The state of nature conservation

The State of nature conservation is an essay in which Tom Bade asks why was it the government that established Yellowstone National Park in 1872 in America? After all, that is well before organized nature conservation arose. After all, the Sierra Club in America was only established in 1892 and Natuurmonumenten in the Netherlands only in 1904. What were the government’s motives for protecting nature? Tom argues that these can be found in concepts such as national unity, identity, prosperity and civilization and not at all in ecological motives. The lesson for nature conservation today is therefore to focus on that too, if it wants to keep (or win back) the government as a partner.