ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the attempts made by government agencies to preserve the brown bear in the Italian Alps through various means, including the planning of natural parks, the issuing of hunting bans and the payment of monetary compensation. It addresses the role of formal and informal policies and practices of species preservation within the nature state. The chapter discusses the continuity and disruption of the agencies, rulings and philosophies that made up the nature state when faced with regime change, such as the post-war transition from fascism to democracy. In particular, it is in those years that the nature state became a prime actor in the ongoing conflict between local communities and the bear, carrying most of the blame for the loss of biosecurity suffered by the former. The ban, however, proved difficult to enforce, showing the limits of state capacity in this regard, especially because of the limited number of available game wardens.
