Managing Environments from a Distance: Transnational Science and Policy during the Great Acceleration

Environmental historians increasingly refer to the postwar epoch as the ‘the Great Acceleration’, a period characterized by a significant increase in human impacts on ecosystems across the globe. Meanwhile historians of science dedicate growing attention to attempts to monitor and manage these human impacts, especially across borders, in this same period. This session explores one important facet of these transnational initiatives: the tension between, on the one hand, universalizing conceptualizations of the global environment and the centralized institutions that attempted to realize these, and, on the other, the lived experiences and practical concerns of diverse local actors. Taking inspiration from the spatial turn, the session studies how global conservation schemes were translated into projects on the ground. The papers look into various instances of transnational, science-based conservation between the 1950s and the 1980s, including wildlife protection, water management, ocean conservation and the maintenance of crop diversity. Raf De Bont explores different types of ‘ideal landscapes’ promoted under the flag of ecosystem science by the International Union for the Protection of Nature. Etienne Benson studies controversies over data standardization that took place in the context of the International Hydrological Decade. Lino Camprubí looks into the local and international work necessary to make the ocean into an object of conservation. Finally, Helen Anne Curry examines the political geographies and technical realities of international crop genebanks. Overall, the papers show how in different institutional contexts the project of global environmental management was modified to accommodate particular local policies and ecologies.