National Parks, civilisation and globalisation

Reply to Nik Petek’s reflection

Since we were in the same discussion group I will try not to repeat myself too much, but I think it’s inevitable. Now that you mentioned that our group did not touch upon the problem of globalisation explicitly, I do find it curious, but I guess the question is implicit in the question of standardisation. You also mentioned that you wonder what effect do these almost semi-formal conferences have when it comes to national park management. It was something I was wondering too; if we lack an institution or at least a binding legal text, how do these ideas get transferred? What (who) decides that some ideas get implemented, whereas others do not? I guess it boils down to who wields the power and knowledge, so I think we can claim that it is the western scientific paradigm that constructs the ideological framework. Which brings us to the other issue; the issue of definition of what a national park is. I think that there is too much focus on the purpose and I believe this emphasis on purpose has its roots in what Carruthers calls the commercialization of nature; as if nature is just another tool we use in order to achieve an end, possibly an economic gain. And as you mentioned, defining something according to its purpose, completely misses the point. You know the old phenomenological question; how do you define a hammer? Is it just a tool (can we cay its purpose defines its essence)? I think not and I think we can say the same about the definition of a national park; I wouldn’t like it either if Triglav national park was renamed into Triglav tourist park, precisely because we are emotionally invested in this, which again proves that we shouldn’t limit ourselves to exclusively pragmatic explanations. Also, the remark about the connection between a consolidation of a nation and the creation of a national park, prompted a silly thought in my head, like something from an absurd Monty Python sketch: if we renamed it into a tourist park, I imagine all Slovenians walking around in flip-flops and cameras around our necks all the time 😀

Repy to Wilen’s post- Nationalism,Conservation and Globallisation: the History of National Parks
Dear Wilen, Thank you for your work and I have interesting to know your idea about National parks.
Generally, I agree with you that enrirometal issue is not only concern about one place or one country,is our issures-as human being. like what you metioned on your paper that we can not wait too long until everyone in the world all know every datail about nature , we have no time.
But I also want to point out that, the reason when many people talk about national park always have an emotional or phsical reaction,even a little bit negative is not because they really dislike it. As what I feel is just result from their bad experiecine about the concept of national.
We all know that behind of the national, it always come with big interests, finance supporting from the state.Look back our human being’s long history, we have many nice ideas such as help each other, to be rich together,socailsim, communism and so on. But until today we still could reach those aim. Because we have to admit a reality that world is not flat,social develop, economic develop and also political develop hardly keep in a same level. Using myself as an example, I have really bad impression about the concept socialist, I treat it as a joke. The reason is because China has totally failure in reach this aim, the name socialist had been utilized by China government to cheat normal Chinese in past half a century.It resulted my parents’s tragic life.So that in a long term I could say definetly I dislike this so called socialst idea, I dislike national wherever it be used except education and medical. But after I came to Sweden, which is famous as socai system in the world, I started to realize my mistake. The problem is not socialist, but our government utitized the idea in order to getting people’s supporting and in the end
to be powerful. It’s unfair to blame the socialist or national. What I would like to express is, why many people feel sensitive on national park is not because the concept itself, but because the misunderstanding which came from what they had suffered before. And those bad experence all have close relation with the country’s embody institution. Differnt flowers need to be planted in the different soil otherwise it cannot grow up and bolsomThis the reality which we couldnt run away from it.But I still want to say that we should do sth as much as we can, we should start the frist step rather than nothing to do. This is what I felt from the lecture and seminar.