Nature and Bureaucracy

"David Jenkins is an environmental bureaucrat distrustful of bureaucracy, and a scholar who recognizes both the potential and the limits of scholarship and science. He knows that there is no undoing the human shaping of nature, and yet he has written a hopeful book in the midst of ruins."

Richard White, Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Emeritus, Stanford University

"In writing this book, David Jenkins has done something I would have guessed was not possible. He writes with the understanding and humility of a scientist, the emotional power of an artist, and the heresy that only an insider could imagine, to outline a philosophy of humanity’s place in and impact on the global ecosystem. Reflected in these chapters is our path to a sustainable future. And he has done this with a book on bureaucracy."

David Carrier, Professor, School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah

"In Nature and Bureaucracy, anthropologist and public servant David Jenkins paints a devastating portrait of the ways in which bureaucracies tasked with administering public lands subvert their own missions. By turns candidly personal and trenchantly analytical, Nature and Bureaucracy is the brilliant product of Jenkins’ long career in the US Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service. ‘Traditional Bureaucratic Knowledge’ supplants traditional ecological knowledge; ‘efficiency,’ quantitative targets, and simplification obscure the complexities of forests, rivers, fish, and wildlife. With cases ranging from salmon to wolves, Alaska to tallgrass prairie, logging to recreation, the book will be of interest to anyone interested in reading a provocative, insider account of how ‘nature’ is administered in the US today."

Judith Shapiro, Director, Natural Resources and Sustainable Development Program, School of International Service, American University