From the Serengeti to the Bavarian Forest, and back again: Bernhard Grzimek, Celebrity Conservation, and the Transnational Politics of National Parks

Autori

  • D University of Leeds

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37536/ECOZONA.2022.13.2.4525

Parole chiave:

Grzimek, conservation, celebrity, transnationalism, National Parks

Abstract

This short piece focuses on the work of the German “celebrity conservationist,” Bernhard Grzimek, situating it in the context of historical and contemporary debates about the political and ecological importance of national parks. Grzimek’s role in the creation of Bavarian Forest National Park may not be as well-known as his public ministrations on behalf of the wild animals of the Serengeti, but in several ways his work in and for these two national parks, engaging with the fraught politics of the period, was intertwined. The essay looks at some of these overlaps, using them to make the case for national parks as complex geopolitical formations in which human and animal interests alternately collide and converge. The essay also makes the case for national parks as multi-scalar entities that need to be understood – politically and ecologically – in both local and global, both national and transnational terms. Finally, the essay cites the multiple roles of Grzimek to re-examine the ambivalent role of the celebrity conservationist as a media spokesperson and publicity-conscious advocate for the world’s wildlife.

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Biografia autore

D, University of Leeds

Graham Huggan teaches in the School of English at the University of Leeds (UK). His research interests span three fields – postcolonial studies, environmental humanities and tourism studies – all of which are represented in his latest monograph, Colonialism, Culture, Whales: The Cetacean Quartet (Bloomsbury, 2018). His most recent, co-authored book is Modern British Nature Writing, 1789-2020: Land Lines (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

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Pubblicato

2022-10-29

Fascicolo

Sezione

Articles: General Section