ABSTRACT
Preservationist arguments have also deeply influenced international environmental politics. Nongovernmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds have pushed states to create protected areas to preserve wildlife. Several international treaties were concluded to promote the creation of natural parks, including the 1940 Convention on Nature Protection and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere, the 1971 Wetlands Convention and the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage. In some controversial cases, the creation of protected areas on preservationist grounds led to the eviction of indigenous peoples and local communities from their traditional land (Adams and Hutton 2007). Other preservationist agreements aim at preserving specific species irrespective of their location, such as the 1973 CITES and the 1979 Bonn Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals. These treaties are based on scientific, recreational, esthetic grounds or on ecocentrism, not on the desire to conserve natural resources for future exploitation.
