What do you know about conservation and human rights?

Newing, Helen; Perram, Anouska

doi:10.1017/s0030605319000917

Cited by 26 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Partly, this requires a concerted effort to integrate ethics training and an understanding of what the research contract with participants entails into the curricula of academic conservation programs. This should also address applicable human rights laws, which are currently poorly understood (Newing & Perram 2019). Beyond academia, organizations carrying out conservation research should also prioritize regular ethics training and opportunities for reflection for staff, students, and volunteers, alongside their other relevant training programs (e.g., health and safety and data protection).…”

Section: Institutional Ethical Responsibilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ethical considerations when conservation research involves people

Brittain

Ibbett

Lange

et al. 2020

Conservation Biology

100

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Social science is becoming increasingly important in conservation, with more studies involving methodologies that collect data from and about people. Conservation science is a normative and applied discipline designed to support and inform management and practice. Poor research practice risks harming participants and, researchers, and can leave negative legacies. Often, those at the forefront of field-based research are early-career researchers, many of whom enter their first research experience ill-prepared for the ethical conundrums they may face. We draw on our own experiences as early-career researchers to illuminate how ethical challenges arise during conservation research that involves human participants. Specifically, we considered ethical review procedures, conflicts of values, and power relations, and devised broad recommendations on how to navigate ethical challenges when they arise during research. In particular, we recommend researchers apply reflexivity (i.e., thinking that allows researchers to recognize the effect researchers have on the research) to help navigate ethical challenges and encourage greater engagement with ethical review processes and the development of ethical guidelines for conservation research that involves human participants. Such guidelines must be accompanied by the integration of rigorous ethical training into conservation education. We believe our experiences are not uncommon and can be avoided and hope to spark discussion to contribute to a more socially just conservation.

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Section: Institutional Ethical Responsibilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Failing to acknowledge this, risks reinforcing harmful power dynamics, perpetuating historical injustices, and increasing tension between stakeholders (Peluso 1993). As a sector, conservation is rightly experiencing growing scrutiny; actors are increasingly asked to ethically justify their actions (Robinson 2011; Newing & Perram 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethical considerations when conservation research involves people

Brittain

Ibbett

Lange

et al. 2020

Conservation Biology

100

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“…However, despite these movements toward respecting basic rights in contested landscapes, mounting evidence of human rights violations with regards to food access in PAs, land annexation for conservation has continued to grow along with enforcement to restrict access for harvesting wild resources (Sylvester et al, 2016;Newing and Perram, 2019). A case in point are the recent accusations leveled at the World Wildlife Fund who are being accused of significant human rights abuses in terms of over-zealous enforcement and restricting access to lands formerly utilized as a source of forest products 1 .…”

Section: Conservation Rights and Accessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While biodiversity conservation is an important goal in a time when climate change and biodiversity loss are both real threats to human societies, clearly this must only take place when the underlying power relations that displace, restrict, enforce and result in significant social inequities, are addressed (Newing and Perram, 2019). Despite the majority of recently establish PAs falling within IUCN categories that allow multiple use, rights, tenure and access remain issues of contention within the traditional biodiversity conservation approach (Mollett and Kepe, 2018).…”

Section: Reconciling Rights and Access To Ensure Dietary Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, rights-based approaches to conservation will be one key instrument in moving toward more salient conservation policies that integrate the fundamental "right to food" by helping to identify rights-holders and duty-bearers to better inform PA management (Young et al, 2004;He and Cliquet, 2014;Newing and Perram, 2019). Adopting such an approach to conservation will present its own set of challenges, such as funding, lack of expertise and/or government capacity and competing rights, but it is a necessary step forward that can help to increase both conservation and food security (He and Cliquet, 2014;Kraak, 2018).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Forest Conservation, Rights, and Diets: Untangling the Issues

Sunderland

Vasquez

2020

Front. For. Glob. Change

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Recent research has highlighted the contributions of forests and tree-based systems to both dietary diversity and nutrition as well as agricultural production in the form of tree-based ecosystem services. Wild foods provide a significant nutritional contribution to the diets of rural dwellers, the majority of whom would be classified as some of the world's poorest. Yet, despite the important human-forest interactions and relative degrees of forest dependency, access to much of the global forest estate is increasingly regulated under the guise of biodiversity conservation. How this restricted access plays out when the "right to food" is a deeply enshrined human right has been deeply contested, particularly with regard to land annexation. This paper outlines the critical issues related to dietary diversity and nutrition in the context of the availability of wild foods juxtaposed with the growing call for the annexation of land for conservation. We suggest that a more integrated and equitable approach to land management that embraces both biodiversity conservation and broader food security and nutrition goals can provide multiple benefits, while mitigating local conflicts. As such, a rights-based approach to conservation and an embracing of broader landscape perspectives are possible strategies to achieve these seemingly conflicting agendas.

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Co‐designing conservation interventions through participatory action research in the Indian Trans‐Himalaya

Khanyari

Dorjay

Lobzang

et al. 2023

Ecol Sol and Evidence

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Community‐based conservation, despite being more inclusive than fortress conservation, has been criticized for being a top‐down implementation of external ideas brought to local communities for conservation's benefit. This is particularly true for Changpas, the pastoral people of Changthang in trans‐Himalayan India who live alongside unique wildlife. Our main aim was to co‐design conservation interventions through participatory action research. We worked with two Changpa communities, to understand the issues faced by them. Subsequently, we co‐designed context‐sensitive interventions to facilitate positive human–nature interactions. We did so by integrating the PARTNERS (Presence, Aptness, Respect, Transparency, Empathy, Responsiveness, Strategic Support) principles with the Trinity of Voice (Access, Standing and Influence). In Rupsho, we facilitated focus group discussions (FGDs) led by the community. We found livestock depredation by wildlife was primarily facilitated by the weather. This led to co‐designing of a new corral design, which was piloted with seven households, safeguarding 2385 pashmina goats and sheep. Approximating the value of each sheep/goat to be USD125, this intervention amounts to a significant economic protection of USD c. 42,500 for each household. This is along with intangible gains of trust, ownership and improved self‐esteem. In Tegazong, a restricted area adjoining the Indo‐China border with no previous research records, we worked with 43 Changpa people to co‐create research questions of mutual interest. Wildlife presence and reasons for livestock loss were identified as areas of mutual interest. The herders suggested they would record data in a form of their choice, for 6 months, while they live in their winter pastures. This participatory community monitoring revealed nutrition and hypothermia to be a key cause of livestock death. Subsequently, we delimited two previously untested interventions: lamb cribs and provisioning of locally sourced barley as a feed supplement. The wildlife monitoring recorded the first record of Tibetan Gazelle Procapra picticuadata, outside of their known distribution, in Tegazong. We aim to highlight the benefits of co‐designing projects with local communities that link research and conservation, while also discussing the challenges faced. Ultimately, such projects are needed to ensure ethical knowledge generation and conservation, which aims to be decolonial and inclusive.

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What do you know about conservation and human rights?

Cited by 26 publications

References 3 publications

Ethical considerations when conservation research involves people

Ethical considerations when conservation research involves people

Forest Conservation, Rights, and Diets: Untangling the Issues

Co‐designing conservation interventions through participatory action research in the Indian Trans‐Himalaya

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