Toussaint, Y. 2005. Debating Biodiversity: Threatened Species Conservation and Scientific Values. The Australian Journal of Anthropology 16(3):382-393.
Cultural logic of conservation biology and threatened species conservation recovery projects
- environmental anthropology and science studies.
re-discoveries of extinct species
decision making models
-landscape scale restoration
-resources towards recovery for critically endangered species
-rational approach to biodiversity conservation.
Ethnographic fieldwork,
value of threatened species recovery
to reflect on the ethical responsibilities and emotional attachments
Artelle, K.A. 2019. Is Wildlife Conservation Policy Based in Science? American Scientist 107(1):38
Indigenous-led stewardship
hunted for food,
example of what wildlife management
inspired by a close relationship to wildlife and their habitats,
informed by knowledge and values borne of the deep history of that relationship,
complemented by cutting-edge science, and
led by people who not only live in the area but also shoulder the consequences of management directly—well aware that their decisions will determine the world that their children and their children’s children will inherit.
Wildlife management
management of hunting,
-focused on the small subset of the human population that hunts,
-on the conservation of species and their habitats.
The blurring is intentional?
Adaptation of organizations to evolving cultural mores that place a high value on conservation
Conservation is certainly not incompatible with hunting.
What Does “Science-Based” Mean?
investigating the science behind the socially maligned and culturally opposed trophy hunting of grizzly bears, a hunt that politicians have frequently defended, claiming that their support for the practice has a scientific basis.
analysis,
comparing the number in populations across habitat with the number of kills that had deemed sustainable.
mortality limits may exceeded sustainable populations.
-uncertainty about key attributes (population sizes, growth rates, and poaching rates) to determine mortality limits.
population was considerably smaller than the people managing it had assumed, an ostensibly sustainable kill rate might in fact not be sustainable at all.
a risk of accidental overkills
overkills would have been undetectable in most of these cases because of data deficiencies.
guidance on how these risks could be addressed.
quotas to buffer against uncertainty. Reducing quotas, using a straightforward, transparent approach, could lessen risks of overkill.
incongruence between science and “science-based management”
scientific basis: clear objectives, evidence, transparency, and external review.
relevant publicly available documents and a set of “indicator criteria”
Indicators
1 measurable objectives: Provides measurable objectives
2 Evidence
- Estimates realized hunting rates
- reports quantitative information about population
- reports uncertainty in population parameter estimates
3 Transparency
Provides publicly available management information
Explains how realized hunting rates are estimated
Explains how population parameters are estimated
Responds to public inquiry
expleans technique for setting hunting quotas
4 independent review
subjects management plans to any reviews
subjects management plans to external review
Policy for a Change?
future research could advance the understanding of wildlife management at a continental scale.
In many animal populations, more adults are killed by people than by all other predators combined. Thus, misguided wildlife management has the potential for large-scale consequences.
ban on hunting
-nonconsumptive considerations (such as the ecological, cultural, social, and inherent value of a species)
Where the science began and ended.
invoking science as a catchall justification for preferred policy.
hunters and trappers do make direct contributions to conservation and other ecological considerations, especially in the realm of habitat conservation.
regulating hunting and maximizing “harvests” of wildlife.
approach to address contemporary environmental issues
Debates about how to tweak the model—such as
changing quotas or
closing certain areas to exploitation
a deeper assessment: Insight and governance from a broader suite of people
Silvertown, J. C.D. Buesching, S.K. Jacobson and T. Rebelo. 2013. Citizen science and nature conservation. In Macdonald, D.W. and K.J. Willis. Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2, First Edition. John Wiley & Sons. New York.
The general public and corporations are both stakeholders in the biosphere and can be involved in nature conservation through citizen science and corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Form of involvement
- volunteer-based environmental clean-up days
- implementation of species conservation measures.
Four key issues with volunteers:
recruitment,
motivation,
training and deployment, and
data validation.
citizen science approach offers benefits for nature conservation
The advantages
they can provide an inexpensive and potentially large labour force, they usually contribute at least indirectly to the costs of the research, and
the volunteers themselves gain fulfillment and knowledge
Universities: increasingly global players
Explosive growth in brain circulation
Be relevant: close the innovation gap
Youth need to know their (IP) rights and engage in reverse innovation
Digital disruption: a way of going global
The digital revolution is one new and disruptive way for universities to ‘go global’ beyond their single campuses to reach a global audience. Cloud computing and supercomputing, as well as the handling of big data, have already transformed research. They have given rise to global collaborative projects such as the Human Genome Project in the 1990s and the more recent Human Brain Project.5 They allow for crowd-based networked science where researchers, patients and citizens can work together. In education, this revolution is increasingly taking the form of massive open online courses (MOOCs). Some world-class universities have realized what MOOCs can do for their visibility and reputation and begun offering such courses.
MOOCs could also alleviate the textbook gapIn the coming years, MOOCs will allow affordable, quality courses to be disseminated everywhere. On-campus education will remain fundamental to student life but universities will have to adapt to global competition and increasing demand from students for quality lectures dispensed by top universities. Universities that share their lectures, complemented by seminars and exercises unique to each location, are certain to be part of the landscape in 2020. MOOCS will foster the co-design and co-production of these courses by partner universities. One could also imagine providing a set of high-quality introductory lectures online to a network of partner institutions. MOOCs could also alleviate the textbook gap by providing freely accessible modules of knowledge produced by the best experts and stored in a Wikipedia-like repository
The partnering of universities will happenFor many years, and understandably so, primary education was the main challenge in education. Now has come the time to recognize, in parallel, the crucial importance of the research experience and skills that only universities can deliver to students and lifelong learners. The partnering of universities to co-produce, re-appropriate, integrate, blend and certify classes will happen across the world. The university of tomorrow will be a global and multilevel enterprise, with a lively campus, several antennae located with strategic partners and a global virtual online presence. The Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne is among those universities that have already embarked on this path