Abstract In this article, I review the proposal of Norman Long (2001) regarding the social interface in order to approach conservation not as a macro-policy, but as a discursive and situated practice. To do so, I examine the discursive context around Cabo Pulmo National Park (CPNP), Mexico, as the discourses surrounding the park claim that it is an example of environmental conservation because the biomass of its reef recovered remarkably thanks to the local community's request for the creation of the reserve and the giving up of fishing for its protection. However, as I analyse here, these discourses emerged from the encounters of actors with specific horizons and in response to particular critical situations. I also address the political implications of such discourses, insofar as some Pulmeños have used them to defend themselves against possible territorial dispossession, as well as to regulate the expansion of mass tourism. In doing so, following the reflections of Long (2001), I conclude that conservation is a mechanism of power and knowledge that is configured locally through the interaction of actors with different lifeworlds, as well as the articulation of meanings, values, and alliances. Abstract in Spanish : rb.gy/tg21k6
The success of forest governance reforms aimed at decentralisation, local participation, and sustainable resource use depends on the bureaucracy implementing such reforms. One such case of decentralised forest governance is the Forest Rights Act (FRA) in India, which recognises the rights of traditional forest dwellers to forest resources that they historically used. Most studies on FRA implementation have only highlighted the obstructionist role played by state forest departments. However, the implementation of the FRA is the joint responsibility of the revenue, forest, and tribal welfare departments. This article examines the role and interplay of power among all three departments in determining implementation outcomes. Employing bureaucratic politics theory and an actor-centred power framework, the paper argues that unless power inequalities within a multi-department implementation setting are addressed, failure in implementing decentralised forest policies is a foregone conclusion. Addressing these power inequalities through collateral structural changes in the concerned departments and regular training can help in effective implementation.
The IUCN Red List evaluates species’ extinction risk based on quantitative data about population size, distribution, and changes over time. Species are assigned to nine categories representing their conservation status. Using the case of the Pewen tree (Monkey Puzzle tree, Araucaria araucana) reclassification in Chile from Vulnerable to Endangered, I analyse the reactions and negotiations among scientists, government officials, and Indigenous Pewenche people. Through interviews and a review of documents, I describe the discussions and negotiations before and during the reclassification, showing how different meanings of species endangerment affected the process. This research demonstrates that extinction risk categories are not a condition unveiled by data but are negotiated through estimations, assumptions, opinions, and consensus. Furthermore, actors beyond scientists and evaluators can dispute the meaning of a conservation status. Extinction risk lists are not just tools for measuring wild species’ conditions but are complex processes affected by political and cultural issues. Abstract in Spanish: rb.gy/wqghf1
Digital technologies are becoming increasingly important in human engagements with the natural world. It has been suggested that digital games could contribute to the work of biodiversity conservation organisations, mediating human understanding of, and responses to, living nature. In this paper, we explore the implications of enrolling non-human nature into conservation gaming projects, focusing on the example of gamifying animal movement data. We discuss a simple experiment where people ‘race’ against animals in an exercise app, examining how wild animals are represented in digital games through digital technologies. We also explore how tracking technologies make animals digital, and how these digital animals can be central to gaming experiences. We consider what is involved in these transitions and enrolments of wild animals into gaming environments, and explore a series of issues that seem to us to deserve further thought and discussion: what humans can learn from games featuring non-human animals; whether games evoke empathy for the non-humans; whether games allow a human player to learn about the political ecology of landscapes within which wild animals exist; questions of ethics and power associated with the involuntary enrolment of animals into the gamification dynamic; the commodification involved in ‘animal games’; and the carbon and other impacts of ‘games for nature’. Digital games are a global phenomenon and a global industry. Their role in the lived experience of being human continues to expand. We suggest that there is value in conservationists and those who analyse and critique the political ecologies of conservation thinking further about digital games, digital animals and digital natures.
People all over the world are increasingly confronted with ecological loss and rapidly changing landscapes caused by anthropogenic processes. In this paper, we examine how nature volunteers experience and deal with ecological loss in everyday life in the Netherlands. We do this by focusing on intimate human experiences with nature and more-than-human communities. Our ethnographic methods include sensory ethnography and photo-elicitation techniques. We argue that owing to attentiveness to more-than-human worlds, people’s experiences with nature are increasingly characterised by ambiguity: experiences of love go hand in hand with experiences of loss and absence. Our study shows that there is little space to mourn this sense of loss, which leaves people feeling alienated, both from their social and natural environments. We illuminate the elusiveness of the ghosts of ecological loss, the absences that are sensed in embodied memories but hardly shared. We conclude by arguing that acknowledging the inclusion of humans in a multispecies community is an important step in the act of mourning beyond the human and towards practices and actions of multispecies care.
This article tackles some resilient discourses and strategies engaged by Hmong and Mien people living in Ho & agrave;ng Li & ecirc;n National Park, a prominent conservation area of the northern Vietnamese highlands located in Sa Pa district, Lao Cai province, Vietnam. Facing the neoliberal transition of socialist institutions, economy, and ecology, communities living in and out of this mountain range must adopt enduring mindsets and demeanours to sustain their environmental imaginaries and ensure some future for their hard-earned livelihoods. Looking at this situation through everyday politics, we argue that resilience theory-when used duly-can help fill the gap between blatant opposition and straight acceptance and reveal the inconspicuous strategies of continuity and adaptations adopted by subordinated groups and individuals. Inside Ho & agrave;ng Li & ecirc;n's socialist-neoliberal conservation system, administrators apply principles of responsibilisation and co-management through private financing and development initiatives, and in the process, dumping much of the burden on highlanders' shoulders. On the other hand, they hope to pursue their way of life, making the most of local opportunities. Such cohabitation causes undue pressures, which Mien and Hmong communities deal with by creatively engaging with, adjusting to, and evading the national park's rationale while rangers keep a close eye.
Conservation faces a legitimacy crisis-inadequately protecting nature while marginalising the very people and societies shown to be most successful at conserving nature. Scholars and the global community are increasingly recognising that respecting, protecting, and elevating Indigenous land and water governance contributes to greater outcomes for people and nature. In the face of the dual climate and biodiversity crises, the challenge and the opportunity are great. True transformational change in the conservation sector will require sustained commitment, collaborative effort, humility, courage, and accountability within complex systems with many actors and interests. In this paper, and in the context of scholarly debates reconciliation and resurgence, we examine the efforts of the Conservation through Reconciliation Partnership (CRP)-an Indigenous-led, large-scale, multi-sectoral decolonial conservation partnership in Canada created to help elevate Indigenous-led conservation and support the transformation of the conservation sector. Drawing on our own experiences, public-facing materials the partnership has created, and the results of a mid-term evaluation, we assess the challenges and benefits of the CRP and offer key lessons for others wishing to create decolonial conservation partnerships.
The Rushikulya beach in eastern India is considered to be an important rookery (nesting site) for a species of migratory marine turtle, the olive ridleys Lepidochelys olivacea, because it is one of a handful of sites around the world where an arribada or mass-nesting event occurs. During an arribada, thousands of ridleys nest simultaneously over a small section of the beach, and several weeks later, millions of hatchlings emerge from these nests and crawl into the sea. Given the uniqueness of this phenomenon, conservation programmes have emphasised the monitoring and protection of ridleys during an arribada. In Rushikulya, this involves an assemblage of multiple actors, including biologists, their local assistants, and staff of the Odisha Forest Department. In this article, I use the concept of ontological choreography, drawn from multispecies scholarship, to focus attention on how members of this assemblage bring together different ontological orders, mainly nature and the individual self, to protect the ridleys. Further, I use this concept to direct attention to the hybrid nature of conservation practice-that it can simultaneously be affective, embodied, performative, sensory and technical. Overall, this article demonstrates how multispecies approaches can enrich social studies of conservation.
Conservation organisations play a key role in portraying rural people and places to external audiences, driven by sectoral, political, and technological developments. While aiming to improve social and ecological outcomes, these policies and practices have been criticised for oversimplifying local realities to make them legible, ultimately exacerbating social inequality. However, critiques of legibility often focus on how conservation represents places to outsiders, neglecting the local power dynamics entangled with these representations. This paper shows how conservationist representations are co-produced by and, to varying extents, become visible to local communities. Through ethnographic engagement with the Manjau Village Forest in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, I elaborate on a political understanding of visibility. The politics of visibility is not just an imposition but the product of collaboration and contestation between local and external actors. As such, critiques of visibility can help illustrate the ambivalent relationships that exist between conservation and local communities, clarifying the micro-political risks and opportunities associated with community-based conservation.
Environmental conservation groups involve people in diverse ways. These include participatory spaces where people can participate in decision-making and action and engagement processes, where groups communicate, educate, and conduct outreach to build environmental understanding and involve audiences in conservation activities. We explored the perceptions and experiences of conservation practitioners in Maine, USA, to understand their views of participation and engagement. We interviewed 21 practitioners and analysed the qualitative data using an interpretative phenomenological approach grounded in interviewees’ words and experiences. All interviewees recognised the interconnections between people, places, and the non-human world; however, individuals and the groups they work within thought about the role of people in conservation in diverse ways. Views of public stakeholders and rights holders, individual values, Indigenous knowledge, commitments to place and community, and personal experiences all influence who is involved, how people are involved, why people are involved, and what comes of people’s involvement. We conclude by discussing the implications for equitable conservation that seeks to incorporate diverse voices.
