“This Is Not a Biodiversity Hotspot”: The Power of Maps and Other Images in the Environmental Sciences

Maps and images have power; they are neither neutral nor unproblematic with respect to issues of representation. Representation is not reality; to conflate the two is to risk naturalizing the assumptions silently embedded within these images. This article begins by reviewing the literature that explores the uneasy relationship between maps and the reality they are said to represent, with particular focus placed on those works examining maps within the environmental sciences. From here, attention turns to critically examining a conservation image familiar to many: a map of earth's biodiversity “hotspots.” This analysis is not to argue that such spaces do not exist. Rather, it is to emphasize how, as representations of biodiversity, they provide only a partial view of the world. The article concludes by arguing for greater transparency in the production of such images: a move that will, in turn, make us all more critical consumers of these artifacts.