Caged for Protection: Exploring the Paradoxes of Protecting New Zealand's Dactylanthus taylorii

Abstract

Emerging from an ethnographic encounter with the conservation efforts to save an enclave of Dactylanthus taylorii in Tngariro National Park, the article discusses some of the paradoxes of conservation management by interdisiplinary tracing the research and conservation history of the plant. First, the article examines how our efforts to protect native species contribute to transforming the very environment of which they are part. Furthermore, by tracing the plant's history of decline and the following rise of conservation, the article addresses the role of native species in relation to notions of belonging and the creation and maintenance of a national heritage.