Securing conservation Lebensraum? The geo-, bio-, and ontopolitics of global conservation futures

Summary

The geographical concept of Lebensraum (“living space”) was coined most significantly by the German scholar Friedrich Ratzel towards the end of the nineteenth century. Through the lens of Lebensraum, Ratzel reformulated Darwin's conception of evolution as a “struggle for life” into a “struggle for space”, highlighting how nonhuman species – as well as biologically conceived human 'races', nations, states, and empires – grew organically in space and colonized it. Although the concept attained considerable influence in the first half of the twentieth century, after World War II it largely fell into disrepute due to its various imperialist, colonialist, and fascist associations. Yet in some ways, contemporary academic debates concerning land and resource governance continue to implicitly or partially evoke the substance of certain Lebensraum conceptualizations. This is particularly so with respect to debates about global biodiversity conservation. Revisiting both Ratzelian and other fin de siècle theorizations of Lebensraum, we argue that contemporary efforts to reformulate conservation governance at the planetary scale risk amounting to a form of what we term “conservation Lebensraum”, or a globally-significant “struggle for conservation space”. Analysing the implications of conservation Lebensraum through a tripartite conceptual framework at the intersection of conservation biopolitics, geopolitics, and ontopolitics, we highlight how global biodiversity conservation initiatives seek to respond to multiple socio-ecological crises in the so-called Anthropocene. We end with a brief discussion of more socio-ecologically just alternatives to conservation Lebensraum, thereby contributing to critical conversations about the political ecology of emergent conservation futures.