IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/glenvp/v11y2011i4p1-21.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Conservation's Friends in High Places: Neoliberalism, Networks, and the Transnational Conservation Elite

Author

Listed:
  • George Holmes

    (George Holmes is a Leverhulme Fellow in the Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds, UK. His interests are in the social impacts of protected areas and in the politics of protected area creation, particularly around private protected areas in the context of neoliberal conservation. He has previously published work on elite conservation networks in the Dominican Republic and on local resistance to protected areas.)

Abstract

Global conservation has changed over the last two decades. As conservation NGOs have grown in size and stature, they have increasingly turned to businesses and market mechanisms and they are increasingly replacing the state in delivering conservation programs. This article argues that at the heart of global conservation lies a small, well-connected elite, made up of directors and senior staff of key conservation NGOs, state politicians and bureaucrats, corporate directors, scientists, celebrities, and media actors. This elite network works as influence, ideas, and money are spread in formal spaces, such as conferences and meeting rooms, and in informal occasions such as social events. Drawing on emerging studies of conservation bureaucracies and NGOs, this article outlines the workings and structure of this elite, illustrated through four detailed vignettes. It situates the elite in the emerging literature on neoliberalism, arguing that this elite is at the forefront of driving the neoliberalization of conservation. © 2011 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • George Holmes, 2011. "Conservation's Friends in High Places: Neoliberalism, Networks, and the Transnational Conservation Elite," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 11(4), pages 1-21, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:11:y:2011:i:4:p:1-21
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/GLEP_a_00081
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. George Holmes, 2015. "Markets, Nature, Neoliberalism, and Conservation through Private Protected Areas in Southern Chile," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(4), pages 850-866, April.
    2. Koot, Stasja & Fletcher, Robert, 2021. "Donors on tour: Philanthrotourism in Africa," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    3. George Holmes, 2012. "Biodiversity for Billionaires: Capitalism, Conservation and the Role of Philanthropy in Saving/Selling Nature," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 43(1), pages 185-203, January.
    4. Alfie ChristopherByron Gaffney & Darrick Evensen, 2020. "Addressing the Elephant in the Room: Learning from CITESCoP17," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 20(1), pages 3-10, February.
    5. Nasiritousi, Naghmeh & Hjerpe, Mattias & Buhr, Katarina, 2014. "Pluralising climate change solutions? Views held and voiced by participants at the international climate change negotiations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 177-184.
    6. Peter R Wilshusen & Kenneth Iain MacDonald, 2017. "Fields of green: Corporate sustainability and the production of economistic environmental governance," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(8), pages 1824-1845, August.
    7. Kashwan, Prakash, 2017. "Inequality, democracy, and the environment: A cross-national analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 139-151.
    8. Hejnowicz, Adam P. & Raffaelli, David G. & Rudd, Murray A. & White, Piran C.L., 2014. "Evaluating the outcomes of payments for ecosystem services programmes using a capital asset framework," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 9(C), pages 83-97.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:11:y:2011:i:4:p:1-21. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.