A Moderating Force: Conserving Nature in National Parks in Patagonia and Amazonia [Paperback]

From Amazonian forests to Patagonian ice fields, South America boasts some of the most iconic nature reserves on the planet.A Moderating Forcedemonstrates how, in four countries and across one hundred years, ordinary people and curious scientists worked to protect and celebrate the places for which they cared deeply. Rather than center conventional or critical interpretations of nature conservation, Emily Wakild shows how the creation of national parks proved a moderating force that pulled different groups together. By elaborating on the patterns and processes that these countries used to protect large landscapes, Wakild provides a bold new interpretation of national parks.Over the past century, landscapes across South American fundamentally changed. As forests were felled, cities and highways built, and agricultural land was managed, national governments set aside protected landscapes in certain charismatic places. These areas- which include some of the most iconic nature reserves on the planet, from Amazonian forests to Patagonian ice fields. -have direct bearing on the world's climate system, the regulation of carbon in the atmosphere, and the protection of species. They are home to hundreds of thousands of Native peoples and millions of mixed-race and European settlers. Today, more than a quarter of South America lies within conservation areas.In A Moderating Force, award-winning Latin American environmental historian Emily Wakild relates a transnational comparative history of two paradigmatic regions-the temperate southern third of South America known as Patagonia and the tropical expanse known as Amazonia. Wakild traces the development of national parks in Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Brazil from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, explaining the historical processes that led to nature conservation at the national level. She explores the many different perspectives and priorities that contribute to deciding what makes the best park and for whlÌ