SESSION 3 | CONVIVIAL CONSERVATION: OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS?

Session Organiser: Judith Krauss, Laila Sandroni and Mathew Bukhi Mabele

Session Abstract

Growing concerns regarding biodiversity loss, a changing climate and socio-economic inequalities have prompted widespread calls for transformative change in conservation (Wilson, 2016; Kareiva et al., 2012; Wyborn et al., 2020). However, many of these ‘radical’ approaches do not challenge underlying political-economic structures and processes, unlike the recently proposed ‘convivial conservation’ approach (Büscher and Fletcher, 2019, 2020).

Convivial conservation aspires to cross boundaries across diverse geographies to build a new vision of conservation centred on (bio)diversity, coexistence and social justice. However, its proposals are still being developed further and tested across diverse conservation challenges and contexts. In this panel, we take stock of the opportunities and limitations inherent in this approach both empirically and conceptually focusing on two themes, which recur in all papers: the modalities and politics of human-wildlife coexistence especially with predators, and the role of values and narratives in shaping conservation. The papers situate convivial conservation vis-à-vis the current intense debate on human-wildlife coexistence, while highlighting the roles of narratives, post-truth contexts and spectacles of nature in shaping conservation contexts. Points for discussion will include:

– How does convivial conservation apply to contexts of austerity, habitat fragmentation and human-wildlife conflict?
– How can an attention to different values and knowledges inside and outside academia contribute to generating space for more convivial conservation?
– How can convivial conservation engage with increasingly violent and authoritarian ecological politics, especially in the post-truth era?
– What blind spots in convivial conservation need to be addressed, and how?

PRESENTATIONS

Session abstract:

Spectacles, i.e. commodified images that mediate social relations, are omnipresent in discussions about nature, making human and nonhuman worlds and meanings, shaping funding and realities for those who live with conservation. For spectacle to work, however, there needs to be something within its focus that inspires a human desire for action or continued existence. Much of conservation, including the proposal of convivial conservation, is thus predicated on conserving  ‘loved’ others, i.e. those targeted for care rather than ‘unloved’ others, i.e. those disregarded or disliked. In two case-studies, we juxtapose unloved with much-loved others: spotted hyenas and lions in Tanzania, and grey and red squirrels in the UK, analysing policy documents, academic literature and Twitter. Our first research question asks whose world-making shapes spectacles of nature, showing the role of hegemonic paradigms, conservation organisations and policy-makers, often from the Global North. Secondly, we ask how spectacles of nature shape conservation funding and research, demonstrating their considerable influence on who is (not) highlighted. Finally, we ask how convivial conservation’s proposal of moving from spectacular to everyday environmentalism works with unloved others, highlighting that more research on this problematic, fluid dichotomy is needed.

Session abstract:

The term ‘coexistence’ is increasingly being used by academics and practitioners to reflect a re-conceptualisation of human-wildlife interactions (HWI). Coexistence has become a popular buzzword and is central to several proposals for transformative change in biodiversity conservation, including convivial conservation. Although ideas about how to achieve coexistence proliferate, critical exploration of the framing and use of the term is lacking. Through analysis of semi-structured interviews, webinars and online and offline documents, this paper critically interrogates how ‘coexistence’ is being conceptualised and translated into practice. We characterise coexistence as a boundary object that reflects a broadly agreed on ‘hopeful mission’, while being flexible enough to be meaningful for a wide range of actors. We identify three main framings of coexistence, which reflect the ways of knowing, values and approaches of different epistemic communities. We find that although the idea of coexistence has the potential to help facilitate transformative change in wildlife management, so far it largely manifests in practice as a positive-sounding label for standardised packages of tools and incentives. We argue that as the meaning of coexistence continues to be contested, there is an opportunity for activists, academics, and practitioners to reclaim its transformative roots. We identify a role for convivial conservation within this agenda: to re-politicise coexistence through the concept of ‘meaningful coexistence’.

Session abstract:

This paper analyses how and why alternative facts, bullshit (Frankfurt 2005) and misinformation emerge in the debates concerning wolves and their conservation in Finland, both offline and online. Rooted in political ecology, this research is based on (auto)ethnographically oriented fieldwork entailing participant observation in different formal and informal events, as well as semi-constructed interviews with 83 informants in Lieksa, at the eastern border of Finland, and discussions in a popular open Facebook group focused on large carnivore politics from 2018-2022. A central finding is that while critics of wolf conservation appear sceptical of conservation scientists, they also present their version of the reality, or what they claim or perceive to be the truth about wolves in Finland, in ways that mimic science. Alternative facts and bullshit may thus in certain situations and respects be seen as ways of trying to get fundamentally value-based critiques of the status quo to be heard.

Session abstract:

The Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest (AF) is one of the most biodiverse and fragmented ecosystems in the world, but preludes of restorations processes make it a possible ‘hopespot’. The conservation of large carnivores in anthropogenic landsacapes is an important challenge, on the one hand due to their ecological role as top predators, and on the other to the high potenciality of conflict with human populations. Numbers of Jaguars in the AF continue to decline and specialists estimate around 250 mature living adults in the whole biome. This critical situation gathered a complex network of scientists, NGOs and public institutions working towards saving the remaining Jaguars and recognizing priority areas for protection of the species. Departing from a stakeholder mapping process held in partnership with social actors directly connected to Jaguar conservation we have identified people and institutions that conform the Sociotechnical Network for Jaguar Conservation in the AF (StN-JC). In this paper, we aim to present the main issues at stake in this network, following the statements of their participants. We identify causes and solutions for the problem of Jaguar population decrease in the AF proposed by the people that are directly involved in trying to solve it, as well as possible funding mechanisms and knowledge gaps in their perspective that could help deal with this specific human-wildlife conflict. Finally, we compare visions present at the StN-JC in the AF with key aspects of the convivial conservation approach, especially regarding political economic factors that influence human-jaguar interactions in the AF.