Stewardship: The Political Ecology of Parks, Rewilding, and Environmental Racism in the United States

Cal Garrett, Wake Forest University

Rewilding projects that reintroduce “wild” vegetation to parks and green spaces have become increasingly common in the United States (US), from wetland areas in city parks to designated nature preserve parks. Among experts and volunteers who do this work, rewilding is often referred to as stewardship: care for the environment focused on sustainability and quality of life rather than ownership. Stewardship is thus distinct from the market-driven, high-capital park planning and development projects that reflect elite interests in real estate development profits by creating amenities. Drawing on theories of political ecologies, abolition ecologies, and social imaginaries of nature, this paper argues that stewardship instead advances political interests in centralized environmental policy and expertise that nonetheless benefit wealthy communities, political elites, and scientists. Namely, based on a policy ethnography (including 78 in-depth interviews) of rewilding projects in the contemporary US, this project shows that stewardship legitimates the authority of agencies and experts by positioning the expansion of regulations and scientific management as solutions to environmental problems. This study uses the term “reformation ecology” to characterize how stewardship legitimates existing systems of environmental governance that reproduce inequalities and undercuts the abolitionist demands of environmental justice organizing.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 72. Ecosystems as Case and Concept