Tortoises to acres: The relationships and movements of property and more-than-human species in road governance processes

Abstract

A web of species interdependencies, movements, and relationships exist within areas targeted for development. However, these areas hosting a multitude of more-than-human beings’ liveliness that are often only viewed by decision-makers in terms of the property regimes that encompass them. This paper examines this phenomenon in a case study of the conflict between gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) conservation and the proposed Osceola Parkway Extension in Central Florida. Gopher tortoise conservation in Florida offers a window into how conservation, mitigation strategies like offsetting, the exchangeability of property interact. The paper highlights what happens when decision-makers assume a property lens to understand and mitigate for conflicts between development and more-than-human relations to the environment. Understanding the two distinct, out of sync movements – that of gopher tortoises and that of conservation properties in offsetting – demonstrates the ways a multitude of more-than-human relationships are obscured and abstracted into transactional pieces through a property lens that moves through a logic of exchangeability. This suggests more-than-human lives, mobilities, and relationships need to become more fully part of the discussions and decision-making processes surrounding development-environmental conflicts. Only then can we begin to work towards more just multispecies decisions.