Doing Conservation Differently: Toward a Diverse Conservations Inventory

Abstract

Many scientists and environmental activists argue that the scale and scope of contemporary conservation must increase dramatically if we are to halt biodiversity declines and sustain a healthy planet. Yet conservation as currently practiced has faced significant critique for its reliance on reductionist science, advocacy of “fortress”-like preservation measures that disproportionately harm marginalized communities, and integration into the global capitalist system that is the root cause of environmental degradation. The contributions to this special issue, developed from a panel at the Anthropology and Conservation conference co-hosted by the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Society of Ethnobiology in October 2021, collectively argue for what we, borrowing from Gibson-Graham’s diverse economies framework, call “doing conservation differently.” By bringing marginalized, hidden, and alternative conservation activities to light, researchers can contribute, in the spirit of Gibson-Graham’s work, to making these diverse conservations more real and credible as objects of policy and activism. This special issue contributes to inventorying the diverse conservations that already exist, which opens new spaces for ethical intervention and collective action.

Conservation, Livelihoods, and Agrifood Systems in Papua and Jambi, Indonesia: A Case for Diverse Economies

“…To quote the work of Gibson-Graham [37] (p. 618), "It is here that we confront a choice: to continue to marginalize (by ignoring or disparaging) the plethora of hidden and alternative economic activities that contribute to social well-being and environmental regeneration, or to make them the focus of our research and teaching in order to make them more 'real', more credible, more viable as objects of policy and activism, more present as everyday realities that touch all our lives and dynamically shape our futures." While this diverse economies approach has been extensively used in the case of alternative food networks [38,39], public health [40], and community work in urban areas [38], there are fewer studies on how this approach can be implemented in conservation and livelihood (although see [41]). In the context of conservation, this approach shifts our view from merely opting between differing approaches to the conservation-livelihood nexus toward providing a space of possibility for forest-dependent communities to build their livelihood strategy in accordance with conservation goals.…”