a b s t r a c tA number of recent authors have emphasised the increasing disconnection from conservation issues among urban dwellers. In a global increase of urbanisation, this disconnect can have an impact on conservation practices. Here, we discuss how managers of public green spaces can contribute to global biodiversity preservation, through combined efforts to preserve local biodiversity and educate the public about conservation issues. We compared several management strategies, including those that mixed direct action on local biodiversity with public education and those that did not. Two kinds of one-way communication were considered as well as a two-way communication process, which take into account different perceptions and practices of nature. We based our model on the introduction of the red-eared slider turtle, Trachemys scripta elegans, into urban French freshwater ecosystems.We found that direct actions only had a limited, short term effect on the abundance of feral turtles in green spaces and had no effect on the level of public concern about environmental questions. We also showed that a mix of different communication strategies improved people's awareness and altered behaviour with respect to introduced species issues. Finally, we showed the importance of a two-way communication that takes into account the diversity of personal perceptions and practices as regards nature in urban areas in order to achieve sustainable conservation measures and objectives.
The main thrust of our research is to provide a cross-cultural definition of enchantment. Drawing on first-hand accounts of spirit possession in an Afro-Brazilian cult and on Dolphin encounters at sea, we compare the two settings to identify the common features in both people's experiences and the technologies of enchantment that make them possible. According to our findings, the main features of the experience of enchantment are:ontological uncertainty as to the entities involved and the experience itself; uncanny feelings; an attentional focus on inner bodily and mental states; dissociative and hypnoid states; and a shift in perceived agency. We define the technology of enchantment as an "in-between space of practice" (Belin 2002), neither totally material, nor totally subjective, which enables the merging of unusual bodily states with imagination and culturally prepared expectations. Such merging is possible only if the individual is immersed in a sensorily organized environment Résumé Le principal objectif de cette recherche est de fournir une définition transculturelle de l'enchantement.Basée sur une ethnographie comparative des expériences de possession dans un culte afro-brésilien et des
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.