Creative conservation, landscapes and loss

Conservation practice has recently begun to be transformed by the rhetoric of creative ecology and the possibility of creating (or re-creating) desired ecological conditions. This paper explores the potential conflict between these new developments and the conservation movement's long-standing dependence on a widely-shared (and widely disseminated) sense of 'the naturalness' of habitats and landscapes, and fear of their destruction. Conservation has long been driven by fear of loss of habitat, familiar features of landscapes, and of specific places. The paper discusses the potential for creative conservation to be carried out in such a way that its potential gains can be realized without cutting off the cultural engine of concern that drives conservation forwards.