Introduction to themed issue: “Green security in protected areas”

This introduction to the themed issue discusses the articulation of protected areas, conservation, and security in issue contributions. Protected areas are presented as localized sites to address global crises, such as anthropogenic climate change and the “war on terror.” When they are sites for securitization and militarization, protected areas articulate state and subject formations through violence. As threat discourses have amplified in recent years, communities once deemed putative eco-destroyers have been interpellated as potential threats in wars on drugs and/or terror. The themed issue reveals that reframing environmental crime as organized crime has significant implications for expanding claims of what counts as legitimate use of force in protected areas policing, as well as potential prosecutions. It is apparent that security for one group may hinge on the insecurity of another group at different historical and political moments. In this special issue we challenge conservation actors as well as those critical of conservation to ask: for whom does conservation provide security, under what circumstances, and at what cost?