Katja Grotzner Neves - Postnormal Conservation: Botanic Gardens and the Reordering of Biodiversity Governance

SUNY series in Environmental Governance:
Local-Regional-Global Interactions

Peter Stoett and Owen Temby, editors

POSTNORMAL CONSERVATION

Botanic Gardens and the Reordering of Biodiversity Governance

Katja Grtzner Neves

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

2019 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY

www.sunypress.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Neves, Katja Grtzner, author.

Title: Postnormal conservation : botanic gardens and the reordering of biodiversity governance / Katja Grtzner Neves.

Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019] | Series: SUNY series in environmental governance : local-regional-global interactions | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018033269| ISBN 9781438474557 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438474571 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Botanical gardens.

Classification: LCC QK71 .N49 2019 | DDC 582.1dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033269

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Peter Stoett and Owen Temby

C HAPTER 1
Botanical Garden Histories of Governance

C HAPTER 2
Botanical Knowledge, Power, and Governance: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the Longue Dure

C HAPTER 3
Postnormal Conservation at Espace Pour la Vie

C HAPTER 4
Communities in Nature: Multispecies Care at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and Bristol Zoo Gardens

C HAPTER 5
Concluding Remarks

Foreword

P ETER S TOETT AND O WEN T EMBY

The SUNY series in Environmental Governance: Local-Regional-Global Interactions is pleased to include this groundbreaking volume written by Katja Grtzner Neves. This series was launched last year to showcase excellent research underscoring contemporary transformations in environmental governance. Its name, Local-Regional-Global Interactions, reflects the common view among specialists that environmental governance has downscaled to include local actors, while concurrently linking them across (and often in spite of) national borders. We view this transformation as a welcome development. Successful responses to the remarkably complex challenges we face are those that include a diversity of actors, integrate and diffuse different forms of knowledge, and are appropriate for the scale of the challenge. At its most consequential, new research resonates with these trends, yet offers surprises about how they have unfoldedfor example, who has become relevant in the process, and how? This is why a book on botanic gardens and biodiversity governance is a timely and welcome contribution.

Although it may seem counterintuitive to botanic garden visitors seeking a recreational experience, today few public spaces better encapsulate the links between local and global environmental governance. While their origins as showcases for imperial conquest are well known, and their commercial utility in harnessing the economic potential of plant materials like coffee, quinine, or rubber only enhanced their role in the colonial usurpation of wealth from the periphery, the political space occupied by botanic gardens has shifted remarkably over the past century. In defining their role and establishing their contemporary relevance, Neves shows that botanic gardens have, since their creation, been institutions of governance. Like other institutions that have been shaped by contemporary imperatives and practices, botanic gardens have transformed to perform the important functions for which they are uniquely positioned. They have become depositories of valuable seed DNA, and rare, medicinal, culturally significant plants, often presented in stunning artistic form. Botanic gardens are leading scientific institutions todaythe trajectory of Kew Gardens is especially emblematic. But they are even more than this, since they have become sites of education, exposing the local public to the conservation issues that we grapple with at the global level, and informing them about the interconnected nature of climate change, habitat destruction, and other global problems, all the while promising a nice day in the sun enjoying the cultivated beauty of plants, trees, living and inanimate sculptures, and minirepresentations of ecosystems, some enclosed in greenhouses.

The symbolism is striking, but Neves takes us much further in the pages that follow, using postnormal conservation as a framework for understanding botanical gardens discursive appropriations of the Anthropocene, computational analytics, and posthuman precepts to justify their renewed existence as agents of biodiversity governance. Based on painstaking site research and much reflection, she has given us a unique view on these increasingly important institutions and the complex roles they are playingand that we are playing in our interactions with themas we struggle to understand the links between local and global political spaces in an age when, sadly, the diminishment of natural space continues. Thanks to Nevess valuable contribution, scholars of biodiversity governance have a long-overdue account of this important actor.

Acknowledgments

I owe an immense debt of gratitude to more people and institutions than I could possibly mention in an acceptably sized acknowledgments section. While I hope to be able to eventually thank all of those who, in one way or another, helped produce this book, I take the present opportunity to thank those who most directly facilitated its completion.

First and foremost, I would like to thank Peter Soett and Owen Temby, editors of SUNY Presss series on Environmental Governance: Local-Regional-Global Interactions, of which Postnormal Conservation is now part. Their generous support provided me with the perfect context to write this book enthusiastically, exploring ideas and data with the knowledge that I could always count on them for words of encouragement as I tried to balance my teaching, research, and service commitments, as well as weekly commutes home across two Canadian provinces, with the books scheduled completion plan. I extend my gratitude here to Michael Rinella, SUNY acquisitions editor, who made sure that the processes of book proposal approval, anonymous reviewing, and final preparation were done swiftly, efficiently, and without cumbersome obstacles. Working with SUNYs production team at the end stages of this books preparation was a true pleasure. I am particularly grateful to Ryan Morris, senior production editor; Kate Seburyamo, marketing manager; and Laura Glenn, copy editor.