Format/Structure

Panel composed of 4/5 papers.

Long Abstract

We are currently witnessing a global effort to secure extensive areas for conservation as part of green growth visions. In Europe’s peripheries, conservation interventions are integrated into the EU’s strategies to relaunch the economy by addressing the joint climate-biodiversity crisis. Climate-smart rewilding, ecological restoration projects, and the expansion of strict protection of nature are not only promoted as urgent conservation fixes in Europe’s marginal areas, but they are also framed as solutions to accelerating land abandonment, the emptying of the countryside, and the widespread erosion of rural livelihoods. While powerful mainstream conservation coalitions support these initiatives, alternative forms of land stewardship, such as commons, territories of life, and other convivial and collective practices, continue to struggle from the margins for recognition and support. This panel aims to contribute to a better understanding of social and environmental justice dimensions of incorporating Europe’s peripheries into the green growth vision through conservation.

Keeping this geographical focus in mind, we invite contributions that critically engage with:

• Politics and unequal geographies of conservation;

• Frictions between forms of green grabbing, loss, and rural transformations;

• Marginal areas as conservation sacrifice zones;

• Land abandonment as an opportunity for rewilding;

• New actors, financial instruments, and conservation governance arrangements;

• Conservation prioritization and political resistance from the margins;

• Pathways and synergies in recognizing the conservation labor of local land stewards.

We aim to organize a diverse session that encompasses a broad range of presenters, theoretical and methodological approaches, and empirical cases. The conference is an in-person event, but we will try to accommodate remote presentations.

The papers accepted for this panel will be considered for publication in a special issue supported by the ERC-funded GreenFrontier project, and the presenters will be invited for a writing workshop organized at Wageningen University in early 2027.

This Panel has 8 pending paper proposals.
Propose paper