Conservation’s links to eugenics exposed on Park Service anniversary
On the 99th anniversary of the U.S. National Park Service today,
August 25, Survival exposes the dark legacy of the U.S. conservation
movement that led to the eviction of thousands of Native Americans from
national parks – and which continues to be exported around the world
today.
In an article published in U.S. journal Truthout,
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry reveals how today’s conservation
model was based on theories of eugenics and mistaken claims that tribal
peoples’ lands are “wildernesses,” even though tribal peoples have been
dependent on, and managed them, for millennia.
Oglala Lakota chief Luther Standing Bear said, “Only to the white man
was nature a wilderness … to us it was tame. Earth was bountiful.”
Tribal peoples are the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world.
Many U.S. parks involved the eviction of Native Americans, and the
subsequent loss of their sophisticated land management techniques. The
environment has almost always suffered as a result.
The lives of tribes in India's tiger reserves are being destroyed by the conservation industry and tourism.
© Survival International, 2013
