific understanding of environmental change and state-led nature conservation practices in the Americas and throughout the colonial world since the time of Marsh's Man and Nature (1864). In recent decades, ideas of wilderness, primeval nature, and stable climax communities have given way to ideas of nature–culture hybrids, socially produced nature, and second nature. Although some have attacked these as politically dangerous, the European Union has embraced hybridity, rather than duality, in biodiversity conservation strategy. This chapter positions the EU biodiversity narrative within a global one to illustrate deep philosophical and ideological differences in conceptualizing nature–society relations from one world region to the next, and examines EU policies as a first step toward rethinking the causes of and solutions for biodiversity loss in the Global South.
