Title: A political ecology study of forest wilderness in the Olympic Peninsula (USA) and Tasmania (Australia)
Abstract:This thesis presents an analysis of wilderness protected areas as domestic territorialisation processes in the USA and Australia. It argues that the process of building wilderness territory has an ite...This thesis presents an analysis of wilderness protected areas as domestic territorialisation processes in the USA and Australia. It argues that the process of building wilderness territory has an iterative effect of mediating human/nature relationships through changing access to forest resources. Philosophers, historians, and writers have sought to answer the question of humanity’s place in nature through the idea of wilderness. In both the USA and Australia, narratives range from wilderness as an idea and a place that is terrible and indifferent, pristine and Edenic, playground and park, and fortress of biodiversity. This thesis seeks to contribute to understanding how the concept of wilderness currently inhabits the political sphere in the USA and Australia. It responds to calls in the fields of anthropology and geography to increase the involvement of the social sciences in conservation science, and arises from gaps in previous literature on the political ecology of developed countries.The thesis focuses on forest wilderness on the Olympic Peninsula, USA and in Tasmania, Australia, to explore how wilderness protected areas change and mediate peoples’ access to forest resources, how wilderness and World Heritage intersect to mediate access, and how wilderness protected areas mediate human/nature relationships. The thesis considers wilderness as a territorialisation process, a set of policies or strategies used to assert authority over resources, and behaviour in relation to those resources, within a given area. Through examples in debates over wilderness legislation and management in the two case-study sites, the thesis analyses the ways in which wilderness is used to assert physical and narrative control over geographic areas by both state and non-state actors. It traces the processes of territorialisation of forests in a Global North context, concluding that wilderness conservation constitutes a form of conceptual re-territorialisation. It explores the role of the World Heritage system in this process, concluding that World Heritage is used as a tool for domestic territorial control over wilderness resources. The thesis then builds a case for political wilderness, an iterative process by which people’s access to forest resources changes human/nature narratives, and vice versa. The thesis interrogates how discourse from conservation science and heritage-making is used by the nation-state, as well as non-state actors, to build and maintain legitimacy over resource access. It concludes with an outline of opportunities for future research on wilderness, territorialisation in developed countries, and natural heritage.Read More