Linking green militarization and critical military studies

The precipitous increase in commercial poaching across parts of Africa has been met by progressively more militarized responses. Amounting to green militarization, we now see national armies, increasingly paramilitarized rangers, military tactics, and even sophisticated military technology used to address the problem. Scholarly investigations on the topic have largely been approached from a political ecology perspective and hence have not made connections with the equally relevant field of critical military studies (CMS). We see this as a missed opportunity. This paper is thus an early attempt to begin forging these connections. At the most general level, we introduce green militarization – as a practice and realm of scholarly debate – into CMS. By bringing in environmental conservation and non-human nature, this offers a broader view into the vast areas of nominally civilian life that are increasingly militarized, a defining interest of CMS. Second, we draw from core CMS insights – especially regarding the link between development and security – to grasp changing practices and trends in green militarization. In particular, we illustrate how the recent shift towards softer militarized approaches amounts to poaching-related soft counter-insurgency, which we capture in the concept of the conservation–security–development nexus. Here, communities become the object of development interventions to ‘win hearts and minds’ and prevent their involvement in poaching, thereby neutralizing the security threats poaching might pose. We close by suggesting future areas of intersection between CMS and the political-ecological work on green militarization in hopes of inciting a deeper engagement

Buffalo Reading List

This reading list gathers together literature focused on buffalo (also known as bison) to support ongoing efforts to restore this iconic species to its keystone cultural and ecological role. The books and articles compiled here are grounded in a wide range of academic disciplines and approaches, representing many distinct ways of thinking about buffalo within the realm of Western sciences. This is not intended to be an exhaustive account of what is known about buffalo, much of which is held in Indigenous knowledge systems and communities. This academic list is designed as a resource for those working towards buffalo restoration, including conservation practitioners, researchers, parks and government officials, and Tribal communities. It is divided into categories according to either discipline or thematic focus, each containing a subset of pertinent literature. Topics include the paleobiology of bison, histories of buffalo loss, relationships between Indigenous Peoples and buffalo, buffalo restoration and reintroduction, buffalo ecology, buffalo and climate change, governance and human dimensions of buffalo, bison and cattle, bison as livestock, and the genetics of bison. This list is intended as a living document to grow with the increasingly rich scholarship on buffalo, and will be updated regularly

Half-Earth or Whole Earth? Radical ideas for conservation, and their implications

AbstractWe question whether the increasingly popular, radical idea of turning half the Earth into a network of protected areas is either feasible or just. We argue that this Half-Earth plan would have widespread negative consequences for human populations and would not meet its conservation objectives. It offers no agenda for managing biodiversity within a human half of Earth. We call instead for alternative radical action that is both more effective and more equitable, focused directly on the main drivers of biodiversity loss by shifting the global economy from its current foundation in growth while simultaneously redressing inequality.</jats:p

Protecting people and wildlife from the potential harms of drone use in biodiversity conservation: interdisciplinary dialogues

In this policy intervention, we recount the process of producing a policy briefing targeting researchers and practitioners who use drones in biodiversity conservation. We use the writing process as a springboard to think through the ways that interdisciplinary exchange has and might further inform the ethical use of new technologies, such as drones. This approach is vital, we argue, because while drones may be deployed as tools that enable or empower forest, wildlife or habitat monitoring practices, so too can they be variously disruptive, repurposed and/or exceed these applications in significant ways. From questions of surveillance and capture, data ownership and security, to noise disruption, drone use requires careful and critical reflection, particularly in sensitive contexts. Yet, interdisciplinary exchange attentive to the ethical, social and experiential dimensions of drone use remains patchy and thin. To this end, this intervention reflects on the process of a group of scholars from ecological, environmental and social science backgrounds coming together in an interdisciplinary project grappling with diverse issues around responsible conservation drone use. After recounting our methodology, including the surprises and learning that emerged in practice, we contextualise the key themes we chose to foreground in our published policy briefing. We conclude by connecting our collaboration with wider actions and energies in the context of existing (conservation) drone policy and practice, while underscoring our contributions to existing work

Transnational environmental crime threatens sustainable development

Transnational environmental crime has become the largest financial driver of social conflict, with severe implications for peace and security. Sustainable-development frameworks need to overtly recognize and mitigate the risks posed by transnational environmental crime to environmental security

Proteomic Analysis of Human Skin Treated with Larval Schistosome Peptidases Reveals Distinct Invasion Strategies among Species of Blood Flukes

Schistosome parasites are a major cause of disease in the developing world, but the mechanism by which these parasites first infect their host has been studied at the molecular level only for S. mansoni. In this paper, we have mined recent genome annotations of S. mansoni and S. japonicum, a zoonotic schistosome species, to identify differential expansion of peptidase gene families that may be involved in parasite invasion and subsequent migration through skin. Having identified a serine peptidase gene family in S. mansoni and a cysteine peptidase gene family in S. japonicum, we then used a comparative proteomic approach to identify potential substrates of representative members of both classes of enzymes from S. mansoni in human skin. The results of this study suggest that while these species evolved to use different classes of peptidases in host invasion, both are capable of cleaving components of the epidermis and dermal extracellular matrix, as well as proteins involved in the host immune response against the migrating parasite