Beyond ‘the toad beneath the harrow’: geographies of ecological science, 1959-1965

Abstract

This paper traces the distinctive shifts in ecology and conservation in Britain during the late 1950s and
1960s. These were the last six years of the Nature Conservancy, the state research council responsible for
ecological research, the conservation of nature, and for providing expert advice. Drawing on work in science
studies and the geography of science, the paper addresses the changing spatialities of official ecological
knowledge and the ordering of nature in this period of British modernity. The paper examines the Conservancy’s
construction of the form and relationship of research to practice: the connections between local
spaces of research e the laboratory and the nature reserve e to the ‘right’ government of land and
management of resources more universally. This putative ‘single great mission’ is traced through examination
of the politics and practices of doing ecological research at the time, including the creation of a new
Experimental Station, the growth of ecology as public discourse, and, importantly, government reviews of
science. The paper concludes by considering how this mission was tempered and reconfigured by institutional
change.