Paper short abstract:

From ethnographic researches based in two Italian national parks, this paper analyzes recent shifts in conservation. It will consider original negotiations around parks and what may be put in cause by approaches, such as biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and carbon trade.

Paper long abstract:

In the complex field of conservation politics, protected areas hold a preeminent position: their historical presence, the rethorics they promote, and their territorialization capacities contribute to their recognizability and their general legitimacy. Nevertheless, conservation institutions diversify their instruments and goals over time, and according to the contexts of their implementation. Since the last decades of the XXth century, protected areas based on sustainable development principles strengthen their authority and their appeal. Those approaches permitted significant changes in the acceptance of protected areas by local populations and political mileux, as well as concerning their potential spread on urbanized areas. They also represented one vehicle for new notions and instruments coming from global and international organisms and conventions to be introduced locally: biodiversity, ecosystem services, compensation and carbon trade principles enter the political fabric and encounter local arenas.

From ethnographic researches based in two Italian national parks (the Cinque Terre National Park and the archipelago of la Maddalena National Park) I analyze the shifts occurred recently in conservation propositions. Thanks to the attention to the historical dimension of those subjects, it would be possible to consider original negotiations around the creation of national parks and what may be put in cause by novel approaches.

This paper will investigate several social actors’ involvement and the processual structuring of specific relations to environmental issues, with regard to conservation approaches. The focus on those Italian national parks will allow a detailed account, so that nuances and variation of those wider processes will emerge.