Marianna Szczygielska
Czech Academy of Science
Floating Utopias: Rewilding and Environmental Transformations along the Odra/Oder River
In the face of the sixth mass extinction, many ecologists and conservationists have proposed rewilding as a response to global biodiversity loss. Are initiatives such as the Half-Earth Project utopian ideas of stalling, or even reversing, the ongoing extinction crisis? Who can and cannot imagine setting aside half of the planet’s land and seas for regeneration? What kinds of spatial and temporal utopias are part of rewilding theory and practice? In this lecture, I will turn my attention to the Rewilding Oder Delta initiative, which compares the fluvial region to “the Amazon of the North.” The 2022 mass death event compromised the fragile river ecosystem and demands further intersectional analysis. Whereas nature conservation is often invested in normative ideas about baselines and survival, I propose taking a closer look at the hydro-feminist ecological perspectives that allow for reimagining the environmental crisis as an opportunity for transforming the socio-economic conditions that created it.