Stewardship: the political ecologies of parks, rewilding, and reform in the United States

ABSTRACT Rewilding projects that reintroduce “wild” vegetation to parks and green spaces have become increasingly common in the United States, from wetland areas in city parks to designated nature preserves. Among the experts and volunteers who do this work, rewilding is often referred to as stewardship: care for the environment focused on long-term sustainability and quality of life rather than ownership. Stewardship is thus distinguished from market-driven, high-capital park projects that reflect elite interests in real estate development profits by creating marketable amenities. Drawing on theories of political ecology, this paper argues that stewardship instead advances political interests in centralized environmental policy and expertise that nonetheless benefit wealthy communities, political elites, and scientists. Namely, based on a policy ethnography (including 78 in-depth interviews) of rewilding projects in the contemporary United States, this project shows that stewardship legitimates the authority of agencies and experts by positioning scientific management as a solution to environmental problems resulting from market dynamics. This study uses the term “reform ecology” to characterize how the politics of stewardship legitimate existing authorities that are responsible for the inequitable status quo. Stewardship is, therefore, a useful shorthand for politics of nominal change and de facto retrenchment.