{"title":"River restoration in the time of climate change: challenges and opportunities in the Columbia River Basin","authors":"Coleen A. Fox","doi":"10.4103/cs.cs_91_21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_91_21","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":376207,"journal":{"name":"Conservation and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124387848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Linus Kalvelage, M. Bollig, E. Grawert, Carolin Hulke, Maximilian Meyer, K. Mkutu, M. Müller-Koné, J. Díez
{"title":"Territorialising Conservation: Community-based Approaches in Kenya and Namibia","authors":"Linus Kalvelage, M. Bollig, E. Grawert, Carolin Hulke, Maximilian Meyer, K. Mkutu, M. Müller-Koné, J. Díez","doi":"10.4103/cs.cs_18_21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_18_21","url":null,"abstract":"Community-based Conservation seeks to strike a balance between nature conservation and economic growth by establishing spatial and institutional settings that maintain and even regain biodiversity while simultaneously allowing for sustainable land use. The implementation of community-based conservation blueprints on communal, often agronomically marginal lands, is in many southern and eastern African countries encouraged by the national government. Despite vast academic literature on community-based conservation, it remains unclear how this re-shaping of resource governance has driven territorialisation in rural areas. To address this gap, this article compares the implementation of community-based conservation in Northern Kenya and Northern Namibia. By doing so, we intend to shed light on the question 'why does community-based conservation result in different forms of territorialisation negotiated between state agencies, non-governmental organisations and rural communities? We demonstrate how historical preconditions, contemporary project design, and the commodification of natural resources shape territorialisation in both cases in different ways. In Kenya, concerns for securitisation have been driving community-based conservation, while in Namibia it primarily aimed to benefit the previously disadvantaged rural residents. Furthermore, in both regions community-based conservation programmes serve as vehicles to articulate political claims, either to reify traditional authorities, to create ethnically homogenous territories or to define boundaries of resource use.","PeriodicalId":376207,"journal":{"name":"Conservation and Society","volume":"64 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125108032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Parks and People: Expropriation of Nature and Multispecies Alienation in Nthongoni, Eastern Kenya","authors":"Mwangi Kareri","doi":"10.4103/cs.cs_196_20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_196_20","url":null,"abstract":"This article uses Marx's concept of alienation in theorising the everyday estrangement encountered by people living in areas adjoining Tsavo and Chyulu Hills National Parks, in eastern Kenya. It focuses on how colonial and post-colonial conservation initiatives served to expropriate and alienate people from indigenous land that once provided livelihoods and lifeways that were central to people's spiritual wellbeing. Ethnographic fieldwork shows that those living at the edge of the parks and of their subsistence strategies, endeavoured to reconstitute their lives and eke out a living, but conservationists saw most activities as incompatible with conservation, and branded the residents aberrant and lawless. This heightened conflict between residents and wildlife, and between residents and wildlife managers, increasingly making the residents feel like aliens in their own land. The context allows us to see alienation not just as proletarianisation, but as a process through which people are estranged from their land, cultural heritage and the socioeconomic gains that parks produce, and subsequently from their own humanity. This alienation includes non-human beings and should be considered a more-than-human process.","PeriodicalId":376207,"journal":{"name":"Conservation and Society","volume":"87 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114005335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Doing Chowkidaari: Vulnerability in Village-Forest Relations and the Compulsion of Forest Work","authors":"A. Runacres","doi":"10.4103/cs.cs_205_20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_205_20","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the conditions and perceptions of daily wage work provided by the Forest Department around Panna Tiger Reserve in Central India. Drawing on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork, it analyses the conditions of forest work within this context of livelihood prohibitions, the broader political economy of precarious labour, and village-forest relations in Panna district. Through different case studies, the article unpacks the dynamics of familiarity, negotiation and exploitation that characterise forest work, utilising forest workers' own description of their work to comment on how a confluence of vulnerable conditions compel local people to take up the precarious daily wage work offered by the Forest Department. The workers' descriptions also offer the concept of 'compulsion' as an important addition to interdisciplinary discussions about 'vulnerability.' I argue that forest workers are a missed opportunity for good relations between conservation projects and local communities, as actors who regularly manage the simultaneous demands of their village communities, and Forest Departments and navigate the complexity and nuance of the relationships between and within both. Rather than examples of conservation benefits for local communities, the poor conditions and insecurities of forest work lead to decreased support for conservation and worsen the reputation of the Forest Department in areas where gainful employment is desperately needed.","PeriodicalId":376207,"journal":{"name":"Conservation and Society","volume":"46 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116406243","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Everyday Forest Rights: Claiming Territories and Pastoral Livelihoods in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, India","authors":"Pierre-Alexandre Paquet, Elizabeth Kuroyedov","doi":"10.4103/cs.cs_20_123","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_20_123","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the multiple processes of maintaining access and asserting user rights to forest space among the Van Gujjar pastoralists in North India. In particular, the Forest Rights Act of 2006 (FRA) has created an opportunity for forest dwellers across India to seek legal means to forest rights. Conducting ethnographic fieldwork, organising workshops on forest rights, and mapping traditional territories among the Van Gujjars, we observed that complex cultural performances are necessary for the Van Gujjars to claim access to forest areas and resources—legal or otherwise. These performances include, but are not limited to, litigation, supporting emergent leaders, and caring for cattle and kin under constant threats of evictions. Drawing on recent scholarship on the everyday formation of territorial governments, we examine how communities maintain, contest, or reinvent cultural practices and governance in the context of their struggles for access inscribed as forest rights. In contrasting cases among two groups of Van Gujjars seeking rights to forest spaces in the two neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, we shed light on the repercussions that formally or informally engaging the FRA can have for communities of forest dwellers. Based on ethnographic research completed between 2012 and 2019, we find that 1) the Van Gujjar territorial governments carrying on these claims are more diverse than the law recognises, and that 2) not all communities see it worthy to organise a territorial government claiming formal rights under the FRA. Fundamentally, we discern that more immediate threats to Van Gujjar livelihoods result in a greater shift in their cultural practices towards organising a territorial government seeking forest rights through the FRA.","PeriodicalId":376207,"journal":{"name":"Conservation and Society","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132827983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conservation and Care among the Cofán in the Ecuadorian Amazon","authors":"M. Esbach, Flora Lu, Felipe Quenama","doi":"10.4103/cs.cs_20_137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_20_137","url":null,"abstract":"Accelerating deforestation and ecological degradation, linked to political and economic policies and agendas that endanger the health, well-being, and cultural survival of Indigenous people, present dire threats to the Amazonian biome and its inhabitants. Confronting these challenges necessitates a unified response by local and global partners. However, some conservationists, predominantly from the Global North, have perpetuated problematic, essentialised framings of Indigenous communities, which have even led them to advocate for punitive protectionist policies that we argue are morally and conceptually flawed. Western scientific and popular discourse often presents nature conservation via protected areas as a universal good. In this article, we argue for a more pluralistic approach; one that calls for an equitable footing between Indigenous knowledge and sustainability science. We examine a case study of the Cofán community of Zábalo in the Ecuadorian Amazon, where collective efforts to tsampima coiraye (=care for the forest) have resulted in dynamic institutions adapted to diverse challenges and opportunities. Tsampima coiraye exemplifies a form of caretaking that is distinct from and complementary to Western conservation, one that provides important insights into understanding the context and meanings through which community governance fosters stewardship. We draw upon longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork and the Cofán concept of puifama atesuye (=Two-World Knowledge) to describe collective action, community governance, and caretaking.","PeriodicalId":376207,"journal":{"name":"Conservation and Society","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127386663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rhinos as “The Mine” and the Fugitive Meanings of Illegal Wildlife Hunting","authors":"Rebecca C. Witter","doi":"10.4103/cs.cs_20_142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_20_142","url":null,"abstract":"Most scholarship and policy documentation that examines the problem of “rhino poaching” assumes that the potential for economic gain drives impoverished people to hunt threatened and endangered wildlife illegally. The amount of money illegal hunters can extract from the lethal trade in rhinoceros' horn is extraordinary. Yet, the provocation of one convicted hunter, who referred to rhinos as “the mine” (as in a gold mine) reveals complicated meanings underneath and adjoined to monetary explanations. In the transfrontier region comprising the Kruger and Limpopo National Parks, men have responded to colonial and post-colonial dispossession through institutions of migrant labour. When dispossessed mine labourers developed the wealth of southern African colonial states, they salvaged for themselves, economic benefits, status, and dignity. In the post-colonial context, the protection of threatened species forecloses opportunities for migrant labour and generates the need for “peripheral” or illegal labour. The killing of protected wildlife to trade in their parts enables hunters to extract money, cultural continuity, and dignity from the very processes that impoverish and dispossess them. Improved understandings of people's motivations to hunt wildlife illegally necessitate theorisations that are more explicitly co-produced, derived from and responsive to the people living (and dying) with conservation by dispossession.","PeriodicalId":376207,"journal":{"name":"Conservation and Society","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129221702","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Contina, C. Anderson, David C. Hille, W. Oakley, E. Bridge, Jeffrey Kelly, Haley Smith, J. Koch, Lori Jervis
{"title":"Domesticating the Exotic? An Online Survey of Attitudes towards the International Wildlife Pet Trade","authors":"A. Contina, C. Anderson, David C. Hille, W. Oakley, E. Bridge, Jeffrey Kelly, Haley Smith, J. Koch, Lori Jervis","doi":"10.4103/cs.cs_209_20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_209_20","url":null,"abstract":"There are a variety of perspectives on wildlife management and conservation, necessitating interdisciplinary research to develop better management strategies. We answered the call to action provided by Teel et al. (2018) to integrate social sciences into conservation and explored an important but understudied issue: views on the international pet-trade of exotic animals. Some pet owners advocate the pet trade as a means to promote conservation, where removing wild animals from their natural habitat could protect them from degraded environments. To gauge how prevalent this attitude is in a cross-national sample, we conducted an online survey that asked 882 participants worldwide to evaluate the pet trade and its relationship with biological conservation. Overall, our survey results showed regional patterns and indicated that younger respondents were more likely to consider international pet trade as a form of acceptable conservation practice compared to older respondents. Education also played a role in shaping views on the pet-trade and indicated that respondents with higher education degrees were less prone to accept pet trade as a substitute for conservation practices. Our research provides novel insights applicable to education programmes and international conservation efforts while highlighting variation in attitudes even among professionals with formal training in natural sciences and ecology.","PeriodicalId":376207,"journal":{"name":"Conservation and Society","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125242129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Grace, Hannah L. Timmins, E. Bennett, B. Long, E. Milner‐Gulland, N. Dudley
{"title":"Engaging End-Users to Maximise Uptake and Effectiveness of a New Species Recovery Assessment: The IUCN Green Status of Species","authors":"M. Grace, Hannah L. Timmins, E. Bennett, B. Long, E. Milner‐Gulland, N. Dudley","doi":"10.4103/cs.cs_195_20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_195_20","url":null,"abstract":"When developing a novel conservation assessment, tradeoffs between generality and precision, and between realism and simplicity, will inevitably need to be made. Engaging potential end-users during development can help developers navigate these tradeoffs to maximise uptake. End-user engagement can also produce feedback about external perceptions, allowing changes to be made prior to the final design. Here, we report on end-user consultations about the species recovery assessment method introduced by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which is a new component of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. This species recovery assessment was originally called the 'Green List of Species.' We conducted two types of end-user consultation over a two-year period—1) key informant interviews, and 2) technical consultations about the details of the assessment method, including identification of factors that increased the amount of time required to conduct an assessment. A main finding from the key informant interviews was that the name 'Green List of Species' was inappropriate for the assessment, given the potential for misunderstanding the scope of the assessment and potential confusion with the IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas. We therefore proposed the name 'Green Status of Species', a suggestion accepted by IUCN. A repeated concern in key informant interviews was the perception that the species recovery assessments were complex, indicating a potential tradeoff between scientific rigour and simplicity. To address this concern, we used feedback from the technical consultations to identify assessment steps which were most in need of refinement, and implemented solutions and made recommendations to streamline those steps (e.g., we found that the number of spatial units used in an assessment was positively correlated with assessment time, and increased greatly when more than 15 spatial units were used). This process of end-user engagement makes it much more likely that the Green Status of Species will be used in conservation communication, monitoring, and decision-making—helping achieve the ultimate goal of biodiversity recovery.","PeriodicalId":376207,"journal":{"name":"Conservation and Society","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132103392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Can Philanthropy Enable Collective Action to Conserve Rivers? Insights from a Decade of Collaboration in the Colorado River Basin","authors":"G. Gilson, D. Garrick","doi":"10.4103/cs.cs_225_20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_225_20","url":null,"abstract":"Philanthropy plays an important but often invisible role in conserving rivers. We examine the influence of philanthropy on collective action and collaborative governance within the Colorado River Basin, a region where philanthropic support has been growing to achieve conservation objectives. Our short communication combines financial data, interviews, and documentary evidence to capture the opportunities and risks associated with philanthropy's increasing role. Financial expenditures are substantial, averaging $30.8 million USD per year from six large foundations (2013-2019). This funding has enabled collective action, particularly at the basin level, by strengthening or creating new forums for collaboration and investing in technical expertise to equip a broader range of voices in decision-making. It has also favoured market-based strategies and discourses, created dependencies for smaller organisations, and, in some instances, reinforced structural barriers to participation. We recommend transparent reporting of philanthropic spending related to collective action and conservation governance, and argue that foundations should explicitly consider and address legacies of exclusion for marginalised actors and groups.","PeriodicalId":376207,"journal":{"name":"Conservation and Society","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124855301","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}