3) How should we assess the idea that protecting nature requires preserving wilderness and minimizing human intervention? What are the strengths and limits of this view?

Vocabulary terms from the lecture notes concerning concepts of wilderness, conservation-based displacement, and the economic valuation of nature.

Wilderness Ideal

The idea that true nature must be untouched by humans and therefore protected from human presence.

Green Colonialism

Environmental protection that reproduces colonial domination by excluding or displacing local communities.

Degradation Narrative

The claim that local people are causing ecological decline, often used to justify stricter conservation and exclusion.

Cheap Nature

Patel and Moore’s idea that capitalism depends on making nature undervalued and easily exploitable.

Enforced Naturalization

The process of creating “natural” spaces by removing human presence and land use.

New Poverty

The systematic impoverishment caused by resettlement and displacement from protected areas.