Community Conversation | Seeing and Doing Conservation Through Cultural Lenses

And I'm super excited to have um Dr. Richard Peterson here with us today to talk about um conservation through a cultural lens. I I do recognize some of the names here. So I'm glad to see you all here today. Um Dr. Peterson is a professor of environmental studies at the University of New England. He holds an interdisciplinary doctorate in environmental studies centered in environmental anthropology and environmental ethics and is author of the book con conversations in the rainforest culture values in the environment in central Africa. So I'm really excited to hand this over to Rick and um please keep your questions um in the chat and we will try to address them at the end and Ashley will read them in order. If you have any other questions, just throw them in the chat. But, um, if you're ready, I'll hand it over to you. >> I am ready. Thank you very much, Jane. Thank you, Ashley. Thank you, Maine, uh, Sierra Club, for inviting me to have this community conversation with people that are interested and involved in conservation. It's great. Uh, my talk stems from a symposium that was held at Antioch University. The symposium was entitled conservation without borders, the impact of conservation on human communities and papers from the symposium later came out in a special feature of the journal environmental management. And there it was under the heading conservation without borders building communication and action across disciplinary boundaries for effective conservation. The symposium brought together conservation researchers and practitioners who utilized diverse disciplinary lenses to together consider how they might more effectively collaborate for a more integrated approach to tackling conservation challenges. The symposium focused on four types of lenses: ecological, anthropological, economic, and political. And my task at the symposium was to summarize what conservation looks like when viewed through a cultural lens and to provide an introduction as to how my field approaches conservation. So drawing on that symposium talk today I want to offer a few some perspectives on conservation from my field of anthropology. But first a couple caveats and first there is no one cultural lens. There are of course many fields that approach conservation through cultural lenses though perhaps the field of anthropology comes to mind. But even within anthropology there are many different cultural lenses. Their shape and hue is influenced by theoretical preferences by the multiplicity of methods that are utilized in doing cultural research by the idiosyncrasies of individual cultural researchers. Thus my pluralistic title cultural lenses and that also means secondly that this overview will not be definitive cannot speak for all of anthropology. It is instead uh much more humble in scope. It's it's one cultural researcher's insights on what employing a cultural lens has meant for his work and most of my work has taken place in central and east Africa. And secondly, maybe a bit more ambitious is some general concerns that many anthropologists hold with respect to conservation. Not just critiques, but also contributions that the discipline of anthropology might be able to make to the task of conservation. I'll conclude with several concrete examples of conservation projects that are integrating multiple disciplinary lenses in their work um to foster a more just and and lasting conservation. So let me begin with some vantage points from my own experience and my experience goes back a long ways now. Um boy it's hard to remember these times. I was I really started out in conservation by studying the okapi which is a rainforest giraffe that's only found in the forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo. And so I was doing okapi research with the New York Zoological Society but having been uh with a background of anthropology I kept being drawn to the human issues that were affecting the Turi forest and that big one was human immigration into the forest. So I I did a study on human immigration um and that became my masters at the University of Wisconsin. Um but as I began as I worked more and more with these issues on the ground, it it was very clear to me that there was a lot of tension between conservationists and local people. Uh not just tension but conflicts. And so I was really spurred to to try to understand what was at the root of those conflicts. and that became my my PhD work. Um, so here are some some vantage points if you will that that comes out of that experience. And the first is that conservation conflicts are deeply rooted in culture. They're deeply rooted in the fundamentally different ways that different actors in the conservation drama perceive, value, and use the natural world. conservationists mission tends to be driven by values and perceptions that are inherent in in western conservation science and culture. We conserve to protect a scientific laboratory to to stem global warming uh to preserve wilderness to save species. Local inhabitants of conservation areas may conserve driven by a very different worldview. They may see the environment as a source of their life. um the source of their life materially but also culturally a source of sustenance but also a source of their cultural identity. So to res to resolve conflicts we need to identify and and negotiate these valuebased assumptions that underly perceptions and uses of nature for all the different actors in the conservation drama. And that leads to a second vantage point. To to do this type of of value identification, we we need to go beyond empirical research to include investigation into culturally defined religious, spiritual, metaphysical realms that shape the relationship between humans and land. We need to take very seriously people's beliefs about the environment or about spiritual forces that affect their relationship to the environment. And and this will require a shift in methodology. One one that entails respect for respect and and greater understanding of the non-verifiable, the the subjective, even we might say the numinous in addition to the more traditional realms of empirical data. A third vantage point that builds on this is is looking what is there locally. What resources for conservation can be found within the local culture. We need to look beyond the lens of the models that that were that we're familiar with to see what can be learned from local people from their ancestral traditions from what is called indigenous ecological knowledge. Not to romanticize these sources but neither to neglect or dismiss them. Instead, I like to think of approaching them in the spirit of what the Akan people of Ghana call sanka, which is drawing on the past to prepare for the future. We need to grapple with the question of where do western and indigenous approaches to conservation, where do they complement each other? Where does each need to be corrected? And and how do conservationists and local people negotiate the power to decide this? And that means we need to listen to local people. We need to hear local voices speak. Too often in the conservation research that I've seen a lot of in in the writing and practice, the real men and women with whom we conduct fieldwork completely disappear beneath theoretical discourses and abstractions. And yet, when it comes to conservation, getting at local people's perceptions of their environmental situation holds the most promise for understanding people's actions toward the natural world and perhaps for encouraging changes in those actions. And and this demands that we include their voices as well as our own. That we put their words into our publications as well as our own. That we honor knowledge from their texts as well as from ours. So those are four uh lessons that I've sort of learned from my experience. But let me go a little bit more broadly now and share some concerns and some contributions from a wider uh community of cultural researchers. A lot of this work draws uh a lot of this comes from work that was done by the conservation and community working group within the anthropology and environment section of the American anthropological association and that group was convened by my co-authors of the environmental management paper Dr. Peter Peter Brochious at the University of Georgia who sadly just passed away. It was a huge blow, a real champion and leading figure in the field of environmental anthropology. He died about a month ago. Um, another co-author is Paige West at Barnard College and and Diane Russell um who until recently was a consultant with USAD. members of this working group really well represented a wealth of knowledge and experience in environmental anthropology. Um and so this uh comes from a lot a wide array of people doing work all over different parts of the world. But here are first some some general some concerns four four general concerns and then 10 contributions that the field of of environmental anthropology might be able to offer conservation. First concern has to do with noticing uh a certain backlash against participatory conservation. Now successfully balancing human needs with conservation needs is really hard. Really hard. Participatory conservation models that have been used have often been discarded after a while because of the perceived failure that they don't aren't adequately conserving biodiversity. Such perceived failure can sometimes reinvigorate earlier, more authoritarian conservation models that are based more on co coercion and expropriation than on collaboration. Often the blame for this failure, this perceived failure is often laid on the communities themselves. Whereas it's very if we look at more deeply it's whether community- based conservation fails or succeeds depends on a complex interplay of a of a host of variables including things like colonial the colonial histories and communities historical encounters with conservation communities historically governed degrees of sovereignty and political clout. the nature of the roles that have been played by indigenous NOS's and other civil society actors and and and further certainly failure or success of community-based approaches to conservation is due to far more complex causes than simply local inadequacy or a local lack of conservation values. cultural lens approaches can help provide more of the desperately needed in-depth understanding of these really complex interlink causes. And and finally, just because something is difficult and complex does not mean it should be abandoned. Maybe the advice that the only remedy for love is to love more applies here. The only solution to successful participatory conservation is to participate more fully and complexely in the process of building more appropriate, stronger, and more reliable local institutions in support of conservation. But but this is a conservation whose meaning has been carefully negotiated among local and non-local actors who agree to share power. A second concern has to do with the the poor quality of social research. Conservation organizations seeking to employ participatory models often find the mandate for greater community participation rubbing really hard against their API sense of urgency which tends to encourage the use of pretty fast-paced formalistic social research protocols that that focus more on identifying threats or getting data about local communities rather than develop veloping rapport with them. And participatory research when it does occur often falls into what has been called the stakeholder syndrome where local communities needs, concerns and sentiment sentiments get get reduced to interests to be bargained and balanced at the table. we need to incorporate a more holistic and and a longer term social research methods and and do so more upfront more from the beginning rather than waiting until things go ary. And one way to do this rather than depend on various expat professionals to carry out some of these rapid appraisal techniques perhaps we can do longer term research by involving local students and local NOS's such as those shown here on the right. These are university students. Um, it's a lot more cost-effective for conservation and it and it helps to build local capacity. A third concern that many anthropologists share has to do with the emergence of what are called eco-reional conservation models. It's also known by various rubrics. Eco regional planning, landscape level conservation, transboundary protected areas. Expanding the scale of conservation conservation has both enabled and also been enabled by the rapid growth of geospatial data gathering technologies such as rapid ecological assessment, gap analysis, geographic information systems and more recently geo AI and Google Earth Engine. And now there are a lot of good reasons to expand conservation planning and action beyond the park or the reserve to the ecosystem scale. But this increase in scale and the increased dependence on on computerized technologies can also encourage uh more of a top-down conservation approach and privilege large transnational conservation organizations over grassroots conservation initiatives. increases this this expansion of scale increases distance between those who hold power in conservation decision-m and those who are living in and with the ecosystem that are earmarked for conservation. It it increases distance in two distinct ways. This increased dependence on technology as an intermediary can lead conservationists to spend a lot more time working with with maps, with computer programs, with concept maps, with large abstracted data sets than working with local people. The larger scale also precludes the amount of attention that can be afforded to particular places and communities. and it it distances conservation planners from seeing being able to see the effects of their decisions and interventions. Related to this is a fourth concern and that has to do with power and decision- making especially within large international conservation organizations. And and this this concern prompts anthropologists to to encourage research that gets into this question of who really holds the power. We need to pay more attention to how big conservation does business and do we need to find ways to challenge the power imbalances and the inequities that can lead sometimes to investments that favor the privileged over the poor and the marginalized. We also need to we also anthropologists are often often concerned by the lack of reflexivity that they can see within large conservation organizations. For instance, investment in local capacity building is often considered to be really expensive. But rarely do budgets for travel, for conferences, for glossy publications, for even for Land Rovers where rarely do those get questioned. All right. Anthropologists have a reputation and insified for being quick to point out what is wrong and slow to offer concrete advice on what could be better. Now I think this is changing as anthropologists are increasingly getting involved in policym and developing also developing stronger programs for training anthropologists in applied research and practice including the practice of conservation. One example of this is the center for integrated conservation research at the University of Georgia that was founded by my colleague Dr. Peter Brushes. It's its PhD program in integrative conservation. Um that's the degree title and this is taken from their website. It rests on quote the intentional training in the founding principles of pluralism, reflexivity, complexity, and context in order to empower students to see beyond their own perspectives and work more justly and inclusively on conservation and sustainability challenges. And a key part of the program is for students to actually work directly with conservation practitioners as partners whether through internships or through collaborative research projects. So in keeping with this shift towards anthropological engagement, I want to give 10 10 policy features of a conservation model. All of those features build on the contributions that cultural lens perspectives have to offer. So first of all, such a model would be characterized by a welldeveloped social definition of conservation. And this would be a definition that complements the ecological or biological definitions of conservation by articulating the roles that individuals and social groups play, the roles that they play in conservation practice in addition to the roles of of ecological phenomenon. Such a definition would also enlarge the circle of of what needs to be conserved and what gets defined as a conservation issue. For instance, it could link conservation to other socioecological issues such as soil and water degradation or the loss of traditional food crops. This entails validating and encouraging local small-cale conservation efforts to achieve a better balance of power between among conservation actors through integrating human interests and social justice concerns with conservation. A second feature of this model would be a greater channeling of money to the to the grassroots of resources inter international conservation. And don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in international conservation, but you need to make sure that these efforts don't that they support rather than user local institutions and organizations. Instead of introducing new conservation initiatives from the outside, we need to first learn about and build on and replicate the networks of conservationoriented community organizations that already exist on the ground. And these can be based within universities, local universities, within local technical schools, sometimes within religious organizations, certainly within civil society. And our job in this model would be to then really focus on how do we link these grassroots efforts together from from these different sectors. How do we link them with each other and how do we link them with conservation initiatives that are at a broader scale. A third feature of this model would be to incorporating an analysis that weaves the understanding of local systems with a larger scale question of power dynamics. This type of analytical framework can help conservationists really get at what are the root causes of conservation challenges um such as shown here uh the the cause of encroachment into protected areas. How how do we get at the root causes? How do we situate equity and power concerns within larger political and historical contexts? And this can provide a means to sort out what is the distribution of present and future benefits and costs of conservation initiatives such as is being done in this paper on a case in Tanzania in the eastern arc mountains of Tanzania. A fourth feature of this model is a really strong collaboration authentic collaboration between science and local ecological knowledge. We need to recognize and respect local science. Acknowledge western science is not the only valid source of information about ecological systems. Conversely, scientific methods can be incorporated into the practice of local knowledge systems to create a relationship that is one of mutual enrichment, a two-way exchange of learning that enhances conservation effectiveness. One encouraging sign of that is this just very new creation at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The NSF National Science Foundation has created the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledge and Science. Um I think they've been reading Robin Wall Kimber uh who is one of the most outstanding I think um scientists indigenous people who is showing how this can actually be done. Her book braiding sweetg grass is full of insights um and wisdom on how do we put science and indigenous ecological knowledge together. A fifth feature of this model is that it would it would recognize and try to rectify what are sometimes pretty naive assumptions about this tricky word community. We need a more complex understanding of what the community what it entails. Recognizing that communities are not homogeneous. They're not monolithic. They're not even chummy. power relations, greed, factionalism, they're found at all levels of social organization in all cultures. And yet, this refusal to romanticize the community should not lead us to forsake the need to center conservation initiatives around those whose livelihoods depend on the ecosystems that we're seeking to conserve. As complex as local communities are, we still need to take time. Take time to build authentic rapport and relationship that leads to a greater awareness of local conservation practices and beliefs which is the foundation of any initiative. A sixth feature is this model would embed land history within conservation planning. We need it would be built on trying to deepen our understanding of the anthropogenic nature of so-called pristine areas recognizing that humans have been living with and in these so-called wildernesses for generations. As you see on the picture on the right, which is the Tur primary primary Tur rainforest um in in the foreground is a banana plant a banana garden. The fact that such seemingly pristine yet long inhabited areas remain significantly intact opens questions, really important questions as to how human societies have played and still play positive ecological roles in the functioning of ecosystems. Conversely, land histories can help us understand how various social ills such as war, subjugation, poverty, illness, how these have worked to desoil landscapes. And this is a means of clarifying the socopolitical causes of degradation that go beyond simplistic attributions of degradation to humans as a species. As I've talked about the seven uh seventh feature would be a this model would employ ethnography and case study analysis up upfront would do it early in the process. Yet we need to be wary of simply transcribing methods used in the natural sciences onto the investigation of social phenomenon. For example, sole dependence on quantitative surveys may may yield skewed results and rarely can those types of surveys capture the nuanced complexity of social issues that impact conservation. An eighth feature would be of this model would be to question how images of local communities get woven into what are sometimes called crisis narratives. This model would would examine and and cross-check both the positive and and the negative characterizations of local people whether as poachers, as threats, as naive, as wise, as ecologically minded. We need to check these against the reality of people's lives. We need to listen for and hear how >> listen >> define and describe themselves. How their >> conform to or contradict such descriptions and how they define threats. >> How rather rather than just us define threats, how do they define threats, environmental or otherwise? A ninth feature would be to try to articulate and promote a more expanded definition of what constitutes conservation success. Now, accurate measures of conservation success, whether in regard to biodiversity conserved or the level of socioecological well-being, accurate measures are impossible without the contributions from the people who are living with and using those rivers, um those forests, those seas. It's important to recognize that conservation success will have different meanings even within one culture or one population. So we need to ask this model would ask what are the social and cultural parameters in addition to the ecological ones that might indicate success and how might how might we measure them effectively and institutionalize them as parts of conservation assessment. We we need to make the social and cultural success as constitutive as any other measures of conservation success. And the 10th and final feature of this model would be that it really strives to maintain a distinction between local views and our own views on conservation. We we must not try to speak for local people or conflate our views with theirs. We need to recognize and respect local disagreement with our own conclusions and points of view. We need to create space for and refrain from facilitating over difference, discord, even antagonism, and instead see these very normal and true-to-life realities within any community as sources for further understanding, further learning. So those are 10 features. Now our paper in environmental management came out some time ago and while the themes we we touched on remain I think relevant very relevant today there's also been many positive changes in both the way conservation is being done and in the transdisciplinary collaboration for conservation. And let me conclude here with a few snapshots of conservation projects and initiatives that embody these positive sorts of change. And the first is back in my area of research in the DRC um the reser deon aokapi or okapi wildlife reserve in the forest. Um you can see in the map there I hope that it's in the northeast corner. Um the the reserve was established in 1992 and it operated for quite some time under a pretty top-down authoritarian model of conservation. But in the years following the DRC's calamitous wars in the late 90s and early 2000s, the conservation model at in the began to change to adopt more of a community-based conservation approach. the Okapi Conservation Project, the Wildlife Conservation Society, who are working in partnership with the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature, they've all continued to build a form of conservation in the Aturi that that really does appear to include sincere efforts to to listen to, to to collaborate with, and to even to provide benefits for the communities that surround the reserve. Such efforts include assistance with farming techniques with crop varieties, provision of seeds and tools, creation of demonstration agroforestry gardens to disseminate knowledge and practice of agroforestry as a means to slow the c the the um deforestation in the area. the construction of clean water sources in various villages around the reserve. Um, and working with the with already established women's associations that are already there on the ground, working with them to to build microenterprises such as tailoring that allows them some to gain some income and again not to have to put so much economic pressure on the forest. They are they are involved in constructing health clinics and programs to support health care. And most recently they've taken an really active role in the efforts to stem the spread of Ebola which is happening right in that very area including educating about the virus and provision of life-saving preventive measures such as there shown in the lower left corner. Now these community-based efforts, it may still be quite distant from the ideal of community- based conservation in which power and ownership of conservation goals, means, and decision-m lies primarily in the hands of those for whom the forest is home. However, these conservationbased community efforts do represent a real sea change from the style of conservation these organizations employed during the early years of the reserve. And there are the these methods are still being employed despite the really excruciating challenges facing the region. Not just Ebola, but a lot of um a lot of violence, a lot of militia operating in the area, a lot of gold mining, poaching, really incredibly hard work, and yet they've maintained this community-based approach. A second example comes from Kenya and that is uh the South Rift Association of Land Owners or Soralo. Soral was founded in 2004. It's a it's quite unique. It's an organization that's rooted in the Masai communities of Kenya's South Rift. Their vision is to achieve and maintain a healthy and connected South Rift landscape in which communities and wildlife thrive. And their mission is to enable communities to support and be supported by that coexistence. And they they do this by by deliberatively melding long-held Messiah cultural wisdom, values, and ecological knowledge with modern conservation science. It's a very community-driven organization. It's it seeks to conserve this semi-nomeadic pastoral lifestyle of the Masai while at the same time preserving ecological health and preserving wildlife. And this is on one of the very last areas of intact communal lands in southern Kenya. And and their work allows the preservation of of an ecological corridor, an ecological connectivity to the the neighboring areas as you see on the map. To the east is the ambuselli and Tsavo ecosystems and to the west is the Masamara. So their work is connecting this corridor between this whole southern near the whole southern border of Kenya. um they are really putting take what they call a community first approach and and this goes as far as saying, you know, we're willing to help communities champion their own causes on their own terms. Um even if those don't directly or immediately align with Soral's conservation goals. Now, that's pretty radical. But they do this because they they of they have seen how the Messiah living in this area and being completely dependent on its on the on the ecosystems health to sustain their way of life that member communities of Soral are already deeply appreciate the values of maintaining a healthy and integral landscape. So they trust those re those those communities and try to aid them to achieve their goals. And they they they using Messiah ecological knowledge with conservation science has meant taking on projects that one might not immediately associate with conservation such as working with again women led grassland seed banks as you see in the lower left picture to restore degraded rangeands and also provide income for for women from the seed sales to help their families build economic resilience. managing human wildlife conflicts through the use of indigenous wildlife tracking of the Messiah. But they combine that with with AI tools with camera traps or with radio telemetries to advise MSAI herders where to move their cattle to avoid predation, integrating both indigenous ecological knowledge and science and conservation science in a really really creative way. and they're they're this organization is constantly invol evolving. It's a very exciting organization. I've been fortunate to be part of and to help create opportunities for my students to be able to to be part of their work. Um we used to go to the Masai Mara at the end of a course that I taught in Kenya, but then switched to Soralo and it was a sea change in the students ability to be able to really see how community based conservation operates. A third example is not so much a project as a gathering and that is was the 12th World Wilderness Congress that took place in August of 2024 in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Uh this is the most recent world wilderness conquer congress that has been organized princely prince all of them have been organized by what the wild foundation but this one brought together delegates from more than 50 indigenous nations and from 36 countries to try to re reimagine what wilderness might look like through the lens of traditional cultural knowledge and to explore relationships. real focus on relationships that bind people, place, culture, and the living world. The Congress proceedings were recently published. They're available online. There are 24 peer-reviewed papers. Um in they deal with four thematic areas. Indigenous perspectives and global stewardship, reing, values, meanings, and relevance of wilderness. the methods and approaches for managing social and ecological systems. And finally, collaboration, partnership, and community conservation. This was one of the largest international conservation symposia that has been ever been hosted by indigenous peoples. And what makes this congress unique was placing indigenous knowledge and leadership and perspectives at the very center of the gathering rather than at the margins, rather than simply a panel. It it really invited participants to seek to understand wilderness in new ways. Not simply as a place or an ecological system but as a web a web of relationships, responsibilities and ways of knowing. Final example comes right comes from Maine and that is two organizations first light and the Wabanaki Commission on Land and Stewardship. First Light is a collective of non-native land trusts and conservation organizations. They've been working since 2017 with the Wabanaki Commission on Land and Stewardship to try to create a means by which Wabanaki people can expand their access, their ownership, and their management of important conservation land across the Wabanaki homeland that has become the state of Maine. They like to talk about their work as operating at the speed of trust. And together, these two organizations are in the process right now of returning 50,000 acres to Wabanaki communities, comprising 11 distinct projects that are collectively known as the tributary tributary land returns. Their process is shaped by really really slow and really careful building of relation relationships of trust between non-native land trusts and conservation organizations and the people of the dawn land. They recognize that colonization is a structure not an event and therefore that the repairing and of the ongoing harms of centuries of dispossession and extraction require structural solutions. Push Light's programs are centered on a three-step process of relearning, reentering, and returning. Re relearning involves organizations in actually taking courses to relearn the history of the land that they care for and to rethink how they can change their systems to support Wabanaki land access, stewardship, and return. Recentering involves first recognizing how Babanaki have been removed and excluded from shared landscapes and then to bring their voices, their knowledge, their history back to the center of land relationships and returning involves centering the Wabanaki Commission on Land and Stewardship and directing the process really taking control of the process of returning land or land access to Wabanaki peoples and communities. There's also involves a a distribution redistribution of wealth encouraging land land trusts and conservation organizations to contribute to what translates as the quote let us take good care of what is returned fund. That fund provides grants that are administered by the commission to Wabanaki people and institutions to help them fulfill their caretaking responsibilities for the lands and waters of Maine. So these are just four examples. I'm sure there are many I know there are many other exciting things that are happening in the world of conservation to make it a more just ecological concept and practice. And I'm sure many of you probably know of other similar initiatives that are taking place. In closing, it's really important to recognize that that visa be the forces that are driving the loss of both biological and cultural diversity under economic globalization and neoliberalism, the advocates for conservation and the advocates for the rights of local or indigenous communities were pretty weak. And therefore, it's so important that our voices for conservation, whether coming from scientists or from indigenous people, not be diminished by a reluctance to work with and through our differences. That reluctance can only heighten our comparative weakness. There is a vital place for difference, for disagreement, for distinction between various lenses. But more than ever, we need civil and constructive dialogue. We need collaboration and open-mindedness. We need humility and a willingness to appreciate and employ the gifts that each lens can offer our collective struggle. Let me close with this quote that was issued jointly by my friend Kent Redford, a leading conservation biologist, and my colleague Peter Brochious, a leading environmental anthropologist. They write, "Such conflicts pitting weak defenders of cultural diversity against weak defenders of biological diversity do not provide the sort of model needed to slow the advance of homogenization. In the face of the broadscale homogenization of the world, individual dimensions of diversity most treasured by a given group are being saved with often little attention to the broader context within which homogenization is advancing. If we are to hold the homogousene at bay, a starting point must be to recognize that it is not simply discrete distinct dimensions of diversity that are at risk, but rather the fabric that binds these dimensions into the intricate pattern of life's rich tapestry. What is needed is an appreciation for diversity as composed not of single discrete entities but as an intertwined complexity of natural and cultural dimensions with both pattern and process. Biological and cultural diversity rely on one another and losing one or the other can create conditions for the erosion of both. Thank you very much. I really enjoyed having this conversation with you. I'm happy to take any questions that might uh might be there. >> Thank you so much, Rick. That was really informative and inspiring and I personally really loved the solutionoriented presentation. Um I really appreciate that. Um, for questions, Molly had a question about applications in Maine, but she notes that you did answer that at the end. Um, there are no other questions in the chat, so I'm going to use my power to ask my own. Um, it's a three-parter, but what is the average rate of participation in communities and how does that change over time? And then on top of that, are there any specific patterns or markers that predict retention rate of community participation in conservation projects? >> Uh I am not able to give you figures on average rate of participation. Uh I think it varies tremendously. It it depends um I think a lot on the degree of trust that communities feel with external conservation actors. Uh the amount of time that external conservation actors have taken in developing rapport and relationships. Um I think the the pattern might be that the more effort and expertise that is given to those cultivation of relationships of trust the um the more you're going to see participate uh community buy in and community participation not just as as people who you know whose interests are being respected but as as really fellow actors in the process where power is shared with them and they take um a leading role in in sort of helping conservation become a more just process. Um so it's really as I said it's really hard work. There's no way around it. Um but but I'm I'm encouraged as I tried to indicate just by seeing the change in the project that I'm most familiar with which is in the Aturi forest in Congo and and um and how that's changed over time. So and and and organizations like Soralo, I mean just it's just such a radical different approach than what is sometimes called fortress conservation where conservation is sort of instituted from from without um to really be built on on local foundations. Um, so I think the patterns and markers are are really have to do with how much time and effort is given to establishing relationships of trust because people will tell if you're if you're people local people will be able to tell if you're full of BS. Um, they'll tell that they'll know that right away. Um, and they'll know right away, you know, are these is this real? are they do they really want to collaborate with us on this project? Do they really want to share power? Um and when when that is not there then often times conservation projects go ary. They don't work or or or you get this backlash where oh participatory conservation didn't work. We're going to come in with a much more authoritarian model. Um I think that's happening less and less. Um I think that conservation based community based conservation is getting more and more sophisticated um more and more robust more and more more and more respected. Um I really encouraged by organizations such as one at the University of Georgia that is really training anthropologists to um to get involved in in making and working with rather than just critiquing. We're working with conservation, with biologists, with ecologists to to say how can we do this together in a way that that respects uh these as a as this as the last quote I read from Brochious and Redford um that sees sees this as an intertwined complex cultural and biological. Um, there's a whole field now that wasn't here 20, 30 years ago called bioultural diversity that sees that biological and cultural diversity are are completely interdependent on each other. Um, and that's a that's a growing field that it wasn't around 20 30 years ago. I don't know if that answers your question, Ashley, but some some thoughts on some really good questions that I don't have a definitive answer to. >> Thank you. It did. Um Ken has his hand up, so go ahead. >> Sorry, this was too much to write in the chat. Thanks. I appreciate your presentation. This is some work that I've done um as part of IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas. one of those large groups that you know could have been on your list though I think they're trying to do some of the same things you are and I appreciate like the nuance in terms of talking about communities and thinking about what that really means. I guess my question is one where I struggle with the the attractiveness of the theory and thinking about the practicalities of application. And one of the things I sometimes do with my students is create a scenario for them that looks at a place that has a lot of ecological features, has you know tremendous, you know, both biodiversity perhaps tourism values and things like that. and a local populace that's very skeptical of conservation and sort of play that out with a lot of facts and you the students I think are more attuned to some of the ideas that you're talked about and which is sort of fun and exciting but then I you know sort of at the end sort of unveil that the facts that I've given them are you know 1913 Mount Dert Island and the question of pounding of Acadia and say to them, you know, had it been left to the local community, there would be no national park here. There would be no protected land here. There would be a lot of really fancy houses everywhere on the island. And the local community wouldn't be there either. And we have a different local community here now. And some of those original people who were here have persisted and benefited and some have not. And it's so part of my question is do you think this model can withstand the external pressures because it's not just conservation that comes from the outside there's you know I think what you described as the um oh shoot I'm the homogenization all those economic forces >> and I wonder if the how the model sort of keeps those at bay and Then secondly, just your own thoughts about how well it applies in a place like Maine if we're doing some of this work. Sorry, that's a lot, but this is something obviously I've thought about a lot and your talk is great. I would actually love to play, you know, repeat it for my students, but >> yeah, those are those are those are tough those are really important and really hard questions. And I think you're you're you're absolutely right that both local people and conservation organizations, they are up against much larger systemic structural forces and and and and yet both can unite because there's a common common threat and that's McMansions or or land selling off land for large um external quite wealthy land owners and um I I think that we are probably I mean against that power of especially when you're talking about Jeff Bezos and other huge huge forces. um we we're the reality is we're we're going to be weak and I think that all the power that big conservation has to muster should be used against those even more powerful forces and as much as possible in that process see how local people can be allies in that process not to exclude them but to say hey this is also threatening your way of life um but but I think It's the power of external homogenization is is so powerful that I think big conservation needs to utilize big power as much power as it's got. But that doesn't necessarily mean it has to exclude local people. Um because again we can showing ways in which their their their interests and conservation interests align in this situation um can can make them allies in this struggle against these forces of homogenization from the side. Um yeah. Uh I I wonder to what degree if organizations like First Light and the Wabanaki Commission on Land and Stewardship, if they had been around in 1913, to what degree >> Mount Desert Island would also still be protected would even without a national park model. Um but they weren't. Um, and you're right that probably if things had not stepped in to create a national park, there would be a lot less conservation land in MDI today. Um, but that's why that's why it's so important to build these local institutions um for conservation and that and that is continuing to happen. And I think first light is a great example of just trying to do exactly that. But it's hard work. It's really hard work. Theory is one thing, but the the practice I I like the way that they're taking a very slow and careful approach to it. Sometimes people get frustrated because it's not happening fast enough. But I think that they're really being thoughtful about how they're going about collaborating with Wabanaki peoples to create co-management of these areas or co-ownership. >> Yeah. Thank you. And yeah, I knew there wasn't a simple answer to that, but I I do appreciate your thoughtful approach to it. >> It's a great questions. >> It's a great question. Pam, you're up. >> Hi. I know we're getting close to the end here, but I just wanted to as you both were talking, you know, I was thinking about local people and Rick, you're highlighting indigenous people, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on local people who aren't necessarily indigenous and the value of conservationists, you know, really working with local people who may not be indigenous people because unfortunately ely in many parts of Maine, especially down here in southern Maine, there's not a strong indigenous community. So, as you were talking, I was also thinking about local land trusts and thinking how for students, I think that's a an a place that they can learn about, you know, how do you really do conservation at the local level and and trying to engage with local communities, but I don't know if you've thought about that at all. Yeah, I I um I I I didn't I think I I was uh I think I have more experience with indigenous people, but local people is really the critical variable here. And whether they're indigenous or not, it's still some of the same um ideas apply. Recognizing that local communities are um are complex, that they're they're not homogeneous, they're not monolithic, they don't all want the same things. There are factions within local communities. We sometimes um romanticize the community, whereas it's communities can be really problematic or complex, let's put it that way. So, how how do how do you work with that? And I think I think in the same way you work with indigenous populations, you work by trying to build trust with those local people who whoever they might be. Many of those local I speak for the again for the UI, but let me just get play with this for a minute. I mean the UI is home to indigenous people, the hunter gatherers who have lived there longer than any other humans. But there are also many non-indigenous or farmer farming peoples, local people, but they're non not it's hard to qual when you get to Africa, it's the definition of indigenous gets really really complex, but they they don't consider themselves um hunter gatherers for sure, but those local people really had a great deal of ecological knowledge. Um, and I think local communities who've lived in Maine with the ecosystems of Maine, who have used those ecosystems in Maine, have a lot of local ecological knowledge. Local ec indigenous ecolog. There's it's still there. There's still a lot of knowledge there because they too in many places have been dependent on the health of that ecosystem to maintain their livelihood. So, how do we how do we tap into that local ecological knowledge? How do we um create some type of a of a braiding like is starting like the center at UMass Amhurst of ecological knowledge with science. Um, I don't know, Tammy, you've worked much more with local mayors than I have, but um, I'm wondering if you might I I'm throwing this out that they that I because I I really do believe that there is a lot of local eolog, but you could give some concrete examples of ways in which you've seen in your work with wetlands, local people who shared with you knowledge of places that goes beyond maybe what's in the science textbook. book. Um, so how do you how do we tap into that knowledge of local people for conservation? >> Yeah. No, I I think that's a great question and something I think about a lot, not necessarily have an answer for. And so that's why I was just curious to know what you thought about that. But yeah, because you know, as you just said in Maine there, I think there is a lot of local knowledge and just what you said, I think it applies exactly to any communities where people have lived for a long time and um there is local knowledge and it's important to really spend the time listening and talking with people and getting to know people. I mean that the whole thing about trust, it applies everywhere. So even in in Maine, wherever you are, and I I just think what you talked about, even though your experience is mostly in different parts of Africa, I still think it it applies directly here and just made me really think about that. So thanks. >> Yeah. No, I totally agree with you. I think it does apply. Yeah. >> All right. There's no more questions. I think I'll turn it over to Jane to send us off for the night. Thank you. >> Thank you so much, Rick. That was really really um inspiring and informative. And my my bachelor's degree is in anthropology from many years ago at the University of Maine. And so it was just really cool to see sort of like my old world and my newer world blended together in such an inspiring um >> they're good partners. They're good dance partners. They're good. >> Yeah, they are. They are. That was really great. Um thank you so much. Thanks to everybody who who came um and asked really wonderful questions and just listened. Um this was this was really great. I hope we all have some thoughtful um reflection on this this evening and we'll hope to see you again at another community conversation sometime soon. Um this will this was recorded so we'll make access to the link available to everybody here um tomorrow. >> All right, thank you all so much. Have a good night. >> Bye everybody. >> Thank you.