Cultivating Nature

"Cultivating Nature fills an important gap in the available literature on the conservation of working landscapes. . . . This nuanced study yields new perspectives and even suggests solutions to contemporary efforts to conserve working landscapes that are happening elsewhere."—Lino Camprubi, author of Engineers and the Making of the Francoist Regime

"A captivating tale of Spain's environmental movement as told through a contested coastal wetland that pits farmer against developer, country against city, democracy against autocracy."—Marcus Hall, author of Earth Repair: A Transatlantic History of Environmental Restoration

"A fascinating study of the Albufera in Spain—a landscape rich in birds, where the avian diversity has been shaped by human cultural diversity as well as by ecological processes. In the Albufera, advocates of rewilding and advocates of local communities have to wrestle with competing notions of how best to protect and restore a dynamic landscape. How do we create truly collaborative conservation programs in a world of competing histories and competing economies? Hamilton does not provide easy or simple answers, but her detailed history of the Albufera provides useful lessons for collaborative management of complex landscapes."—Nancy Langston, author of Sustaining Lake Superior: An Extraordinary Lake in a Changing World