Virtual Programs

In the name of conservation, natural landscapes the world over have been divided up, fenced off, and barricaded against the people and animals that call them home, fragmenting habitats and devastating lifeworlds. Join us for four days of events that expose this crisis of colonial conservation, and advance a more just conservation for our world in crisis. 

A joint project of The Natural History Museum and Survival International, co-sponsored by the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center.

APRIL 12 & 13

Unfence the Future: Taking Down Fortress Conservation and its Enduring Legacy
@ Zoom, Virtual Symposium
RSVP: bit.ly/UnfenceTheFuture

In the history of conservation, the logic of fencing was institutionalized in what critics call “fortress conservation,” a project of drawing boundaries between designated wilderness areas and their outsides, expelling perceived threats to ecological balance–from Indigenous Peoples, to predator species. In the process, habitats have been fragmented, and lifeworlds devastated. This virtual conference brings together community leaders, activists, scientists, and scholars who are working to dismantle the enduring legacies of fortress conservation in institutions of U.S. law, historic preservation, and conservation.

Made possible with support from The Henry Luce Foundation and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. 

APRIL 14

Our Land, Our Nature: A Conference on Decolonizing Conservation
@ Center for the Humanities at CUNY Graduate Center + live-streamed
RSVP: ourlandournature.org 

The mainstream approach to biodiversity conservation has had a devastating impact on Indigenous and other local people’s lands, livelihoods, and rights. Flawed thinking that sees human presence as a threat to ‘nature’ has led to a model of conservation that is often violent, colonialist, and racist. This conference seeks to change the mainstream conversation around conservation by bringing together Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists and human rights experts from around the globe to elevate the voices of those who have seen their lands stolen and their livelihoods devastated by militarized conservation.

APRIL 15

Public demonstration at the Wildlife Conservation Society
@ New York City Bronx Zoo, front entrance

Join Survival International for a protest outside the Bronx Zoo, which is run by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), one of the world’s oldest conservation organizations, with a long history of complicity in human rights abuses in the name of conservation.