Nature Conservationism and the Arctic Commons of Spitsbergen 1900–1920

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to show how national interests and western ideas about the polar wilderness influenced initiatives taken in the early decades of the twentieth century to protect the natural environment of the Arctic islands of Spitsbergen, today called Svalbard. After a brief outline of the environmental history of the islands, the explanatory significance of a game theory-based assumption about the predicament of nature conservation on common land is discussed by applying it to this historical case. It is the environmental dilemma known as the “tragedy of the commons”. Some elements of the western and Scandinavian ideological interpretations of the Arctic nature are introduced as a background to the following discussion of the most significant early initiative of nature conservation in the Arctic: Hugo Conwentz's proposal for the protection of the nature of Spitsbergen of 1914. The conception and outcome of Conwentz's initiative is explained by references to the political, social and ideological contexts of early twentieth-century science and colonialism. In the final section, the post-war development of the environmental administration of the islands is correlated to the political situation following World War I with its many historical contingencies and the breakdown of internationalism in science and nature conservation.

Keywords:

• Environmental history
• Nature conservation
• Polar research
• Nationalism
• Colonialism
• Sustainabel resource management

I would like to thank Trevor Levere for his comments on an earlier version of this paper, and for the ideas and views of the participants of a seminar held at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge in May 2005, especially those of Sverker Sörlin, William M. Adams, Michael Bravo and Julian Dowdeswell.