Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>More than a quarter of South America’s territory is designated for nature conservation. National parks have formally existed there for nearly one hundred years. How and why did this happen? A Moderating Force explains the origins, evolution, and meaning of national parks in Patagonia and Amazonia to demonstrate how conservation brought people together. Scientists, bureaucrats, residents, boosters, settlers, politicians, entrepreneurs, or some combination of these figures, used conservation to force each other to compromise over land management. Who those people were and why they devoted themselves to protecting specific places help to explain the intentions behind and consequences of national parks. Many of these parks advanced popular understandings of nature’s value through such concepts as biodiversity. Because conservationists negotiated compromises, multispecies communities avoided destruction and livelihoods flourished. In many cases, national parks opened opportunities for new professional identities in tourism, management, or inquiry. Current scholarship lacks ways to bring critical social insights together alongside urgent ecological demands. By telling stories about the middle ground where Argentines, Brazilians, Chileans, and Peruvians transformed conservation work and made consequential innovations in nature protection, this book helps position environmental history as part of a collective and abundant future.</jats:p>