Multispecies livelihoods: a posthumanist approach to wildlife ecotourism that promotes animal ethics

Abstract

Research on animal ethics in tourism has gained traction but posthumanist approaches to wildlife (eco)tourism remain sparse. There has never been a more urgent need to redress this paucity in theory and practice. More than 60% of the world's wildlife has died-off in the last 50 years, 100 million-plus nonhuman animals are used for entertainment in wildlife tourist attractions (WTAs), more than one billion "wildlife" live in captivity, and some scholars argue that earth has entered its sixth mass extinction event known as the Anthropocene. This paper presents a posthumanist multispecies livelihoods framework (MLF) based on an applied ethnographic study of 47 wildlife ecotourism (WE) operators and wildlife researchers in protected area WTAs across four countries. Like any framework, it is a snapshot of the authors' thinking at a particular time and must be improved upon. The MLF does not purport to solve the negative treatment of nonhumans that can occur in tourism settings, but rather responds to calls in the tourism literature to acknowledge our effects on other species and advocates for equitable human-nonhuman livelihoods. This paper argues that we have a moral responsibility to nonhumans and the environment, and the authors hope to generate reflexive discourse concerning the role tourism can play in redressing the ecological crisis and improving the treatment of individual nonhumans to foster wildlife-human coexistence.

Wildlife Equity Theory for Multispecies Tourism Justice

“…The tourism system has a responsibility toward (and is very dependent upon) the creation and implementation of circular economic approaches that prioritize biocultural conservation and equity among all stakeholders. Furthermore, the integration of ethical practices and application of critical thinking is essential for advancing sustainability within the tourism system and this includes radical reconfigurations of our human intervention on the lives of wildlife globally (Sheppard and Fennell 2019; Thomsen et al 2021).…”

“…Industrialized, neoliberal societies have intentionally created a cognitive distance between us (humans) and them (non-humans), which is reflected in the way billions of animals are treated in factory farms, pharmaceutics and cosmetics, and other capitalistic industries like tourism. The tourism industry exemplifies an anthropocentrically focused relationship that objectifies animals and leaves them as the underprivileged and oppressed counterparts (Burns 2015; Thomsen et al 2021).…”

“…In this conceptual paper we draw attention to these gross omissions in multilateral guidelines (the SDGs) that encompasses all animal (human and non-human) interactions by critiquing them through the articulated lens of wildlife equity (WE). In addition, we echo Fennell (2014) in declaring the need for a better code of conduct within wildlife tourism (WT) and we embrace the holistic nature of a multispecies framework that values biodiversity conservation, animal ethics, and locally managed economic development (Olmos Antillón et al 2021; Thomsen et al 2021). We pull from multiple transdisciplinary approaches to animal studies to put forth our premise; these approaches include recent texts that highlight the emotional lives, sentience, and cognitive processes of animals.…”

Living with Bears in Prahova Valley, Romania: An Integrative Analysis

“…Posthumanism is defined as an ethical stance, a moral concern regarding non-human beings [38,39], a postmodern philosophical discourse that takes into account "the ethics of speaking for and about non-human animals" [40]. Posthumanist theory started from the premise that human beings were considered separate from non-human entities [41,42], and human superiority would undergo a "deconstructive movement" in human-animal relationships [43].…”

A user-generated content analysis of tourists at wildlife tourism attractions

“…While wildlife tourism can be beneficial for the conservation of a species (Higginbottom, 2004;Ballantyne et al, 2009Ballantyne et al, , 2011 and the local community (Wilson and Tisdell, 2003;Curtin, 2009), some wildlife tourism attractions (WTAs) such as zoos, safaris, or elephant parks that participate in practices such as feeding, capturing wild animals and not releasing them, and habituating wild animals to humans can harm animals and/or the longevity of their species. There are a range of wildlife tourism attractions (WTAs) worldwide with varying degrees of conservation effectiveness and animal welfare conditions (Moorehouse et al, 2015(Moorehouse et al, , 2017Thomsen et al, 2021). Before COVID-19, over a half million captive wild animals worldwide were reported to be suffering for tourist entertainment by the Coalition for Ethical Wildlife Tourism (McKirdy, 2020).…”