Paper short abstract:

Making wild nature legible is a contentious process. The paper investigates the role of remote sensing and scientific expertise in the process of mapping and assessing virgin forests in the Carpathian Mountains. As knowledges entangle and disentangle virgin forests turn to political techno-natures.

Paper long abstract:

On the brink of extinction, virgin forests have been regarded both as windows to the past and a laboratory for finding solutions for future environmental challenges. Appropriate mapping becomes essential for effective conservation. This paper investigates how different regimes of knowledge have shaped the understanding of virgin forests and their functioning as they turn from data sets tot UNESCO world heritage.

Remote sensing technologies and high-resolution satellite imagery are techniques currently used to map virgin forest across the Carpathian Mountains. Within the EU their protection is considered an efficient strategy in mitigating climate change. Significant efforts have been made to identify and assess the conservation status of virgin forests, while politicians and activists alike started to use maps as political ammunition. Scientific research has been accompanied by a strong civil society mobilization for the protection of virgin forests as charismatic nature. Outside of the scientists' realm, they have been produced as a digital object of desire through VR technologies, artistic interventions and participatory mapping.

While this charismatic nature is slowly becoming a socio-political techno-nature, some serious questions regarding the role of different methodologies in making virgin forests legible have to be addressed. The paper argues that maps and data sets are a result of a whole assemblage of corrections informed by the scientists’ expertise. This narrowing of vision can potentially produce not only environmental injustice but also obliterates a rich environmental history as a new dichotomous system (wild-not wild) of classifying nature becomes the norm of the scientific gaze.