Sustaining Diversity
Social Valuation of Species and Their Benefits Provision Capacity in Central Chile
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Iñigo Bidegain, Javiera Pantoja, Claudia Cerda, Sebastian Saa
Understanding the relations between humans and wildlife is a key topic in developing effective strategies in biodiversity conservation. One of the major points of this topic is to know the different criteria surrounding preferences for species in order to include those arguments in designing communication programs and policy making processes. In order to explore arguments behind public preferences for species, we conduct a study in an Andean sector in central Chile consulting locals and visitors (n=224) about their preferences for several species including native and exotic ones and about the capacity of those species in delivering different benefits. We aim to explore the relations between species that are preferred to be protected and species perceived as contributors to human well-being. Preliminary results show that species preferred to be protected are not necessarily those identified as the best providers of benefits to humans. Preferences for species to be protected seem to be guided by aesthetics and symbolic criteria. With our findings, we aim to contribute to the literature on human dimensions of wildlife which is scarce in Latin America.
Conservation of Borneo’s Critically Endangered Proboscis Monkeys
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Charles CC Lee, Tim Roberts
The proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) is a large Colobine locally known as “Bekantan” which is endemic to the island of Borneo. The proboscis is facing extinction and has been listed as an endangered species by the IUCN in 2010. The major threats to the proboscis’ survival is habitat destruction caused by logging, forest fires, mining, swamp reclamation, and plantation agriculture. The population of proboscis monkeys in all conservation areas in 1990 was estimated at around 5,000; the population has fallen by as much as 50% in 2018. In Pulau Kaget Nature Reserve, the proboscis faced local extinction due to the conversion of their “protected” habitat into agricultural land. This paper is focused on the progress of a proboscis monkey sanctuary at the Bekantan Research Station located on Curiak Island (Barito River, Kalimantan). It was established in 2015 by the Universitas Lambung Manjurat (ULM, Banjarmasin), and inaugurated in 2017 to conduct bekantan research and wetland ecosystems by the ULM Chancellor and faculty from the University of Newcastle (UON, Australia). For the first time, it was marked by a summer course of intensive activities with students from ULM and UON. Additionally, a bekantan conservation project (a collaboration of a coal mining company with local NGOs) was established to create an ecotourism development project at Bakut island. The eighteen hectare natural park, where sixty individuals remain, has shown a slow return of the proboscis monkey population to their original habitat, as well as numerous bird species.
Going With, or Against, Natural Ecologies: The Problematic of Sustainability Initiatives Set in Opposition to the Living World
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Susan Gerofsky
We expect environmental sustainability initiatives to work in harmony with natural ecologies. But many contemporary STEM-based sustainability projects oppose natural processes, based on assumptions of mind/body, human/non-human separation, and Western Modernist traditions of domination, command, and control. Technology is treated as the deus ex machina that ‘saves’ the world through dramatic, unlikely and narrowly-focused interventions, ignoring ecological contexts and harmful side effects. This approach focuses on unexamined, stereotypical goals, and industrialized, sci-fi solutions. Such projects may carry the exciting sparkle of innovation, but also set ‘Man against Nature’, opposing natural ecological processes in egregious, even ridiculous ways. They may do violence where they intend to do good. Epistemological traditions based in integration, relationship and ecological wisdom teach very different ways of doing sustainability. Indigenous epistemologies teach that all beings are our relations. Human survival is intimately connected with the well-being of all our relations. Other traditions including Taoism and Animism teach humans to go with the natural way of things rather than striving against the world. When such traditions are disregarded within STEM, practices of opposition to ecologies are given unwarranted credence. I offer examples from three areas in contemporary sustainability science and technology: (1) extreme agriculture projects (growing food in mineshafts and garages); (2) artificial photosynthesis using industrial chemicals; and (3) restoration of wildlife refuge habitats to an arbitrary period, despite potentially harmful practices. While acknowledging good intentions and small-scale innovative potential, I suggest other, wiser ways of moving forward in harmony with natural processes.
