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The sub-discipline of Political Ecology devotes much critical attention to the complex and often pernicious socio-ecological impacts of mainstream development-developmentality-across the world. However, despite the 'ecology' in its name, Political Ecology continues to be predominantly anthropocentric which, we contend, compromises its critique of developmentality's excesses. Drawing on recent literatures in philosophy, political theory, and human geography, we argue that both the more-than-human and social impacts of developmentality are enabled by zoöpolitical logics of human exceptionalism which support anthropocentrism. We suggest that the adverse effects of development are co-constituted with the positive vision of human wellbeing which runs through developmentality. Thus, an effective critique of development will necessarily have to address the zoöpolitical logics that underpin anthropocentrism. Doing so will strengthen the rigour of political ecology's engagement with developmentality and widen its attention to the diversity of life harmed by mainstream development.

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In this study we showed that a freshwater fish, the climbing perch (Anabas testudineus) is incapable of using chemical communication but employs visual cues to acquire familiarity and distinguish a familiar group of conspecifics from an unfamiliar one. Moreover, the isolation of olfactory signals from visual cues did not affect the recognition and preference for a familiar shoal in this species.

In this essay, we respond to Menon and Karthik's recent comments on our earlier critical review, which appeared in this journal. We clarify some of our original arguments and also draw out practical implications of the conceptual interventions made earlier. Specifically, we draw attention to the common ground shared by political ecology and the social formation of conservation by pointing to why conservation becomes necessary in the first place. We thus urge for a refocusing of political ecological attention from limited and limiting critiques of conservation to the root cause of socio-ecological marginalization in today's world: the pursuit of development at multiple scales.