Geographies of conservation I: De-extinction and precision conservation

© The Author(s) 2016. Extinction has long been a central concern in biodiversity conservation. Today, de-extinction offers interesting possibilities of restoring charismatic species and ecosystem function, but also risks and costs. Most de-extinction depends on genetic engineering and synthetic biology. These technologies are also proposed for use in ‘gene tweaking’ in wild species to enhance their chance of survival. Within conservation, the resulting debates pit an optimistic world of high-tech ‘precision conservation’ against a more conventional vision of biodiversity conservation achieved primarily through protected areas. De-extinction is a fashionable idea that brings the complex debates about the ethics and wisdom of genetic engineering to a central position within conservation science

Conservation. The value of valuing nature.

Valuing nature in economic terms is not always beneficial for biodiversity conservation.This is the accepted manuscript of a paper published in Science (Adams WM, Science 2014, 346 (6209), 549-551 DOI: 10.1126/science.1255997)

Do you speak lion?

Problems in biodiversity conservation tend to be highly complex, encompassing both biological and social systems and their interactions (1). Many have argued for multidisciplinary research in conservation, particularly a more effective engagement of the human sciences (2). But even when multidisciplinary, research may not be able to deliver the insights needed to solve a conservation problem. Recent studies help to elucidate these challenges and show how research can be effective in underpinning conservation decisions (2–5)

Geographies of conservation III: Nature’s spaces

There is a rich literature by geographers on the spatial imagination and ambition of conservation, and particularly the long-established strategy of creating protected areas such as national parks. This report highlights five ways in which the spatial ambitions, imaginations and practices of conservation are changing. First, appetite for the expansion of protected areas continues to grow, with proposals for marine reserves and up to half of the earth under protection. Second, substantial intensification of agriculture is proposed to free up land for such expansion, a policy of land sparing. Third, areas being protected are increasingly privately owned, and conservation is serving as a powerful form of legitimization of large-scale private landholding. Fourth, in many countries conservation management is being extended beyond formal protected areas in mosaics of public, private and community land. Fifth, the political and material technologies used to secure conservation territories, like the extension of these territories themselves, raise urgent political ecological questions. Conservation governance physically marks spaces for nature, but also constructs and polices ideas about both nature and society in profound ways, which often go unremarked by conservationists themselves. Non

Geographies of conservation II: Technology, surveillance and conservation by algorithm

The wide range of wildlife tracking and surveillance technologies (radio and satellite tracking, cameras, and audio) that are being deployed in conservation have important implications for a geographical understanding of care for non-human nature. This report explores four dimensions of their influence. First, their detailed view of spatial dimensions of non-human lives affects conservation’s demarcation and control of space. Second, the application of surveillance technologies to people is central to the rise of coercive conservation strategies. Third, such technologies enable the creation and commoditization of spectacular nature. Fourth, spatial digital data enables the automation of conservation decisions, a trend described here as ‘conservation by algorithm’. </jats:p

Fencing elephants: The hidden politics of wildlife fencing in Laikipia, Kenya

Conservation is a fundamentally spatial pursuit. Human–elephant conflict (HEC), in particular crop-raiding, is a significant and complex conservation problem wherever elephants and people occupy the same space. Conservationists and wildlife managers build electrified fences as a technical solution to this problem. Fences provide a spatial means of controlling human–elephant interactions by creating a place for elephants and a place for cultivation. They are often planned and designed based on the ecology of the target species. Yet as we show in this case study, behind their technical façade, fences are highly political. This article presents the process of planning and building the 121 km West Laikipia Fence: created to prevent elephants from moving out of large private and government-owned ranches and onto smallholder cultivated land to the west of Laikipia County. We seek to show how the construction of a fence to solve the problem of HEC led to the division, reinforcement and communication of territory on the ground and how this was captured and shaped by different, and sometimes conflicting, political interests.We would like to thank Professor Nigel Leader-Williams and Dr. Max Graham for their advice and support throughout this research. We are grateful to Space for Giants for institutional and logistical support and to Amon Lekea and Sundry Lekticharan for their assistance with interviews. This research was funded by the Royal Geographical Society and the North England Zoological Society. We thank George Aike for producing the figures for this article.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.11.00

Green grabbing and the dynamics of local-level engagement with neoliberalization in Tanzania’s wildlife management areas

This paper analyzes the politics and struggles ongoing within wildlife management areas (WMAs) in Tanzania to discuss the dynamics of neoliberalization of the wildlife sector. We discuss neoliberalization as a new political-economic context within which the ongoing politics of natural resource management are played out, and focus on green grabbing as an expression of these politics. We discuss how local-level actors are engaged in these processes, often in strategic ways, to negotiate their roles within WMAs and address green grabbing by the state. Secondly, we discuss an example of the politics of land control and local-level actors’ enactment of accumulation by dispossession within a WMA.The arguments in this paper have benefited greatly from the many discussions that have taken place within the Political Ecology Research Group at the University of Cambridge. The authors would also like to thank Chris Sandbrook for useful comments on an earlier draft and three anonymous reviewers for their comments and recommendations, which have strengthened the arguments considerably. The map was reproduced by the Cartographic Unit, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge.This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Peasant Studies on 3 November 2014, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/03066150.2014.967686

Biodiversity offsetting and conservation: Reframing nature to save it

AbstractBiodiversity offsetting involves the balancing of biodiversity loss in one place (and at one time) by an equivalent biodiversity gain elsewhere (an outcome referred to as No Net Loss). The conservation science literature has chiefly addressed the extent to which biodiversity offsets can serve as a conservation tool, focusing on the technical challenges of its implementation. However, offsetting has more profound implications than this technical approach suggests. In this paper we introduce the concept of policy frames, and use it to identify four ways in which non-human nature and its conservation are reframed by offsetting. Firstly, offsetting reframes nature in terms of isolated biodiversity units that can be simply defined, measured and exchanged across time and space to achieve equivalence between ecological losses and gains. Secondly, it reframes biodiversity as lacking locational specificity, ignoring broader dimensions of place and deepening a nature–culture and nature–society divide. Thirdly, it reframes conservation as an exchange of credits implying that the value of non-human nature can be set by price. Fourthly, it ties conservation to land development and economic growth, foreshadowing and bypassing an oppositional position. We conclude that by presenting offsetting as a technical issue, the problem of biodiversity loss due to development is depoliticized. As a result the possibility of opposing and challenging environmental destruction is foreclosed, and a dystopian future of continued biodiversity loss is presented as the only alternative.This study was supported by a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (PIEF-GA-2013-622631) within the 7th European Community Framework Programme (Conservation and Ecosystem Services in the New Biodiversity Economy).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Cambridge University Press via https://doi.org//10.1017/S003060531500078

Neoliberal Capitalism and Conservation in the Post-crisis Era: The Dialectics of "Green" and "Un-green" Grabbing in Greece and the UK

“Green-grabbing”, in which environmental arguments support expropriation of land and resources, is a recognized element in neoliberal conservation. However, capitalism’s strategic interest in promoting the neoliberalization of conservation is accompanied by attempts to exploit hitherto protected natures without any pretence at “greenness”. In this paper we explore the dialectics between “green” and “un-green” grabbing as neoliberal strategies in the reconstruction of nature conservation policies after the 2008 financial “crash” in Greece and the UK. In both countries, accelerated neoliberalization is manifested in diverse ways, including initiatives to roll back conservation regulation, market-based approaches to “saving” nature and the privatization of public nature assets. The intensification of “green” and “un-green” grabbing reflects capitalism’s strategic interest in both promoting and obstructing nature conservation, ultimately leaving for “protected natures” two choices: either to be further degraded to boost growth or to be “saved” through their deeper inclusion as commodities visible to the market.This study was partly supported by an Aristeia Fellowship awarded to Dr Apostolopoulou by the Research Committee of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2013, and by Marie Curie Fellowship(PIEF-GA-2013-622631 CESINE.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anti.12102/abstract