This case study contrasts centralized ex situ conservation of food and crop plant genetic resources with many Native Americans' preference for informal, localized in situ conservation. First, I examine ex situ genebanks operated by governments and research institutions, with particular attention to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault built into the mountainous permafrost on a Norwegian island in the High Arctic. Second, I describe Native American seed-saving efforts in the United States, drawing primarily on projects to preserve culturally significant seeds and promote food sovereignty at the local or tribal level. In general, Native American projects focus on the integration of cultural heritage and food independence through understandings of seeds as a tribal commons. Through these contrasting cases-the Svalbard vault and localized Native American seed-saving projects-I analyze the ways in which divergent understandings of "seedness" and seed ownership are crucial elements in discussions of seeds as property. In conclusion, I point out that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is unique in its potential ability to cross the political and cultural divide over the ownership and conservation of seeds and thereby promote the vital ecological need for both ex situ and in situ seed preservation. Furthermore, I argue that recognition of the divergent understandings of "seedness" provides a useful way of examining the complementarity and limitations of specific models of in situ and ex situ seed conservation and, more broadly, the future of farmers' rights to the genetic heritage developed over generations in the fields.

The rise of sustainability rhetoric, curriculum, infrastructure, and marketing on college campuses is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, college presidents are pledging to eliminate their campuses' global warming emissions; colleges and universities are building wind turbines, composters, and green buildings; and sustainability coordinators are the latest surge in new staff hires. However, the greening of college campuses has a less welcome side as well, and examination of the campus sustainability movement suggests an unsettling lack of theoretical and ideological analysis. In this article, I praise what is being done well, identify the political analysis that has been avoided, and provide arguments for what has yet to be addressed. I argue that the trend toward campus sustainability, while praiseworthy in some significant ways, has left some troubling theoretical assumptions largely undisturbed.

Is Marxist theory relevant or conducive to environmental political thought? This article considers responses to this question and the debate regarding possibilities of a red/green coalition through examination of four green theorists who represent positions of theoretical and historical significance: first, the argument that an enlightened reinterpretation of Marx reveals him to be an inherently ecological thinker; second, the belief that Marxist thought holds significant value for environmental theory but that crucial weaknesses demand essential revision; third, the rejection of Marx and his political theory as antagonistic to environmental protection; and, finally, social ecology's use of dialectical naturalism to transcend Marx's failings.

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Sir Thomas More was a leading English humanist, statesman, and writer who was executed by Henry VIII for treason and canonized by the Roman Catholic church as a defender of the faith. More's book Utopia is his most significant and controversial contribution to political thought, and the divergent interpretations of this account of a fictional commonwealth in the New World continue to bedevil readers and political scholars nearly 500 years after its publication.