Paper short abstract:

This paper is about wildlife study and management as a form of interaction with the future. Based on ethnographic research at the “Tortoise Reproduction Center” (Albera Massif), the paper aims to explore how herpetologists experience solastalgia, according to the formulation of Glenn Albrecht.

Paper long abstract:

The Albera Massif is located on the Franco-Spanish border that divides Catalonia, where the Pyrenees descend towards the Mediterranean Sea. This mountainous area, until recently covered in vineyards and olive groves, is home to the last population of the Hermann's tortoise (Testudo hermanni), which lived on the Iberian Peninsula for almost a million years. The expansion project of an Army training camp in this area and, subsequently, a large forest fire in the mid-1980s that consumed 30,000 hectares and ended with more than a third of the Hermann's tortoise population in Albera, led to the creation of an animal sanctuary with the aim of promoting the reproduction of the tortoises and repopulating the massif. This research is based on ethnographic fieldwork in Albera Massif, following herpetologists in their daily activities, and observing human-turtle interactions. It also happens that the wildlife sanctuary is located on the site of an old religious sanctuary, originally dating from the 12th century, where the local people still go there to pray to the Virgin Mary, showing the link between the wild and the sacred, as William Cronon noted. By observing the relationship between people and tortoises, I will analyse how herpetologists experience solastalgia, as formulated by Glenn Albrecht. The care of Hermann's tortoise, in a both faunal and religious sanctuary, surrounded by vineyards, allows us to explore new forms of contemporary temporalities, marked by a context of climate emergency and wildlife extinction.