CONSERVATION HUMANITIES

Corridor Talk Represented at the AHRC-DFG Workshop

George Holmes and Katie Ritson travelled to London in May to represent Corridor Talk at the AHRC-DFG Workshop “Perspectives on UK-German Arts and Humanities Research.” The workshop, which took place over two days, involved over sixty delegates from the two funding organisations and a range of universities across the UK and Germany. Besides giving a short presentation on the project, George and Katie contributed to the focus group on “Narrating” and to conversations on the future of the AHRC-DFG bilateral funding scheme and to UK-German cooperation more generally.

Recommendations from the 15th International Scientific Wadden Sea Symposium

In December, Eveline de Smalen attended the 15th International Scientific Wadden Sea Symposium, where she presented on Teaching the Wadden Sea through Literature, the project she is working on as part of Corridor Talk. At this symposium, panelists in 7 different thematic sessions met after their panel presentations to discuss sets of recommendations for science and management of the Wadden Sea World Heritage in the context of climate change. These recommendations have now been collated in a report, which will serve as input for the Trilateral Governmental Conference on the protection of the Wadden Sea which will be held later this year in Wilhelmshaven. You can find the recommendations from Eveline’s panel on the social aspects of sustainable development in the Wadden Sea below, and you can download the full report here.

Bernhard Grzimek and the Bavarian Forest National Park

Bavarian Forest: Trees affected by the bark beetle

Another article has been accepted for publication in the context of the ‘Corridor Talk’ project! Graham Huggan’s 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.

Second Year: Research Roundup

Graham Huggan, February 2022

It has been a year since our last research roundup and longer than that since our opening workshop and AGM, so it seems timely to provide an update now. The global pandemic started at the same time as our project funding, and inevitably it has continued to necessitate changes to our research design and our collaborative work. However, the project has not only managed to keep afloat, but has produced some excellent outcomes, and as project co-leader I am delighted to be able to share some of these with you now.

New Publication by Pavla Šimková

Pavla Šimková and Astrid M. Eckert have contributed a chapter about the European Green Belt project along the former Iron Curtain to the new handbook “Greening Europe: Environmental Protection in the Long Twentieth Century”. Their contribution highlights the connections between borders and the natural environment on the example of the Šumava and Bavarian Forest national parks.

Workshop Report: Teaching the Wadden Sea through Literature 2

After an exploratory online workshop on “Teaching the Wadden Sea through Literature” in June 2021, Eveline de Smalen organised a follow-up workshop in collaboration with the Waddenacademie on 16 and 17 November 2021. While it was scheduled as an in-person event, the worsening Covid-19 situation in Europe and the Netherlands in particular meant that it had to be moved online at the last minute. Thanks to the good will and flexibility of all participants, the move online went as smoothly as could be hoped for.

IUCN World Congress, Marseille, September 2021

By Jonathan Carruthers-Jones

After the endless months of COVID enforced routine, a trip to the IUCN World Congress in Marseille felt like quite an adventure. The IUCN congress is the world’s largest conservation event, attended by thousands of practitioners, researchers and policy people working on conservation. But as things turned out, the day in Marseille was only the beginning…

Team workshop in the Pyrenees National Park

During the week from 30 August to 5 September, the Corridor Talk team convened in the Pyrenean region of southwest France, more specifically the pleasant spa town of Bagnères-de-Bigorre, for a series of half-day field trips and business meetings. The trips, to the neighbouring mountain areas of Cauterets and Lac d’Estaing, involved short hikes (and inclement weather!), the latter accompanied by senior Pyrenees National Park ranger Etienne Farand, who recounted stories of regular bear attacks in the region, and who – echoing the figures given by Marco Heurich for Bavarian Forest NP last year – explained the pressures being put on the National Park by increased visitor numbers during the pandemic, and by the emergence – welcome in other ways – of new demographics for tourism in the region, at least some of the visitors associated with which had never been to a national park before.

New article: Mainstreaming the humanities in conservation

New open-access article out this month, authored by the Corridor Talk team!

Following the Science?

by Graham Huggan

The German Association for Postcolonial Studies (GAPS) is one of the liveliest around, and I’ve been lucky enough to participate in several of their conferences. The latest of these (May 2021), hosted by the University of Oldenburg, focused on the relationship between science, culture, and postcolonial narratives. Since COVID appeared on the scene, I’ve attended several online conferences, always with a certain sense of trepidation. How should we gauge audiences we can’t see? And how, when our turn comes to present, should we deal with questions, half-formulated in the first place, that suddenly appear – and that demand equally instant responses – in the chat?