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Inventing Global Ecology: Tracking Biodiversity Ideal In India
... It defines it as a scientific study of the interactions between organisms and their environment (Kingsland, 1985). However, in India, Salim Ali has introduced the term, its eloquent meaning, scientific, systematic studies, and the practice of natural conservation (Lewis, 2004). The concept of conservation has been enshrined traditionally in Indian conscience. ...
... With the emergence of the Bombay Natural History Society, ecological studies received systematic scientific attention. In terms of Lewis (2004), the story of Salim Ali is the story of the Bombay Natural History Society that brought ecological research to its highest level with an intensive focus on ornithology (Apte, 2005;Lewis, 2004). Though much of his work is limited to systematic studies of birds, ecological studies received attention intertwined with ornithology. ...
... With the emergence of the Bombay Natural History Society, ecological studies received systematic scientific attention. In terms of Lewis (2004), the story of Salim Ali is the story of the Bombay Natural History Society that brought ecological research to its highest level with an intensive focus on ornithology (Apte, 2005;Lewis, 2004). Though much of his work is limited to systematic studies of birds, ecological studies received attention intertwined with ornithology. ...
The Industrial Revolution marked a significant shift in human civilization, leading to exploiting natural resources during colonisation and developing an anthropocentric eco-philosophy in the West. In response, indigenous eco-philosophies have engaged in a contestation with the Western knowledge system, prompting a reflective reconsideration within the latter. Earlier in the Western knowledge system, Eunice Foote, a pioneering female scientist, first identified that increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere could lead to a greenhouse effect, warming the Earth’s surface and was later reinforced by John Tyndall and Svante Arrhenius. In the late 1950s, Charles David Keeling’s research on atmospheric CO2 levels provided concrete evidence of human influence on the environment. The 1960s and 1970s saw the emergence of environmentalism, spurred by influential literature such as Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring.” The scientific research on climate change intensified in the 1980s and 1990s following the establishment of the IPCC. In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development released its landmark report titled “Our Common Future.” This report introduced the concept of sustainability. The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro resulted in the adoption of Agenda 21. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 to set emission reduction targets, but its effectiveness faced challenges. Subsequent Earth summits continued promoting sustainability. In 2015, the UN adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Paris Agreement, also established in 2015, set targets to combat climate change by limiting global temperature rise. Climate change has catalysed individual activism and collective environmentalism that supported the emergence of sustainability as a guiding framework for addressing environmental, social, and economic challenges. Now, in light of the disproportionate effects on marginalised communities, particularly in the Global South, Critical Sustainability is evolving to prioritise equitable resource distribution and foster inclusive decision-making.
... In the vein of Williams (1980), who argued that forms of nature are always the product of social and historical context, I assert that ecological sciences in China have their own history of formation steeped in global exchanges. 3 Scholars of ecology across national contexts have demonstrated how scientific knowledge, often considered to be universal and emanating from Global North to Global South or West to East, is produced through global exchanges and localized meaningmaking practices (Lewis 2004;Hathaway 2013;Lowe 2013). For instance, in considering the global circulation of environmental movements, Hathaway (2013) drew on the Chinese metaphor of winds (feng) to argue that knowledge circulates globally in contingent and multidirectional ways. ...
... This conceptualization of ecological knowledge formation more closely aligns with those of Lewis (2004) and Lowe (2013), who emphasized that processes of global knowledge formation are inseparable from power relations. Lewis's (2004) study of biodiversity conservation in India debunked diffusionist, unidirectional cultural imperialist, and globalization models of how ideas circulate. ...
... This conceptualization of ecological knowledge formation more closely aligns with those of Lewis (2004) and Lowe (2013), who emphasized that processes of global knowledge formation are inseparable from power relations. Lewis's (2004) study of biodiversity conservation in India debunked diffusionist, unidirectional cultural imperialist, and globalization models of how ideas circulate. For Lewis, what constituted ecology was not merely a local instantiation of a global idea or process (Appadurai 1996) but assemblages of powers mediated by cross-cultural exchanges of scientific practices, research agendas, and flows of ideas. ...
Although the science of ecology is often understood in antimodernizing terms, this article shows how ecology in China has become a means to articulate green modernization and sustainable development. As scholars predominantly focus on the policy rhetoric surrounding China’s national modernization and sustainable development program called “ecological civilization building,” the origins of how ecology came to take on developmental meanings remain obscure. This article highlights moments of global exchange and knowledge production by Chinese Marxists, earth systems scientists, and economists that produced eco- developmental logics. These logics define an interventionist role for the state, frame urbanization as moral progress, and refashion the role of the peasantry from the revolutionary vanguard to a backward social force impeding modernization. Ecological sciences in China, therefore, lay an epistemological foundation for legitimizing state-led technocratic practices of socioenvironmental engineering and naturalizing social inequalities between “urban” and “rural” people. In highlighting Chinese scientists’ agency in producing knowledge, this article counters diffusionist accounts of science as singular systematically organized branches of knowledge that emanate from the West. Instead, I demonstrate how ecology is contingent on the historical and political conditions through which it takes on meaning. In the context of China, ecology has become integral to environmental governance, state formation, and uneven relations of power.
... The attempt to relocate them from the forest goes back to 1975, but it became a priority in 1985, just after the announcement of the Rajaji National Park Project (Temper, del Bene, and Martinez-Alier 2015). The Gujjars (hereafter, the terms 'Van Gujjars' and 'Gujjars' are used interchangeably) are fighting their removal, and they are supported by a number of NGOs (Lewis 2003). Over these years the community has faced several eviction notices and harassment by the forest department, to convince them to leave their territory and give space to the national park. ...
... The study, positioned as it was to study the park before and after a ban on human activity was imposed, however, produced data to the contrary. The report indicated that bird diversity was dropping post the ban, and thus, a hands-off management would not work (Lewis 2003). ...
... The BNHS study indicates that the natural management model is problematic, in Bharatpur, if not in other parks as well. Ramchandra Guha, a leading critic of large-scale reserves and what he calls 'authoritarian biology', has argued that 'ecological notions of people-less nature are an American cultural artifact, and inappropriate for anciently civilized and densely populated nations such as India' (Lewis 2003). For Shiv Visvanathan, large-scale conservation parks are reminiscent of the dangers of science and development. ...
This paper examines the displacement of the semi-nomadic pastoral community of the Van Gujjars from the Protected Area of Rajaji National Park, displacement falling under the rubric of ‘development-induced displacement’. The study carried out was based on qualitative data collection. Primary data was collected through interviews that were semi-structured. Purposive sampling was used to approach the three sets of respondents, viz. government officials, ‘experts’ from the Wildlife Institute of India and NGOs and the tribal community of the Van Gujjars. Data analysis puts forth a very ambiguous argument for the establishment of Protected Areas. The rehabilitation of the Van Gujjars is justified by those who argue that their way of life is unsustainable. By coming forward to put forth a proposal for a community management plan entailing their active participation, it validates the fact that they (Van Gujjars) too have a stake in the preservation of the forests and its wildlife and, thus, should have a say in crucial matters.
... Tansley drew from decades of experience in the settled harmony of the British countryside. Accounts of conservation elsewhere have described many other ways in which its ways and means have reflected distinctive local circumstances, such as Australia's arid habitats and political and economic imperatives; the array of landscapes and land uses that naturalists encountered in California; and the many instances of small-scale conservation tied to rural communities in India, to note just a few examples (Alagona 2013;Lewis 2004;Robin 2009). This geographical contingency illustrates how human relations with nature do not lie outside history and culture. ...
... Scientists spread conservationist ideas through imperial networks; in the postcolonial era the IUCN and other institutions reinforced conservation's transnational character. American ecology becoming globally influential, joining in novel ways with local perspectives in India and elsewhere (Lewis 2004). ...
This paper presents an historical perspective on the interaction between conservation science and policy. Drawing on a synthesis of studies of the history of conservation, and combining this with work in science policy and related fields, it considers the implications of a shift, beginning in the 1960s, in the politics of expertise. Before that time, scientific evidence and interpretations were usually discussed within restricted arenas of experts and policymakers. After the 1960s, they instead increasingly became matters of public debate. This shift had several consequences for conservation. It encouraged scientists and other advocates to present conservation as a strictly scientific matter, that was based on authoritative, quantitative and transparent - and therefore publically defensible - processes. Conservation science itself evolved to emphasize spatial concepts and practices that could provide the basis for rule-based, replicable procedures for determining conservation priorities. This account therefore illustrates the insights to be gained from reconsidering the history of conservation in terms of our understanding of the evolving status and social roles of expertise.
... Since then, there has been a global rise in protected areas and proliferation of treaties that led to India's commitment to the global wildlife conservation. In 1969, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) conference was held in New Delhi that raised global awareness of the plight of the Indian tiger and helped establish an Indian chapter of the WWF (Lewis 2003). Lewis (2003) has argued that wildlife conservation is a US export which 'reinvented' itself and was replicated in India's ecosystems. ...
... In 1969, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) conference was held in New Delhi that raised global awareness of the plight of the Indian tiger and helped establish an Indian chapter of the WWF (Lewis 2003). Lewis (2003) has argued that wildlife conservation is a US export which 'reinvented' itself and was replicated in India's ecosystems. Indeed, from an ecological point of view, creating Tiger Reserves was seen as a solution. ...
Human-nature relations are diverse, multifaceted and often contradictory, especially the relationships with animals. Mishmi people living on the Sino-India border claim tigers to be their brothers and take credit for tiger protection as they observe taboos against hunting tigers. Drawing on this notion of relatedness with tigers, local residents of the Dibang Valley question the governments' recent plans to declare the Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary into Dibang Tiger Reserve and its scientific surveys of tigers and habitat mapping. This paper highlights how Mishmi people relate to tigers and how their understanding of tigers is in contest with versions of state and science, as national property or endangered species. Using in-depth interviews and participant observations in the Dibang Valley, I provide an ethnographic analysis of how different ideas of nature are played out by different actors in Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India. Tiger conservation projects bring these conflicting versions of nature together, creating unexpected encounters between Mishmi, state and scientists. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of changing notions of nature in the age of globalisation and an increasingly interconnected world.
... The bias toward commercial activities is reflected in departmental research programs, which focus almost exclusively on improving techniques for commercial plantations, and which continue to draw on the sustained yield model (Fleischman 2014). Forest departments have a history of poor cooperation with independent scientists (Lewis 2002, 2004, 2005, Madhusudan et al. 2006, and ecological knowledge in India remains limited (Singh and Bagchi 2013). Thus, although the knowledge of foresters may have some basis in scientific theories, most practices of forest officials are likely to have a very limited grounding in scientific knowledge simply because scientific knowledge is highly limited, and there is little knowledge exchange between scientists and managers. ...
... Similarly, forest science that focuses on maximizing sustained yield maintains high levels of timber extraction, which is beneficial to the well-organized timber industries, which have historically dominated forest policy in both the U.S. and India (Gadgil and Guha 1992, 1995, Hirt 1994, Clarke and McCool 1996. Managers may perceive independent scientists as threats to their political authority and may react defensively to scientific information, or, when they have the power, they may actively exclude scientists from even conducting research, as has apparently been the case in Indian forest management (Lewis 2002, 2004, 2005, Madhusudan et al. 2006. If this were the case, we would expect PEK to be more limited in contexts in which political competition is robust and no single political interest dominates an agency's agenda. ...
Successful natural resource management is dependent on effective knowledge exchange and utilization. Local/traditional/indigenous knowledge derived from place-based experience and scientific knowledge generated by systematic inquiry are the most commonly recognized knowledge domains. However, we propose that many natural resource decisions are not based on local or scientific knowledge, but rather on a little recognized domain that we term professional ecological knowledge (PEK). Professional ecological knowledge is founded upon codification of broad ecological principles, but not necessarily scientific evidence, to legitimize agency programs, support operational efficiency, and encourage user compliance. However, in spite of these benefits, PEKmay reduce program effectiveness by inhibiting the exchange of local and scientific knowledge and minimizing the development of evidence-based conservation. We describe what we consider to be common facets of PEK through case studies examining the sources of knowledge utilized by forestry agencies in India and by rangeland conservation programs of the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service. Three propositions are presented regarding the origins and continued existence of PEK: (1) minimal information feedbacks regarding the efficacy of agency programs contributes to development of PEK; (2) a narrow scientific agenda and a perception that most scientific knowledge is not relevant to management decisions encourages a divide between scientists and managers; and (3) political interests often benefit from existing applications of PEK. By calling attention to the existence of PEK as a distinctive knowledge domain, we aim to encourage more explicit and critical consideration of the origins of knowledge used in environmental decision making. Explicit recognition of PEKmay provide greater understanding of the dynamics of knowledge exchange and decisionmaking in natural resource management.
... Культуры охраны природы и экологизма развиваются с течением времени (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Рассмотрим культурную историю таких спорных видов деятельности, как охота и использование дикой природы (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
As human-wildlife conflicts become more frequent, serious and widespread worldwide, they are notoriously challenging to resolve, and many efforts to address these conflicts struggle to make progress. These Guidelines provide an essential guide to understanding and resolving human-wildlife conflict. The Guidelines aim to provide foundations and principles for good practice, with clear, practical guidance on how best to tackle conflicts and enable coexistence with wildlife. They have been developed for use by conservation practitioners, community leaders, decision-makers, researchers, government officers and others. Focusing on approaches and tools for analysis and decision-making, they are not limited to any particular species or region of the world.
... Until this period, biodiversity conservation efforts in India were piloted by scientists from the United States (such as the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC) or by Western nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). 35 In 1969, the capital New Delhi hosted the International Union for Conservation of Nature Conference for the first time. Under international pressure and with a desire to free itself from foreign scientists, the Indian Parliament passed the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA) in 1972, which still remains the main conservation tool in the country. ...
Drawing on the history of human–elephant relationships in Brahmaputra uplands in precolonial, colonial, and contemporary periods, this article highlights at least long-standing two elephant management systems: the dominant power of each period with its corresponding war, imperialist, or conservation purposes and that of the local populations for whom elephants represent an essential part of their daily life and a source of livelihood, even though they simultaneously remain at the service of the dominant power. Through the ages, the local inhabitants’ relationship with elephants has evolved, and the presence of these animals alongside human societies has shaped the culture, identity, and ecology of the region.
In the six centuries of the Ahom kingdom, and the two centuries of British rule, local knowledge of elephants has always played a role in state policy, often by force. However, after independence, international norms of conservation have tended to remove human settlements from elephant habitats and exclude consideration of local knowledge of elephants, to the detriment of all parties. The interests and knowledge of local people need to be engaged if elephant populations are to survive. At the same time, exploring the extensive literature on the connection between humans and elephants could provides fresh perspectives on the region’s history, social structures, and geopolitical significance between South and Southeast Asia.
... The factor shares strong affinities with fantasies of untrammeled wilderness as epitomized and expressed in the United States, and when translated into Indian contexts, represents what Guha calls a form of "conservation imperialism" (Cronon, 1996;Guha, 1989;1997: 20). As Lewis (2004) has rigorously detailed through interview and archival research, the U.S. protected area model actively informed how the Indian Central Government developed its own approach to conservation, in concert with U.S. scientists and with significant U.S. federal funding support in the mid-Twentieth Century. The factor's orientation towards forests as wilderness ignores both historical and contemporary evidence that all three study areas either in the recent past or in the present were or are home to adivasi peoples who actively managed and modified forests in the past. ...
How do foresters in India understand the foundational and proximate causes of negative interactions between humans and wildlife? In this article we identify five distinct epistemological orientations towards managing human-wildlife conflicts (HWC) and drivers of those conflicts among staff at differing levels of the Indian forest bureaucracy across three protected areas in the Western Ghats. Through an empirical analysis employing Q method, we analyze forester subjectivities in relation to how forests should be managed with HWC mitigation in mind. Our results suggest forester perspectives are informed by social class and rank, geography, and experience. Forester positionality and knowledge is also at times in conflict with hegemonic perspectives of forest departments and can lead to the development of tensions in how foresters think about human-wildlife relations and managing HWC. Our analysis brings together concepts of multiple environmentalities with Gramscian ideas of the incoherent individual to theorize the varying subjectivities of individual state actors in understanding, managing, and co-producing forms of HWC. In doing so, this article contributes to contemporary debates about the theorizing of subject-making in political ecology and geography through an empirical case from one of the most important megafaunal conservation landscapes in Asia.
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
Impact evaluations assess the causal link between an action (e.g. erecting a fence) and the outcomes
(e.g. a change in the rate of crop raiding by elephants). This goes beyond understanding whether a
project has been implemented (e.g. whether activities were completed) to understanding what
changes happened due to the actions taken and why they happened as they did. Impact evaluation is
thus defined as the systematic process of assessing the effects of an intervention (e.g. project or
policy) by comparing what actually happened with what would have happened without it (i.e. the
counterfactual)
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
Historically, conservationists have focused on financial and technical solutions to human-wildlife
conflicts (Redpath et al., 2013). It has become clear that although these are important to generate a
context where change is possible, more attention to human behaviour is needed to achieve
longer-term human-wildlife coexistence (Veríssimo & Campbell, 2015). Interventions targeting human
behaviour have been largely focused on measures such as regulation and education. Regulation in this
context refers to the system of rules made by a government or other authority, usually backed by
penalties and enforcement mechanisms, which describes the way people should behave, while
education is concerned with the provision of information about a topic. However, the degree of
influence of these interventions depends on the priority audience being motivated (i.e. the individual
believes change is in their best interest) and/or able to change (i.e. overcome social pressure, inertia
and social norms) (Figure 21) (Smith et al., 2020b).
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
The human dimension aspects of conflicts over wildlife are largely determined by the thoughts, feelings and, ultimately, behaviours of people. Because all human-wildlife conflicts involve people, approaches that provide a better understanding of human behaviour – and facilitate behaviour change – are crucially important for helping manage such conflicts. Efforts to mitigate human-wildlife conflict commonly include actions to try to influence or change the attitudes or behaviours of the people involved. Another extremely common approach for reducing human-wildlife conflict is to conduct education and awareness campaigns. These activities are well
intentioned in attempting to change the human dimension of the human-wildlife conflict, but unfortunately are often ineffective for one very common reason – they are based on incorrect assumptions about cause-and-effect relationships of concepts within social psychology.
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
The potential success of wildlife damage prevention measures can be significantly increased by taking the natural behaviour of animals into account, identifying ways in which some species have already adapted to the presence of humans and applying this knowledge elsewhere. It is also important to understand how individual differences in behaviour (animal and human personality) can vary the perception, presence and intensity of conflict from one landscape or conflict location to the next.
The chapter includes sections on: Animal decision making - negative impacts on human-dominated landscapes and ‘problem’ animals; key behavioural considerations; HWC scenarios linked to animal behaviour; and concludes with a step-by-step guide to considering animal behaviour in human-wildlife conflict
mitigation strategy development.
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
An overview of the IUCN SSC guidelines on human-wildlife conflict and coexistence (First Ed.), covering the global scale of the challenge, thoughts on defining HWC and Coexistence, and some essential considerations for management.
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
Engaging with the social, psychological, economic and political
dimensions of wildlife management and conservation is essential for
robust and effective actions and policies regarding human-wildlife
conflicts.
Specifically, in the
context of human-wildlife conflicts, understanding different interest
groups’ perspectives and their different value systems, beliefs, priorities
and agendas is necessary to find out how to address challenges for
improved actions for people and wildlife.
The chapter focuses on the basics of social science and desigining social science research, with a section on ethics, and two case studies.
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
Culture influences how people respond to or interact with wildlife, and how they respond to and manage conflicts. Culture is a set of principles, habits and symbols that are learnt and shared; it unites groups of people and influences their worldview and behaviour. Culture is also symbolic, whereby people have a shared understanding of symbolic meaning within their group or society. Culture may differ markedly within nations, regions and even local communities and can change over time. As outlined in Chapter 10 (How histories shape interactions), local
cultures and environmental relationships are not static and do not exist in isolation; they are influenced by local and global developments, past and present, and this needs to be taken into consideration when examining or working with human-wildlife conflict.
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
As human-wildlife conflicts become more frequent, serious and widespread worldwide, they are notoriously challenging to resolve, and many efforts to address these conflicts struggle to make progress. These Guidelines provide an essential guide to understanding and resolving human-wildlife conflict. The Guidelines aim to provide foundations and principles for good practice, with clear, practical guidance on how best to tackle conflicts and enable coexistence with wildlife. They have been developed for use by conservation practitioners, community leaders, decision-makers, researchers, government officers and others. Focusing on approaches and tools for analysis and decision-making, they are not limited to any particular species or region of the world.
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
What is the change you are trying to make and how do you get there? When it comes down to
complex issues such as human-wildlife conflicts, the answers to these questions are not always as
simple as they may seem. An understanding of the ecological and social dimensions of human-wildlife
conflict itself does not translate naturally into effective management actions. The bridge between
what we know and what we do – between where we are standing today and where we want to reach –
is planning
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
... Cultures of conservation and environmentalism evolve over time (Adams, 2004;Anderson & Grove, 1987;Guha, 2014;Lewis, 2004). Consider the cultural histories of controversial activities like hunting and use of wildlife (MacKenzie, 1988;Ritvo, 1987;Somerville, 2016). ...
... South Asia is comparable to other biodiverse regions in the world but is unique in the extent and intensity of human pressures on these conservation landscapes. This context of shared human-wildlife spaces has allowed research from South Asia to offer key insights into bridging the nature-society dichotomy by bringing human dimensions into ecology 138 and "re-imagining wilderness" to be more human-inclusive 139 . Coadaptation is a key to successful coexistence 140 , where research from South Asia highlights that animals are adapting to living in modified landscapes in multiple ways 141,142 , which are vital for long-term connectivity. ...
The threat of habitat fragmentation and population isolation looms large over much of biodiversity in this human-dominated epoch. Species-rich South Asia is made particularly vulnerable by its high human density and anthropogenic habitat modification. Therefore, reliably estimating wildlife connectivity and the factors underpinning it become crucial in mitigating extinction risk due to isolation. We analysed peer-reviewed literature on connectivity and corridors for terrestrial mammals in South Asia to identify trends in connectivity research. We identify key research gaps and highlight future directions that may aid efforts to robustly study connectivity. We found a significant bias towards charismatic megafauna and their habitats. Methodologically, although we observed a range of approaches reflecting some of the advances and innovations in the field, several studies lacked data on animal movement/behaviour, leading to potentially biased inferences of how species disperse through human-modified landscapes. New avenues for connectivity research, though currently under-explored in South Asia, offer alternatives to the heavily used but less-reliable habitat suitability models. We highlight the advantages of landscape genetic methods that reflect effective dispersal and are made feasible through non-invasive and increasingly more cost-effective sampling methods. We also identify important gaps or areas of focus that need to be addressed going forward, including accounting for animal movement/behaviour, human impacts and landscape change for dynamic and adaptive connectivity planning for the future.
... Framed within a Cold War context, Lewis's account situated scientific ideas and practices by underscoring debates about conservation biology and nature reserves in a way that deliberately engaged a wide swath of environmental historians, including those who had drawn connections between environment and empire, like Grove and Guha. 69 Studies of other important environmental disciplines, however, proved more reluctant to engage environmental historians and so tended to remain deeply rooted in the cultural and social history of science, while keeping the potential shaping role of environmental factors at arm's length. Despite obvious potential overlaps with environmental history, histories of meteorology and climatology, for example, often situated environmental sciences in their cultural and social contexts more or less exclusively. ...
Recent years have witnessed a significant expansion in the number of studies positioned at the intersection of the history of science and environmental history. Although these studies continue to navigate lingering methodological tensions, collectively they underscore the promise of a disciplinary cross-fertilization that proved largely latent for the first quarter century or more following environmental history’s emergence as a discrete discipline. This article situates this recent scholarship in the historiographical landscape from which it has emerged. To that end, it (a) summarizes the fields’ early intersections; (b) examines the ways in which disciplinary tensions made the intersection fraught; (c) traces shifts in both fields that made that intersection more conducive to cross-disciplinary work; and (d) sketches the trajectories of some of the prominent threads of the recent scholarship deliberately situated at the nexus of the disciplines.
... The formation of protected areas and national parks and the underlying legislation and acts directly or indirectly have repercussions for local communities and have given rise to many problems (Saberwal et al., 2000;Lewis, 2004). Moreover, the policy of estrangement of resources of national parks from the use of local people resulted in resentment, conflicts, and issues and led local people to hold negative perceptions towards conservation of these areas (Hulme and Murphree, 1999). ...
... The formation of protected areas and national parks and the underlying legislation and acts directly or indirectly have repercussions for local communities and have given rise to many problems (Saberwal et al., 2000;Lewis, 2004). Moreover, the policy of estrangement of resources of national parks from the use of local people resulted in resentment, conflicts, and issues and led local people to hold negative perceptions towards conservation of these areas (Hulme and Murphree, 1999). ...
This paper analyses perceptions of poor households living in and
around an Indian national park, the Bhitarkanika National Park (BNP), towards
conservation, in the lens of the concepts ‘conservationism of the poor’ and
‘environmentalism of the poor’ as a theoretical tool. Values and motives held to
conserve this pristine beauty are determined based on raison d’être cited by
respondents. The paper analyses the matrix of values perceived about
conservation at this park. Despite their low income, respondents assign non-use
value as a reason to conserve this mangrove wetland. It is noteworthy that their
willingness to pay (WTP) for the conservation of the BNP, in terms of labour
hours is 295.6 times more than their WTP in terms of cash per annum. This
paper insists on studying different types of values associated with conservation
of the park and conjectures that non-use values form an important part in
conservation, which must be recognised in a policy decision-making process
for sustainability.
... The inclusion of Kenyans in the history of field science in Amboseli may prove disappointing if the hope was to find an immediate transformation of post-colonial knowledge production. As others have written regarding post-colonial science, the West's hegemony on science in former colonies has never been entirely inclusive of non-white participants (Lewis, 2003;Seth, 2009). The policy of Africanization, from the later days of colonialism through the mid-1980s, might have offered a chance to many Kenyans with an interest in science to find ways to employ their skills in public service. ...
Following Kenya's independence in 1963, scientists converged on an ecologically sensitive area in southern Kenya on the northern slope of Mt. Kilimanjaro called Amboseli. This region is the homeland of the Ilkisongo Maasai who grazed this ecosystem along with the wildlife of interest to the scientists. Biologists saw opportunities to study this complex community, an environment rich in biological diversity. The Amboseli landscape proved to be fertile ground for testing new methods and lines of inquiry in the biological sciences that were generalizable and important for shaping natural resource management policies in Kenya. However, the local community was in the midst of its own transformation from a primarily transhumant lifestyle to a largely sedentary one, a complex political situation between local and national authorities, and the introduction of a newly educated generation. This article examines the intersection of African history and field science through the post-colonial Africanization of Kenyan politics, the broadening of scientific practices in Amboseli in previously Western-occupied spaces to include Kenyan participants, and an increasing awareness of the role of local African contexts in the results, methods, and implications of biological research. "Africanization" as an idea in the history of science is multifaceted encompassing not just Africans in the scientific process, but it needs an examination of the larger political and social context on both a local and national level.
... The Periyar forest is not just a local manifestation of global ecology, but rather a geographically embedded habitat with regionally endemic biota. And while it is with the invention of global ecology (Lewis, 2004) that the biota in PTR had been enmeshed in a global network of environmental discourses, Kumily residents draw upon international discourses on biodiversity conservation and place-based ecological knowledge to form their identities as environmental subjects. Following Escobar (1998), environmentalism at PTR portrays a case where the globalocentric discourse of biodiversity conservation can be in (albeit unequal) conversation with the sovereignty model of the post-colonial forest department and the cultural autonomy model of place-based environmental sensibilities in Kumily. ...
Much of anthropological literature on social impacts of globalization focuses on urban centers, with rural sites oft-represented as passive hinterlands. This article shifts analytical focus to a rural site: Kumily in Kerala, India. Kumily’s proximity to a wildlife sanctuary involves many of its residents with the local nature-tourism industry and with environmental stewardship through a set of eco-development activities. I argue it is through such engagements that these residents adopt a cosmopolitan identity and develop a sense of environmental citizenship. This article views Kumily as an important global node where multiple notions of environmentalism and development converge. By specifically focusing on the environmental subjecthoods of indigenous youths who work as professional ecotourism guides, the article privileges the cosmopolitanism of the poor as a focal point of understanding social change in India.
... In the case of individual rights, it has to be followed by a 17 The scientific basis of this ecological argument have been severely criticized in the case of BRT by Rai (2009) and more widely at Indian level by Kothari. The American origin of this conservationist paradigm and the way it has been reinterpreted in India has been outlined by Lewis (2004). 18 A state level monitoring committee has also been created but is not directly involved in the claims process. ...
... The preservation of biodiversity by excluding human pressure is the dominant paradigm in conservation (Adams and Hutton 2007 ) and runs counter to local livelihoods that are heavily dependent on using the same resources. Science provides the overriding justification for the exclusionary paradigm that dominates biodiversity conservation, providing " evidence " to support the exclusion of local communities (Lewis 2003). Yet this science is contested. ...
Mountains are one of the last refuges of biodiversity worldwide. As the global discourse on nature conservation becomes prominent within sustainability debates and local populations continue to be blamed for environmental destruction, projected territorial expansion of protected areas will likely lead to high levels of conflict and contestation around mountains of the world. At the same time, deeper penetration of transnational advocacy networks and wider connections of civil society will bring new tools of resistance to bear on this conflict. We propose that democracy plays an increasingly critical role in assisting local opposition to thwart new restrictions on access to natural areas prioritized for conservation. We illustrate this larger argument through the case of the Great Himalayan National Park Conservation Area (GHNPCA), recently designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Indian Himalayas. In their opposition to exclusion, local communities have employed heritage as a weapon, successfully marshaling the representation of the region as the “Valley of the Gods” and putting their cultural heritage to work against global conservation agendas. Tourism posters depicting the sacred geography of numerous local deities allow local communities to justify opposition to the conservation status that restricts access to their gods, while channeling their demands through elected representatives. The state navigates this complex territory between global and local heritage uneasily, primarily through a series of compromises at the local level. This article focuses on the ways in which mountain heritage—local and global, cultural and natural—is negotiated in the crucible of democracy.
... It has been argued that this policy choice is based on the American experience, John Muir's legacy and the model of Yellowstone National Park-the fi rst of the United States' successful parks system (Wilshusen et al. 2002 ;Lewis 2003 ) . Muir's principle, on which Yellowstone was created, was of a wilderness that is set aside and separated from people. ...
Public-private partnerships have become a favourite policy tool of most international organizations. In this chapter, I argue that partnerships have become entrenched as procedural or constitutive norms in some issue areas and institutional settings. Yet, their substantive or regulative contribution requires deeper investigation. I provide a brief introduction to the theoretical lens of norms in international relations and trace the growth of the partnership norm at the World Bank. I distil from this history three substantive goals the Bank envisioned achieving through partnerships: policy innovation, democracy and additional financing. Using biodiversity conservation as an issue area well suited for this kind of analysis, I suggest how we might frame a substantive evaluation of partnerships’ contributions to global environmental governance.
... Restrictive conservation is incompatible with the ideals of democratic citizenship where it is imposed upon marginal populations with little say in the process, as has often been the case (Chhatre and Saberwal, 2006;Gadgil and Guha, 1995;Lewis, 2004). Without formal channels of remediation, the possibility for protest is usually limited to 'everyday forms of resistance' (a la Scott, 1985), as has often been documented in the literature (see Holmes, 2007 for a detailed review). ...
Vibrant protests against restrictions imposed by the Dhauladhar Wildlife Sanctuary (DWLS) in Himachal Pradesh, India have galvanized area residents to protect local forests. In this paper, we examine how local opposition has become entangled with environmental values and practice, culminating in the decision of a women’s group to embark on a local management system for forests inside the sanctuary. We use this case to highlight two key themes that will likely transform the practice of conservation in the coming years. First, greater enfranchisement of marginal groups, especially women, within democratic politics will activate new channels to agitate against restrictive conservation regimes and, in some instances, may engender space to envision more democratic forms of resource management. Second, the increasing valence of environmental values within society is generating new forms of environmental awareness among resource users. Together, these two factors will give rise to a new conservation politics through the production and performance of environmental citizenship. In the case of DWLS, political action against restrictive conservation has harnessed local agency toward a collective decision to protect and manage forest resources.
... Indeed, with the strong transnational impetus for tiger conservation, there was considerable concern and resentment within the Indian Forest Service and Ministry of Agriculture about foreign intervention in Indian conservation science. The first director of Project Tiger was intent that credit for its inception be given to India rather than foreigners, and as a defense against a perceived threat to state sovereignty in the form of US scientists turning Indian national parks into their laboratories, numerous requests by Western conservation biologists to study the tiger in India were turned down, deploying the territory of national parks as a political technology (Elden, 2010;Lewis, 2004;Lewis, 2005). At the same time, Project Tiger was skillfully employed to boost India's national prestige and raise its international standing (Greenough, 2003b). ...
In the spring of 2006, Tibetans in China set fire to more than a million dollars worth of otter, leopard and tiger pelts. The numerous bonfires were a response to the 14th Dalai Lama's statement, made at the Kalachakra Initiation Ceremony in India, that Tibetans should cease wearing such pelts. The Chinese state interpreted this as an act of loyalty to the Dalai Lama and this evidence of multiple overlapping sovereignties as a threat to its exclusive territorial sovereignty. An effort to clarify this space invited a sovereign invocation of the exception, as salaried employees were forced to wear endangered animal pelts, violating Chinese national law. A conjunctural analysis of the Dalai Lama's speech and the subsequent burnings demonstrates that contrary to prevailing narratives, transnational environmental advocacy played a key role. The conjuncture in which these events took place was shaped by multiple competing entanglements of Chinese, Indian, and Tibetan sovereignties with nature protection and transnational activism. Two distinct assemblages, shaped by power relations and the politics of sovereignty, formed around protecting the tiger across the Himalayas, with dramatically different effects. The case shows that far from post-sovereign environmental governance, nature and sovereignty remain inextricably entangled, and illustrates how multiple modes to construct and defend state sovereignty come into conflict with each other.
... In contrast, current European models allow access to conservation areas and limited use, but place constraints on developmental activities (Tsiafouli et al. 2013). The Indian conservation discourse, even if articulated in nationalistic narratives and inherited as part of its colonial British legacy (Gadgil and Guha 1992), is modelled on the American ideal and supported by the research funding that upholds it (Lewis 2004). This is in sharp contrast with indigenous management models in India, which do not dichotomise nature and society, and are frequently mentioned (Sukumar 1994; Rangarajan 1999; Karanth et al. 2010; Rangarajan and Sivaramakrishnan 2012) but not formally studied. ...
The need for a solid knowledge base to inform conservation activity is now universally recognised. We critically scrutinised the scientific knowledge of large felids in India located in peer-reviewed research papers to assess the information available to make landscape-level management decisions that aid conservation, which is a stated goal of both the Indian government and the international community. We found two striking patterns: the biological sciences dominate in the published literature, and nearly all the research has been carried out in protected areas, though a substantial number of large felids also live outside protected areas. We argue that these patterns are not incidental, but the result of the dualistic ontology of science that uses processes of 'purification' and 'translation' to fit complex realities into disciplinary prerogatives organised around creating dichotomies (like nature–culture). In addition, since this body of scientific knowledge locates large felids in 'pure' biological landscapes, there is little or no insight from multi-use landscapes. These findings, we believe, highlight important knowledge gaps in our present research-based knowledge of large felids in India, which urgently need to be addressed if progress is to be made in conservation.
Am Beispiel des Frankfurter Flughafens untersucht »Nach der Natur« die Rolle von Wissenschaft in den ökologischen Krisen des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts. Das Rhein-Main-Gebiet ist heute eine der ökologisch besterforschten Regionen der Welt. Maßgeblichen Anteil hat daran eines der größten Umweltprobleme vor Ort: der Frankfurter Flughafen. Die historischen Wechselwirkungen von Umwelt, Wissen und Politik stehen im Zentrum von »Nach der Natur«. Am Beispiel des größten deutschen Flughafens beschreibt es soziale Konflikte und gesellschaftliche Räume, in denen Wissen über Umwelt seit dem frühen 20. Jahrhundert verhandelt und wirksam wurde. Viele Wissensbestände wurden zuerst im Flughafen produziert, bevor die Umweltbewegung sie sich aneignete und gegen den Flughafen in Stellung brachte. Der Flughafen hat somit im Laufe der Geschichte die Möglichkeit seiner eigenen Kritik geschaffen. "Nach der Natur" ist mehr als eine Fallstudie. Das Buch liefert weitreichende Erkenntnisse über den gesellschaftspolitischen Ort von Umweltwissen als Infrastrukturwissen und versteht sich als historischer Beitrag zur aktuellen Debatte um die Klimakrise und das Anthropozän.
Engineers and scientists claim to “know” the planet in myriad ways. Tey count its biospheric populations, probe and measure its material fuxes. Tey build towers, dig holes, launch vessels and spacecraft, photographing the blue marble to be transmitted at hundreds of megabytes per second. Ecological and geographical sciences, long based in on-the-ground observation and counting operations, are complemented and corroborated with data-based models and extra-planetary pixel-vision, data-based models of climate, land use, vegetation cover and erosion. During a week-long programme of knowledge exchanges, artist-researchers will visit Kilpisjärvi Biological Station of the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Biological and Environmental sciences to interact and observe experimentation and feldwork at the site ( June 10-16, 2018). Following these visits, the group will travel to Tromsø, Norway, the site of multiple incoherent scatter radar and synthetic aperture radar installations.
As one of the world’s largest and most bio-diverse countries, India’s approach to environmental policy will be very significant in tackling global environmental challenges. This book explores the transformations that have taken place in the making of environmental policy in India since the economic liberalization of the 1990s. It investigates if there has been a slow shift from top-down planning to increasingly bottom up and participatory policy processes, examining the successes and failures of recent environmental policies. Linking deliberation to collective action, this book contends that it is crucial to involve local actors in framing the policies that decide on their rights and control over bio-resources in order to achieve the goal of sustainable human development.
The first examples of large-scale participatory processes in Indian environmental policy were the 1999 National Biodiversity Strategy Action Plan and the 2006 Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act. This book explores these landmark policies, exploring the strategies of advocacy and deliberation that led to both the successes and failures of recent initiatives. It concludes that in order to deliberate with the state, civil society actors must engage in forms of strategic advocacy with the power to push agendas that challenge mainstream development discourses. The lessons learnt from the Indian experience will not only have immediate significance for the future of policy making in India, but they will also be of interest for other countries faced with the challenges of integrating livelihood and sustainability concerns into the governance process.
Field” as place is less a spatial than a relational concept. It signifies no essential qualities of physical locale, but rather the distinctive uses to which places have been put. Places we label “field” are those that were not made exclusively for scientific use—as were workshops, laboratories, and offices—but have harbored a range of different users and uses. In the field, phenomena are situated, and users cannot perfectly control the contingencies of natural and social environment. That has been the great advantage of the field for science—that contingencies are inescapably part of scientific subjects—and its special challenge. Field methods and practices thus have varied widely, often borrowing from the vernacular or everyday practices of other users. A survey of histories of field science shows an ever-widening range of places of interest: horizontally to the far corners of the globe, vertically from oceanic and tectonic depths to atmospheric and inter-planetary heights.
This chapter examines how STS research has contributed to understandings of the politics of global environmental change. Focusing on the issues of climate change and biodiversity, it explores the how the idea of a ‘global’ environment came about, the knowledge infrastructures that arose to study it, and the transnational organisation of expertise to support its governance. STS scholarship encourages reflection on how scientific knowledge and political values are intertwined, or ‘co-produced’, and encourages awareness of how certain framings of environmental change can exclude particular actors or possible solutions from political debate. Global framings can sometimes undermine local action, meaning that global knowledge infrastructures and science-policy ‘boundary organizations’ may be improved by allowing more diverse voices and knowledges to be heard. An ongoing challenge for STS scholarship is to unpick the entanglements of global and local knowledges and values which shape environmental politics at different scales and in different places, and to use such insights to improve social and environmental outcomes in different societies’ dealings with environmental change.
The essay uses the term “charismatic life” to describe representations of nature that emphasize vitality and vibrancy. Beginning with how life is reified when nature becomes spectacle, the essay discusses how a fetishism of life was part of the early structuring logic of biodiversity science in a way that undermined crafting other ethical and political responses to loss. When biodiversity emerged as a popular science concept in the 1980s, it was described as a scientific replacement for the sentimental attachment to charismatic megafauna that previously structured conservation priorities. But this essay argues, in a historicized reading of conservation biologist E.O. Wilson’s popular science memoir Biophilia [Wilson, E. O. (1984). Biophilia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press] alongside the seminal edited collection Biodiversity [Wilson, E. O. (Ed.). (1988). Biodiversity. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences], that Wilson’s sentimental biopolitics renders the world as if a collection of living souvenirs – tokens by which to remember forms of life that will have been lost.
The right to a safe and clean environment should be considered a fundamental human right. This publication describes how such rights are violated in the name of 'development' in India, what movements are doing to counter this as also suggest alternative pathways towards sustainable, equitable wellbeing, and constitutional and legal provisions that could help.
Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama, may be the most studied tropical forest in the world. A 1,560-hectare island created by the flooding of the Panama Canal, BCI became a nature reserve and biological research station in 1923. Contemporaries saw the island as an “ark” preserving a sample of primeval tropical nature for scientific study. BCI was not simply “set aside,” however. The project of making it a place for science significantly reshaped the island through the twentieth century. This essay demonstrates that BCI was constructed specifically to allow long-term observation of tropical organisms—their complex behaviors, life histories, population dynamics, and changing species composition. An evolving system of monitoring and information technology transformed the island into a living scientific “archive,” in which the landscape became both an object and a repository of scientific knowledge. As a research site, BCI enabled a long-term, place-based form of collective empiricism, focused on the study of the ecology of a single tropical island. This essay articulates tropical ecology as a “science of the archive” in order to examine the origins of practices of environmental surveillance that have become central to debates about global change and conservation. https://doi.org/10.1086/684610
Forest administrators play a crucial role in translating conservation and development policies into action, yet policy reformers and scholars rarely examine how these administrators make decisions about the implementation of conservation and development policy in India. In this paper, I address this gap. I begin by developing a framework that draws on Western policy implementation studies and Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development framework and then apply this framework to a review of published studies that examine the role of forest officials in implementing public policies in India. The framework differentiates between formal and informal institutions and between institutions which are developed within an agency and those that are directed from outside the agency. I find that forester behavior varies significantly across space and time and has an important influence on the outcome of forestry programs. Innovations and excellent program implementation appear related to foresters’ desire to demonstrate professional efficacy. On the other hand, many failings can be traced either to external direction or to foresters developing internal institutions that are poorly suited to the problems they are tasked with solving. Existing research is limited in its geographic and temporal scope and leaves many questions unanswered, and thus, the review concludes with a brief outline of future research needs.
Cosmopolitanism has emerged as an important concept in geography and the social sciences. The rise of mobility, circulation and transnational networks has been paralleled by academic scholarship on un-parochial others: diasporas, travellers and itinerant social groups. However, the role of nonhumans as participants in and subjects of cosmopolitanism has received scant attention. This paper seeks to develop a 'more-than-human' cosmopolitanism that accounts for the presence of nonhuman animals and entities in stories of circulation and contact. Through a multi-sited ethnography of elephant conservation in India and the UK, the paper illustrates how animals become participants in forging connections across difference. Through their circulation, elephants become cosmopolitan, present in diverse cultures and serving banal global consumption. The paper then illustrates how cosmopolitan elephants may be coercive, giving rise to political frictions and new inequalities when mobilised by powerful, transnational environmental actors. It concludes by discussing the methodological and conceptual implications of a more-than-human cosmopolitanism.
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