Recommendations against dolphinaria in India: based on worldwide scientific research on the welfare of dolphins in captivity

"This document is to serve as a guide for government agencies and other relevant authorities by providing a brief overview of significant global research studies on the welfare of captive cetacean populations with special emphasis on bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.), that are held in Dolphinaria worldwide. The information presented here, provides a strong case against the keeping of these marine mammals in captivity and can provide government authorities with relevant data to refuse permission to those organisations, government bodies and individuals who propose to set up such captive facilities in India. The objectives of this document are to present in brief, the current known proposals for Dolphinaria in India, followed by an overview of the existing national policies and legalities related to the capture, import and display of cetacean species.

Recommendations against dolphinaria in India: based on worldwide scientific research on the welfare of dolphins in captivity

"This document is to serve as a guide for government agencies and other relevant authorities by providing a brief overview of significant global research studies on the welfare of captive cetacean populations with special emphasis on bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.), that are held in Dolphinaria worldwide. The information presented here, provides a strong case against the keeping of these marine mammals in captivity and can provide government authorities with relevant data to refuse permission to those organisations, government bodies and individuals who propose to set up such captive facilities in India. The objectives of this document are to present in brief, the current known proposals for Dolphinaria in India, followed by an overview of the existing national policies and legalities related to the capture, import and display of cetacean species.

Towards informed and multi-faceted wildlife trade interventions

International trade in wildlife is a key threat to biodiversity conservation. CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, is the primary mechanism for controlling international wildlife trade and seeks to ensure it is sustainable, relying on trade bans and controls. However, there has been little comprehensive review of the effectiveness of CITES. Here, we review typical and atypical approaches taken to regulate wildlife trade in CITES and assert that it boasts few successes. We attribute this to: non-compliance, an over reliance on regulation, lack of knowledge of listed species, ignorance of the reality of market forces, and influence among CITES actors. To more effectively manage trade we argue that interventions need to go beyond regulation and should be multi-faceted, reflecting the complexity of wildlife trade. To inform such interventions we assert an intensive research effort is needed and we outline six key research areas: (1) factors undermining wildlife trade governance at the national level, (2) determining sustainable harvest rates for CITES species, (3) gaining the buy-in of local communities in implementing CITES, (4) supply and demand based market interventions, (5) means of quantifying illicit trade, and (6) political processes and influence within CITES

“Older-wiser-lesbians” and “baby-dykes”: mediating age and generation in New Queer Cinema

Representations of intersections of gender, age, and sexuality can reveal deep-rooted cultural anxieties about older women and sexuality. Images of lesbian ageing are of particular interest in terms of alterity, as the old/er queer woman can combine layers of otherness—not only is she the cultural “other” within heteronormativity, but she can also appear as the opposite of popular culture’s lesbian chic. In this article, a cultural analysis of a range of films—If These Walls Could Talk 2 (dir. Anderson, Coolidge, and Heche 2000), Itty Bitty Titty Committee (dir. Babbit 2007), The Owls (dir. Dunye 2010), Hannah Free (dir. Carlton 2009), and Cloudburst (dir. Fitzgerald 2011)—considers diverse dramatisations of lesbian generations. This article interrogates to what extent alternative cinemas deconstruct normative conceptualisations of ageing. Drawing on recent critiques of post-feminist culture, and a range of feminist and age/ing studies scholarship, it suggests that a linear understanding of ageing and the generational underlies dominant depictions of oppositional binaries of young versus old, of generational segregation or rivalry, and the othering of age. It concludes that non-linear understandings of temporality and ageing contain the potential for New Queer Cinema to counteract such idealisations of youthfulness, which, it argues, is one of the most deep-rooted manifestations of (hetero)normativity

The zoo inquiry

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:98/23283 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Poaching is more than an enforcement problem

Today record levels of funding are being invested in enforcement and anti-poaching measures to tackle the “war on poaching,” but many species are on the path to extinction. In our view, intensifying enforcement effort is crucial, but will ultimately prove an inadequate long-term strategy with which to conserve high-value species. This is because: regulatory approaches are being overwhelmed by the drivers of poaching and trade, financial incentives for poaching are increasing due to rising prices and growing relative poverty between areas of supply and centres of demand, and aggressive enforcement of trade controls, in particular bans, can increase profits and lead to the involvement of organised criminals with the capacity to operate even under increased enforcement effort. With prices for high-value wildlife rising, we argue that interventions need to go beyond regulation and that new and bold strategies are needed urgently. In the immediate future, we should incentivise and build capacity within local communities to conserve wildlife. In the medium term, we should drive prices down by reexamining sustainable off-take mechanisms such as regulated trade, ranching and wildlife farming, using economic levers such as taxation to fund conservation efforts, and in the long-term reduce demand through social marketing programs