Other-Worldly Experiences of Protected Area Adaptive Management

In this chapter I engage with protected areas through the metaphor of “postcard Nature.” In doing so, I show the paradox inherent in protected area management regimes and scientific disciplines that are striving to maintain stasis and to control space and time, despite the complexity and dynamism inherent in these systems. This metaphoric approach also illustrates how protected area and conservation practices configure relations in ways that inhibit the recognition of human-nonhuman relationality in management practices. Thus, emphasizing the interconnectedness of humans and nonhumans, the chapter explores the potential for our reimagining protected areas as more-than-human environments. Drawing on my experiences with management practices, and engaging with time and affective knowing, I analyse the context of adaptive management practices as products of human-nonhuman encounters. In my analysis, I ask whether it is possible to reframe, and even deconstruct, the “postcard” and to re-think and re-do adaptive management because of these experiences.