Important Cows and Possum Pests.

This paper examines how New Zealand's conservation discourses and strategies have, since the launch of its Biodiversity Strategy at the turn of the millennium, created and sustained a local taxonomy of species rooted in the overlapping but often clashing logics of biodiversity protection, cultural patrimony, and economic growth. This paper focuses on the taxonomy of introduced land mammals, suggesting that classificatory maneuvers pertaining to introduced species demarcate a specific space of legitimized action with regards to animals while shaping global biodiversity discourses to fit a specific local context. Following the work of Timothy Luke on environing and building on Michel Foucault's concept of biopower, this paper argues that in propagating a specific national discourse about biodiversity, species, and economic interests--rooted in what I term bio-nationalism--the Biodiversity Strategy has helped expand the scope of governance of New Zealand's human and nonhuman populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]