From activism to “not-quite-government”: the role of government and non-government actors in the expansion of the Australian protected area estate since 1990

Professionalisation and the spectacle of nature: Understanding changes in the visual imaginaries of private protected area organisations in Australia

“…The growth of private PAs has complex sources that can only be summarised here (see Davison et al, 2022 for wider analysis). Predominantly local forms of environmental protest and activism coalesced into a national political movement during the 1970s and 1980s (Doyle, 2000), aiming to save wilderness through PAs on public land.…”

“…ENGOs are now a vital source of policy, financial and on-ground innovation in conservation (Büscher and Fletcher, 2020;Palfrey et al, 2021;Schetter et al, 2022). While the state has provided legitimacy and a policy architecture to drive ENGO expansion of the PA estate (Iannuzzi et al, 2020), ENGOs have shaped new trajectories for conservation through philanthropic and corporate partnerships, co-management arrangements, for-profit conservation finance ventures, research and education initiatives, and media and communications strategies (Davison et al, 2022;Gulliver et al, 2020). Reflecting the global turn towards capital and markets, Australian ENGOs have become increasingly strategic in their operations to generate new sources of funding and deliver conservation outcomes.…”

“…In this third dynamic, earlier reframing of the audience addressed by ENGO communication from a small, committed group of grassroot members and volunteers to a larger and more diverse pool of donors and land buyers is pushed further. The terminating of the Federal National Reserve System Program in 2012 intensified funding competition between ENGOs (Davison et al, 2022), spurring efforts to present distinctive organisational identities and brands through representations of specialisation, novelty and partnership, so as to target a growing variety of possible audiences and funding streams.…”

“…Contributions have studied some socio-political implications of an expanded role for ENGOs in PA conservation through land ownership and management. These include land exclusions and related injustices (Brockington et al, 2008;Büscher and Fletcher, 2020;Holmes and Cavanagh, 2016;Palfrey et al, 2021;Schetter et al, 2022), and rising private controls over innovation in conservation research and management (Hawkins and Paxton, 2019), creating and directing flows of conservation finance (Igoe, 2017), and shaping public awareness and debates about conservation (Büscher and Fletcher, 2020;Davison et al, 2022).…”

“…In the case of conservation, imaginaries integrate factual and normative claims about desirable and undesirable natures, linking together the institutions, narratives and practices that establish what conservation means, what its purposes are, how it is conducted, and what success looks like (Archibald et al, 2020; Krivý, 2021). As we explore, visually-mediated imaginaries (thereafter visual imaginaries) have been prominent as ENGOs have created private PA estates in Australia amidst neoliberal restructuring, making this a revealing context in which to explore political and cultural dynamics in conservation with global relevance (Beeson and Firth, 1998; Davison et al, 2022).…”