Rewilding + Conservation Flashcards
Anthropocene
Lovelock = Gaia Hypothesis
holistic planetary systems -> reinforced with Anthropocene = earth as an integrated system (Mahli, 2019)
HIPPO = sixth mass extinction
biodiversity crisis as background extinctions > current extinction rates
land-use change
- Agricultural expansion = decrease biodiversity
- Homogenisation of diets = sugarcane, maize, rice, wheat, and potatoes -> drop in crops like legumes.
- Plantations -> sites where diseases proliferate due to little genetic resistance from monoculture (Tsing, 2019)
climate change
- Deforestation = co2 emissions
- Ocean acidification
- Species shifting northwards -> need to adapt to climate change and therefore weather patterns, seasonality, and precipitation.
- Criticism -> may increased biological diversity = extend some niches due to warming temperatures -> new anthropogenic habitats (Thomas, 2013)
invasive species
- Globalisation and agriculture -> species able to move out natal range -> enhanced during Colombian Exchange.
Ballast water -> movement of marine biology - Not all introduced species are invasive.
- World is used -> production of Anthromes has emerged as an idea within the Anthropocene (Ellis et al., 2013).
- Ring necked parakeet -> 30%/year increase in populations across London (Butler, 2003) -> interference competition as they disturb native birds (Cresswell, 2008) -> can be killed in the UK but needs to have proof that the birds are doing harm = 6 month and £5,000 fine and was introduced in 2009.
- Criticism -> are all introduced species inherently bad? (Thomas, 2013)
traditional conservation
traditional conservation = protecting specific habitats and species -> not an effective strategy (Adams, 2003) = Fortress Conservation e.g. Matapos National Park (Adams, 2003).
o Tied into colonialism e.g. plants translocated from Kew Gardens to colonies -> altered flora patterns (Adams, 2003).
o Land violently dispossessed from indigenous communities
o Species, space and land -> named as a form of colonial control -> then taught about through the education system (Adams, 2003).
o Wild -> place devoid of humanity (Gammon, 2018).
new conservation
focus on ecosystem services and biodiversity -> that economic development will facilitate wider growth (Soulé, 2013)
convicial conservation
increased human-environment interactions to produce nature based on post-capitalism (Büscher and Fletcher, 2019)
renaturalisation as problematic
-> focuses on restoring nature back to its pre-human involvement state (Lorimer, 2015) -> current conservation focuses too much on these ‘novel ecosystems’ which is leading to ineffective policy -> issue as to whether rewilding should recreate past environments or new ones e.g. closed canopy forest or patchwork of shrubs landscape (Gammon, 2018)
multinatural geographies -> -> likely that there will not be a single nature in the future but instead a multitude of different possibilities (Lorimer, 2012) -> focuses on the more-than-human geographies approach
Cosmoscence = increased interspecies interactions = reorientation of focus non-anthropocentric (Lorimer, 2012)
focuses on the idea that nature is not static and is ever changing e.g. Chernobyl recolonized despite high radiation (Kareiva et al., 2011)/ nature is an assemblage of interactions between the human and nonhuman -> challenged the modern scientific-political understandings and therefore techniques (Lormier, 2012)
Rewilding has multiple definitions -> ecological restoration in a manner which provides nature agency to grow without human influence (Lorimer, 2015)
two core themes are species agency and within everyday life (Monbiot, 2013)
primitive rewilding -> emphasising the importance of the nonhuman and therefore need for protection
North Carolina, Wild Abundance = Firefly Gathering -> understanding interactions with the nonhuman (Gammon, 2018)
rewilding and keystone species as a way to increase landscape resilience
problematic e.g. introduction of Heck Cows into Europe as a keystone herbivore -> thrown out as the cows were too aggressive and had negative associations to the Nazi party (Lorimer and Driessen, 2016)
rewilding as a technique e.g. Wolves in Yellowstone
presences altered the behaviour of other animals e.g. elk -> flora consumption patterns shifted -> trophic cascade effect (Svenning et al., 2016) -> trophic cascades = unsure how rewilding should be conducted due to these impacts no research conducted outside Asia and Africa for this.
Rewilding Britain = 952 completed projects
over 506km^2
Rewilding -> places compassion at the core of the policy -> aims to provide nature agency
ecological corridors to permit the movement of species through the landscape e.g. ecoduct over the M4 -> overcome the Eurocentric idea that animals should be secured across land
‘ecosystem engineers’ in California - Beavers
manage the landscape as zoogeomorphic engineers -> can slow floods by creating dams and manage sediment deposition -> keystone species to succession -> sees them as labourers -> to an extent still is an anthropocentric positioning (Welden, 2023)
Rewilding North America
Translocating species back into the region -> keystone herbivores -> not likely to happen.
Rewilding Siberia
De-extinction project to bring back the mammoth as their trampling of snow will prevent permafrost melt = tool to fight global warming.
Oostvaardersplassen
o Radical rewilding project in Netherlands -> controversial as they wanted a hands off approach but limitations in the size of the region and fact that animals had been domesticated = animals starved.
o Eye of the wolf -> now take weak animals out the experiment
Nature-based solutions
aim to address biological concerns while producing societal developments -> long term ecological protection with strategies like agroforestry, mangroves, and coastal reefs to reduce vulnerability but increase biodiversity and carbon sequestration = increase in crop yields and maintain biodiversity (Seddon et al., 2019) -> aims to be effective in the long term (Nature Based Solutions Initiative)
designing nature-based solutions
identifying and framing the problem, designing a solution/method, cost/benefit analysis, proposed solutions fitting with aims, sustainable considerations, everyone been involved in the process been reflected (Nesshöver et al., 2017)
Climate Paris Summit
emphasised nature-based solutions are very important (Seddon et al., 2019)
Eco-modernism
Nature needs to be sold to save it (McAfee, 1999) -> neoliberalisation of nature through market-based incentives e.g. ecosystem services, carbon trading, ecotourism…
‘New Conservation’ = furthering economic development to reduce environmental impacts (Soulé, 2013)
