Authenticity in Nature

Nigel Dudley is an ecologist and consultant, based in Bristol, UK, working on issues relating to forest conservation, protected areas and broad scale approaches to conservation He is co-author of Forest Quality (2006) and co-editor with Sue Stolton of Partnerships for Protection (1999) and Arguments for Protected Areas (2010, all Earthscan).

• Preface.  Introduction  1. The Myths of Wilderness, Myth 1: Natural Ecosystems Still Exist  2. The Myths of Wilderness, Myth 2: Naturalness is Irrelevant  3. How our Attitudes to Natural Ecosystems Change with Time and Place  4. Defining Naturalness and Authenticity  5. Authenticity, Ethics and Conservation Targets  6. The Things We Get from Natural Ecosystems  7. Global Attempts to Assess Naturalness  8. Managing for Authenticity  9. Into the Future  10. A Manifesto for Authenticity.  References

"Dudley’s book is ... similar to Simon Levin’s Fragile Dominion (1999), E. O. Wilson’s The Future of Life (2002) or Carolyn Merchant’s Reinventing Eden (2003). An established environmental scientist, Dudley also uses his travels to bring colour to his writing, but his hypothesis comes from a thoughtful examination of various attempts to define ‘natural’ and ‘wild’ — by scientists, philosophers, managers, non-governmental organizations and policy-makers. Dudley demonstrates that there is neither coherence nor consensus as to what constitutes naturalness or wildness. He suggests that we focus instead on "authenticity". - Shahid Naeem, Professor of Ecology, Columbia University, USA, in Nature (1 September 2011).