Environmentalism Without Justice: Popular Discontent with State Environmental Regulation in Argentina and the US

Session Submission Type: Complete Panel

Abstract

In the twentieth century, federal and state governments worldwide assumed new roles in providing sanitary services and managing natural resources. This new posture took the form of numerous policies that citizens did not expect from their governments a few generations earlier—conserving sea shores, controlling wildfires, disposing chemical waste, and protecting endangered species, to name only a few policies. The unprecedentedly interventionist approach to the natural world explains the rapid creation of numerous government bodies solely tasked with environmental regulation during the twentieth century, including agencies tasked with environmental protection and soil conservation. State-led environmentalism, however, generated mixed responses. Some saw the state as an ally that made wilderness a more hospitable place for outdoor recreation. Others saw it as an intruder that blithely disregarded local interests and land use practices.

This panel offers histories of popular discontent with state environmental regulation in Argentina and the United States during the twentieth century. Rob Christensen describes how the Argentinian government’s establishment of Nahuel Huapi National Park in the foothills of the Patagonian Andes disrupted the agricultural activity of Indigenous Mapuche communities. Robynne Mellor traces the origins of the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire in 2022 in New Mexico to the history of the US government’s seizure of common lands for conservation purposes, thereby restricting age-old local regimes of fire use. Finally, Ellie Witham studies local resistance to the state of New Jersey’s attempt to dispose radon waste in Colliers Mills Wildlife Area in 1987.

Together, the panel’s papers highlight the mixed history of twentieth-century conservation and environmentalism. Seen from the perspective of local communities in Patagonia, New Mexico, and New Jersey, state environmental regulation seemed technocratic and cruel when it disregarded the interests of local stakeholders. When not aligned with social and economic justice, environmentalism incurred both human and environmental costs.

Sub Unit

• ASEH Annual Conference

Individual Presentations

• Combustible Buildup: The Long History of the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire - Robynne Mellor, Sunmount Consulting

• Environmental Action and the Challenges of Radioactive Waste Disposal in New Jersey - Ellie Witham, Northeastern University

• Indigenous People, Economic Development, and Conservation in Nahuel Huapi National Park, Argentina (1900-1946) - Rob Christensen, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs

Chair

• Stephen Hausmann, University of St. Thomas

Discussant

• Faisal Husain, Penn State University