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Short abstract:

We explore the paradoxical relation between biodiversity and agriculture by studying ecosystem and species monitoring in an Austrian national park. We show how monitoring conjures up multiple relations that enact an infrastructure for preserving both nonhuman and human lifeforms.

Long abstract:

The Neusiedler See-Seewinkel National Park on the Austrian-Hungarian border was established in 1993 to preserve a variety of ecosystems and the species inhabiting them. Key among those are high salinity lakes where various species of waders breed and many more bird species rest during migration. Both these lakes and other ecosystems were formed in interaction with human land-use over centuries but are currently considered to be threatened – inter alia – by agricultural activity in the surrounding region. The national park thereby provides a particular illustration of the paradoxical notion that agriculture can be both enabling for and threatening to biodiversity. To explore how this paradox is encountered in biodiversity conservation, we draw from ethnographic work on various monitoring activities within the Neusiedler See-Seewinkel National Park – including monitoring of the lakes and various bird species. We attend to monitorings as knowledge infrastructures that conjure up multiple relations between biodiversity and agriculture in the naturecultural space of the National Park. We argue that these relations get articulated across (at least) three layers of monitoring practice, including (1) the legal and material designation of spaces subject to protection; (2) narratives of the consequences of human land use amongst monitoring staff; and (3) the use of monitoring instruments and data as anticipatory resources for conservation. Through these institutional, narrative, and practical layers of ‘knowing’ the national park, we observe how monitoring enacts an infrastructure for biodiversity conservation that weaves together the preservation of various forms of nonhuman and human life.