ABSTRACT
The conceptual separation of nature from society has been a feature of Western thought since at least the Renaissance (Ingold 2000). It also reinforces the long-standing tendency to differentiate ‘urban’ and ‘rural’. As cultural historian Raymond Williams has detailed, cities and towns are seen as centres of industry and of progress. Rural areas, all too often, tend either to be portrayed as rustic, backward and in need of ‘development’, or as pristine wilderness untouched by humans, and in need of preservation for aesthetic and recreational interests (Williams 1973). For many generations, parks for the conservation of nature have represented the wilderness side of this antipodal separation.
