Table Of Content“David Jenkins is an environmental bureaucrat distrustful of bureaucracy, and a
scholar who recognizes both the potential and the limits of scholarship and science.
He knows that there is no undoing the human shaping of nature, and yet he has
written a hopeful book in the midst of ruins.”
Richard White, Margaret Byrne Professor of American History,
Emeritus, Stanford University
“In writing this book, David Jenkins has done something I would have guessed
was not possible. He writes with the understanding and humility of a scientist, the
emotional power of an artist, and the heresy that only an insider could imagine, to
outline a philosophy of humanity’s place in and impact on the global ecosystem.
Reflected in these chapters is our path to a sustainable future. And he has done this
with a book on bureaucracy.”
David Carrier, Professor, School of Biological Sciences,
University of Utah
“In Nature and Bureaucracy, anthropologist and public servant David Jenkins paints
a devastating portrait of the ways in which bureaucracies tasked with administering
public lands subvert their own missions. By turns candidly personal and trenchantly
analytical, Nature and Bureaucracy is the brilliant product of Jenkins’ long career
in the US Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service. ‘Traditional Bureaucratic
Knowledge’ supplants traditional ecological knowledge; ‘efficiency,’ quantitative
targets, and simplification obscure the complexities of forests, rivers, fish, and wild-
life. With cases ranging from salmon to wolves, Alaska to tallgrass prairie, logging to
recreation, the book will be of interest to anyone interested in reading a provocative,
insider account of how ‘nature’ is administered in the US today.”
Judith Shapiro, Director, Natural Resources and Sustainable Development
Program, School of International Service, American University
NATURE AND BUREAUCRACY
This book questions how bureaucracies conceive of, and consequently interact with,
nature, and suggests that our managed public landscapes are neither entirely managed
nor entirely wild, and offers several warnings about bureaucracies and bureaucratic
mentality.
One prominent challenge facing scientists, policymakers, environmental activists,
and environmentally concerned citizens, is to recognize that human influence in
the natural world is pervasive and has a long history. How we act, or choose not to
act, today will continue to determine the future of the natural world. Western-s tyle
management of nature, mediated by economic rationality and state bureaucracies, may
not be the best strategy to maintain environmental integrity. The question is, what
kinds of human influence, conceived of in the widest possible sense, will produce ideal
environments for future generations? The related question is, who gets to choose? The
author approaches the problem of analyzing the mutual influence of human and natural
systems from two perspectives: as an objective scholar investigating bureaucracies and
natural systems from the outside, and over the last decade as an inside practitioner
working in various roles in federal land management agencies developing policies and
regulations involved in the control of natural systems.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of natural resource
management, policy and politics, and professionals working in environmental
management roles as well as policymakers involved in public policy and administration.
David Jenkins has 12 years of experience working in U.S. land management
agencies. Prior to that he taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and Bates College and conducted research at the Bureau of Applied Research in
Anthropology at the University of Arizona. His research publications span a range
of topics, including myth, social organization, kinship, exchange networks, museums,
ethnographic photography, environmental values, endangered species, resource
exploitation, subsistence fisheries, autobiography, and the use of mathematical
models in anthropology.
ROUTLEDGE EXPLORATIONS IN
ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
Biocultural Rights, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities
Protecting Culture and the Environment
Edited by Fabien Girard, Ingrid Hall and Christine Frison
Rethinking Geographical Explorations in Extreme Environments
From the Arctic to the Mountaintops
Edited by Marco Armiero, Roberta Biasillo, and Stefano Morosini
Governance Networks for Sustainable Cities
Connecting Theory and Practice in Europe
Katherine Maxwell
Nature and Bureaucracy
The Wildness of Managed Landscapes
David Jenkins
Art, Farming and Food for the Future
Transforming Agriculture
Barbara L. Benish and Nathalie Blanc
Sustainable Places
Addressing Social Inequality and Environmental Crisis
David Adamson, Lorena Axinte, Mark Lang and Terry Marsden
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routle dge.com/
Routle dge- Explo rati ons- in- Enviro nmen tal- Stud ies/ book- ser ies/ REES
NATURE AND
BUREAUCRACY
The Wildness of Managed
Landscapes
David Jenkins
Cover image: Getty
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 David Jenkins
The right of David Jenkins to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in
accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Jenkins, David (Anthropologist), author.
Title: Nature and bureaucracy : the wildness of managed
landscapes / David Jenkins.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2023. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCC N 2022009201 (print) | LCCN 2022009202 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Natural resources–Management. |
Public administration. |Bureaucracy.
Classification: LCC S944.5.D42 J46 2023 (print) |
LCC S944.5.D42 (ebook) | DDC 639.9068–dc23/eng/20220330
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022009201
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022009202
ISBN: 978-1-032-28567-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-28562-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-29744-4 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003297444
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
Drought
What will we do when the well’s dry?
When the water sinks into
sand, will we ask the sky
with swollen lips split in two?
When the water sinks into
deeper aquifers we’ll whisper, dread,
with swollen lips split in two
red cracked riverbeds.
“Deeper aquifers?” we’ll whisper. Dread.
Even moss can find life in
red cracked riverbeds.
Our roots are short and will not lengthen.
Even moss can find life in
red cracked riverbeds.
Our roots are short and will not lengthen.
For strength we have only grief.
Between the bricks we leave
sand. Will we ask the sky
for strength? We have only grief.
What will we do when the wells dry?
— Ravn M. Jenkins
CONTENTS
List of Figures xi
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction: The Wild Garden 1
PART I
The Bureaucracy of Nature 17
1 Against Efficiency: Why We Cut Trees (And What Happens
When We Do) 19
2 When the Well Runs Dry: Aquifers, Canals, and the Colorado
River System 62
3 Atlantic Salmon, Endangered Species, and the Failure of
Environmental Policies 89
4 Count Every Fish: Nonmarket Fishing Economies on the
Yukon River 119
5 Managing Natural Resources in Alaska: Anthropology
Bureaucratized 151
