In this paper we examine the role of claims of global conspiracy in undermining a local environmental planning process known as Natural Heritage 2020 (NH 2020) in Nevada County, California. County officials intended NH 2020 to mitigate the environmental impacts of rapid growth in this gentrifying rural community. This program illustrates the increasing use by land-use planners of landscape-scale approaches derived from conservation biology to protect biodiversity on private land. In Nevada County, this new planning vision met intense resistance. The ensuing struggle demonstrates the conflicts that can arise between social groups with competing visions for the future of the local environment in response to efforts to realize particular visions through land-use planning and policymaking. Opponents perceived a significant threat to their property rights from the use of a landscape-scale vision from conservation biology in county planning, which some depicted as part of a global environmental conspiracy. We explore the links between broader conservation science, ideology, and activism in the case of NH 2020, and suggest that quite real conceptual connections to global conservation politics potentially make local conservation planning efforts susceptible to claims of ‘outside’ interference. Although NH 2020 had no direct link (despite claims by some opponents) to global conservation efforts, the successful use of claims of global conspiracy in efforts to halt the program underscores social realities that planners and scholars need to consider when promoting what they often view as simply ‘good planning.’
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BeatleyT, 1994Ethical Land Use (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD)
2.
BeatleyT, 2000, “Preserving biodiversity: Challenges for planners”Journal of the American Planning Association665–19
3.
BerlinerH, 1970A Plague on the Land (California Tomorrow, San Francisco, CA)
4.
BourdieuP, 1977Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
5.
BryantR, 1991, “Putting politics first: The political ecology of sustainable development”Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters1164–166
6.
BryantR, 1998, “Power, knowledge and political ecology in the third world: A review”Progress in Physical Geography2279–94
7.
CrononW, 1995, “The trouble with wilderness; or, getting back to the wrong nature, in Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature Ed. CrononW (W W Norton, New York) pp 69–90
8.
CrononW, 2000, “Resisting monoliths and tabulae rasae”Ecological Applications10673–675
9.
DaleVBrownSHaeuberRHobbsNHuntlyNNaimanRRiebsameWTurnerMValoneT, 2000, “Ecological principles and guidelines for managing the use of land”Ecological Applications10639–670
10.
DuaneT, 1996, “Human settlement, 1850 – 2040”, in Status of the Sierra Nevada, II Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (Centers for Water and Wildland Resources, University of California, Davis, CA) pp 236–360
11.
DuaneT, 1999Shaping the Sierra: Nature, Culture, and Conflict in the Changing West (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
12.
DuerksonC JElliottD LHobbsN TJohnsonEMillerJ R, 1997, “Habitat protection planning: Where the wild things are”, Planning Advisory Service Report 470/471, American Planning Association, Washington, DC
13.
EscobarA, 1998, “Whose knowledge, whose nature? Biodiversity conservation, and the political ecology of social movements”Journal of Political Ecology553–81
14.
FarquharF, 1965History of the Sierra Nevada (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
15.
FultonW, 1999Guide to California Planning2nd edition (Solano Press Books, Point Arena, CA)
16.
HalsethG, 1998Cottage Country in Transition: A Social Geography of Change and Contention in the Rural – Recreateional Countryside (McGill-Queen's University, Montreal)
17.
HarveyD, 1996Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference (Blackwell, Oxford)
18.
HerringtonJ, 1989Planning Processes: An Introduction for Geographers (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
19.
HillierJ, 1998, “Paradise proclaimed? Towards a theoretical understanding of representations of nature in land-use planning decision-making”Ethics, Place and Environment177–91
20.
HillierJ, 1999a, “What values? Whose values?”Ethics, Place and Environment2179–199
21.
HillierJ, 1999b, “Culture, community and communication in the planning process, in Social Town Planning Ed. GreedC (Routledge, New York) pp 221–239
22.
HulseDRibeR, 2000, “Land conversion and the production of wealth”Ecological Applications10679–682
23.
KarpaG, 2002a, “Some warn of U.N. land-use plans”The Union1 May
24.
KarpaG, 2002b, “Board wants NH 2020 done June 30”The Union8 May
25.
KnightR, 1999, “Private lands: The neglected geography”Conservation Biology13223–224
26.
LatourB, 1987Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
27.
LatourB, 1999, “On recalling ANT”, in Actor Network Theory and After (Blackwell, Oxford) pp 15–25
28.
McCannE J, 1997, “Where do you draw the line? Landscape, texts, and the politics of planning”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space15641–661
29.
McCannE J, 2001, “Collaborative visioning or urban planning as therapy? The politics of public – private policy making”The Professional Geographer53207–218
30.
McCarthyJ, 2002, “First World political ecology: Lessons from the Wise Use movement”Environment and Planning A341281–1302
31.
MillerJHobbsR, 2002, “Conservation where people live and work”Conservation Biology16330–337
32.
MooreD, 1993, “Contesting terrain in Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands: Political ecology, ethnography, and peasant resource struggles”Economic Geography69380–401
33.
NCEO, 2002, “Election results: Decision 2002”Nevada County Elections Office, Government of Nevada County, Nevada City, CA
34.
NeumannR, 1998Imposing Wilderness: Struggles over Livelihood and Nature Preservation in Africa (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
35.
NH 2020 Program, 2000, “Natural Heritage 2020: About NH 2020”, Nevada County
OdenbaughJ, 2003, “Values, advocacy and conservation biology”Environmental Values1255–69
38.
PeckS, 1998Planning for Biodiversity (Island Press, Washington, DC)
39.
PeetRWattsM, 1996Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements (Routledge, New York)
40.
PelusoN, 1992Rich Forests, Poor People: Resource Control and Resistance in Java (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
41.
PetersP, 1984, “Struggles over water, struggles over meaning: Cattle, water, and the state in Botswana”Africa5429–49
42.
RobbinsP, 1998, “Authority and environment: Institutional landscapes in Rajasthan, India”Annals of the Association of American Geographers88410–435
43.
RobbinsP, 2002, “Obstacles to a First World political ecology: Looking near without looking up”Environment and Planning A341509–1513
44.
SchroederR, 1999Shady Practices: Agroforestry and Gender Politics in The Gambia (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
45.
SEDD, 2001, “Nevada County economic and fiscal indicator review report”, Sierra Economic Development District, 560 Wall Street, Suite F, Auburn, CA 95603
46.
ShipleyR, 2002, “Visioning in planning: Is the practice based on sound theory?”Environment and Planning A347–22
47.
SNEP, 1996, “People and Resources”, in Status of the Sierra Nevada Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, University of California, Davis, CA
48.
TheobaldDHobbsNBearlyTZackJShenkTRiebsameW, 2000, “Incorporating biological information in local land-use decision making: Designing a system for conservation planning”Landscape Ecology1535–45
49.
The Union2000a, “Pagan Greens control county”, 18 September
50.
The Union2000b, “NH 2020 is socialism”, 5 October
51.
The Union2000c, “Enviros after your property”, 16 November
52.
The Union2002, “U.N. threat to our freedom”, 27 July
WalkerPFortmannL, 2003, “Whose landscape? A political ecology of the ‘exurban’ Sierra”Cultural Geographies10469–491
58.
WalkerP AHurleyP T, 2004, “Collaboration derailed”Society and Natural Resources171–17
59.
WhatmoreSBoucherS, 1993, “Bargaining with nature: The discourse and practice of environmental gain”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series18166–178
60.
WynneB, 1994, “Scientific knowledge and the global environment”, in Social Theory and the Global Environment Eds RedcliftMBentonT (Routledge, New York) pp 169–189
