Short abstract:

Based on critical reflections on sustainable livelihoods within multi-species assemblages, this paper discusses a conceptual framework for researching post-fossil futures, expertise practices and climate advocacy within ecologies of planetary care while referring to ethnographic examples.

Long abstract:

This paper examines the future orientations and environmental care practices of climate advocates in Singapore. Based on critical reflections on sustainable livelihoods within multi-species assemblages, this paper proposes a theoretical perspective for researching post-fossil futures, expertise practices and climate advocacy within ecologies of planetary care. Local cosmologies shape the manifold relationships between humans, technologies and nature. A theoretical point of departure is the concept of landscape. Mountains, valleys, rivers, plants, technologies, oceans, humans and animals are central sub-components of rural and urban landscapes (Povinelli, 2021). Ecological approaches to expertise practices foreground the design of environments and landscapes within translocal regimes of truth-making (e.g., Tsing, 2015). The undoing and redoing of knowledge on ongoing planetary crises and environmental preservation is embedded in far-reaching expert systems and ethical regimes (Ong, 2005; Mody, 2020). The researched Singaporean landscape experts are entangled in various interconnected publics. Extreme weather and environmental devastation have accelerated the circulation of anthropogenic imaginaries which primarily describe how the Anthropocene is discursively produced while perpetuating forms of ecological inclusion and exclusion (Mostafanezhad & Norum, 2019). While the researched communities of practice envision future environmental disasters, their main orientations towards urban futures include anticipation, expectation, speculation, potentiality, hope and destiny (Bryant & Knight, 2019). Future orientations manifest themselves in narratives about climate change scenarios that shape the present everyday life. Assessing future orientations illuminates the expertise cultures of landscape experts who cope with increased uncertainty about the future of urban greening.

Long abstract:

Park rangers play a crucial role in sustaining life and conserving biodiversity. They undertake tasks such as nurturing and restoring environmentally damaged areas, safeguarding park boundaries by facilitating access and maintaining trails, serving as the visible representatives of NGOs and the state to local communities, and managing relationships with neighbors and wildlife. They also provide guidance and information to visitors, gather scientific data on endemic flora and fauna, and conduct environmental education for schools and public institutions, among other duties. Despite their multifaceted contributions essential for life's reproduction (Skewes, 2019), park rangers often do not receive adequate recognition. This lack of recognition (Honneth, 2016) is evidenced by strikes and protests for improved working conditions, as well as conflicts with neighbors or tourists who neglect park preservation. Understanding how park rangers navigate these frictions (Tsing, 2011) is critical for comprehending how conservation, as a socio-material practice, unfolds in specific territories. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS) perspectives, this paper employs ethnographic materials and interviews conducted with park rangers at two national parks—Alerce Costero and Pumalín—to elucidate their roles in mediating, translating, and contributing to conservation efforts. Particular attention is paid to their motivations and professional identity. We argue that despite facing adverse working conditions, park rangers in Chile often exhibit high levels of motivation, especially when engaged in nature preservation activities, exercising autonomy in their tasks, and working outdoors. Their role as mediators and producers of conservation is vital for infusing their work with significance and purpose.

Long abstract:

Diverse global crisis can be characterised through lost land forcing people to move and establishing of protective borders. Also the sense of terrain shifts, and space has become part of agitated geohistory (Latour). Matter of energy plays important role in maintaining freedoms of humans and simultaneously accelerating earth related transformations. This paper focuses on the anticipated futures of nuclear energy in context of Estonia, and how thematic discourses imagine relations between the energy matter and society. I analyse the ways temporality, care and volumetric terrains become entangled to energy transitions. The theoretical framework is elaborated together with analysing public discourses and situated stories. This perspective would contribute in bringing planetary care and spheres of ignorance down to earth along particular dynamics of transformations and related encounters.

Long abstract:

A number of organisations are planting seagrass meadows on the south coast of England. Mostly these are charities that employ marine biologists and rely on volunteers. The need for restoration is framed by a history of decline, and shifting baselines after a mass die-off in the early 1900s. As well as actively restoring seagrass meadows, local charities aim to increase the coastal literacy of those living by the sea, to engender a care for sensitive habitats and an ownership of restoration projects. The hope is that training local people to survey, plant, and generally champion seagrass will extend projects beyond their limited timescales and funding. At the same time, volunteers provide an effective but temporary labour force in a context where scaling seagrass restoration may ultimately require mechanisation.

Drawing on ethnographic research on the south coast of England over an 18 month period, I explore how volunteers were engaged in a back-and-forth sharing of speculative ideas, often on the margins of organised restoration activities, in which they developed their own thoughts about the future of the coastline. This includes what a restored coastline might look like, who it is for, and who is responsible for bringing it about. At times these ideas challenged those of the projects in which they were engaged. In particular, I discuss the idea of scale, in whether seagrass restoration is for local or global benefit, and scaling, where future expansion is seen to risk people's ability to becoming personally involved.

Long abstract:

Planetary limits and sustainable development goals depict future guidelines for human action on Earth. Still, some actions that are part of people´s activities result in damage to the environment, other species, and humanity itself, which drives the discussion of anthropogenic effects. Among other invasive processes and substances used in other domains like agriculture, mining occurs in several regions of the world and co-creates landscapes, the economy, politics, and the migration of residents. Not only does the consequent space transformation in mining regions result in distinct direct and long-term environmental effects, but also is present in terms of biological diversity, health, and well-being on-site. In the Ecuadorian Amazon Forest, e.g., the protected area of the Yasuní National Park, or in the territories of indigenous people like the Kichwa in Sarayaku or Shuar territory, mining is controversially discussed. For instance, the sector generates labor for local people, although the extraction is harmful to local plant and animal species, exposed to substances that spoil water resources.

This article approaches the dimensions of changes in tropical mining regions with case examples from the Ecuadorian Amazon. Ancestral lands, cosmovision, and land politics are recognized and declared, but ecological and indigenous organizations or leaders criticize the disrespect of their traditions and territories. Considering the discussion about culture/ nature or nature/ nurture and how social changes could modify perceptions of the environment, I propose the human body to provide insight into local dynamics.

Long abstract:

The cry to transition from the vicious cycles of capitalist destruction has hit ever higher fever pitches. This paper will offer proposals on grassroots Indigenous-Settler interventions in political and earth relationality -- ones that aim to be taken seriously and which also support Indigenous rightful positions on their relational Territorial Authority, in response to mounting eco-social crises of our current moment. In particular I will discuss the invitation by various land-based peoples and sustainable food networks, to join in relational survivance and land-water-inter-species-human reciprocity praxes captured in such terms as Netuklimk (Mi’kmaw), Aloha ‘Aina (Kanaka ‘Oiwi), and indeed in the Gaelic philosophy/praxis of Dùthchas. Such local praxes are abundant, complex, integrated, diverse and resonant, and transformative, presenting a rising, potent movement of movements in planetary care.

I will take up the challenge of activating such engagements both in Research Initiatives and in Grassroots struggle through decolonial alliance making – by way of conjoining praxes for inter-peoples eco-social treaty ecologies – a line of flight in what Stengers has called etho-ecology, away from and displacing the vicious cycles of capitalist / consumer extractivism. Having just completed a Fulbright supported Research visit at the University of Hawai'i, and about to launch a partnership project on Food Commons, sustainable inter-peoples relations and livable eco-social futures, the paper will make some modest proposals on assuring Indigenous Peoples, and local peoples land-based protocols and techno-legal practices are best engaged.

Long abstract:

Drawing on an ethnographic study of four nature reserves in Brittany, France, as part of my doctoral research, this presentation will examine the intricate role of male trappers in conservation efforts, portraying them as ambiguous agents of multispecies care. Trappers engage in the paradoxical act of daily animal culling, which is perceived as protecting the installations (water channels) essential to the technical management of the protected space, thus contributing to the safeguarding of protected habitats. Drawing on the philosophical underpinnings of feminist ethics of care (Tronto, 2008; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2012; Haraway, 2007), this presentation will highlight the ambivalence and negotiation involved in caring for other-than-human beings in the context of biodiversity loss (Schroer, van Dooren and Münster, 2021).

By delving into the moral complexities of violent conservation practices (van Dooren, 2014; Bocci, 2017), this presentation can contribute to disrupting the conventional perception of care as inherently harmonious and feminised (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2012), and encourage a critical reassessment of its application within conservation frameworks. Through an analytical lens trained on trappers' decision-making processes and their interactions with various stakeholders, ranging from municipal authorities to reserve managers, the presentation will unravel the multifaceted dynamics of multispecies care within the protected area. This exploration invites us to rethink conservation practices that recognise the complex interactions between human interventions and the diverse ecosystems they seek to conserve.

Short abstract:

This talk is a contribution to our understanding of the knowledge-action gap in wildlife and biodiversity conservation based on an ethnographic interview project of twenty Indian conservation biologists about their experiences in building knowledge for conservation action and policy.

Long abstract:

While there is general consensus about a knowledge-action gap in wildlife and biodiversity conservation, its causes are hotly-debated. One perspective is that knowledge flows unidirectionally, from scientist to practitioner, and the gap is mainly a consequence of inadequacies in the generation, communication and use of scientific knowledge. The other perspective is that knowledge flows bi-directionally between scientist and practitioner, and the gap reflects a lack of interactions. Independent of this debate, knowledge, whether produced by scientists or jointly by scientists and practitioners, is believed to inform practice in different ways, including instrumentally, conceptually and symbolically. In this talk, I provide empirical grist to these theoretical mills based on my learnings from an ethnographic interview project of twenty Indian conservation biologists about their experiences in building knowledge for conservation action and policy.

India presents a unique case in the global debate on the science-conservation gap. While conservation biology in India is largely based upon ideas and theories from the west, India’s historical resistance to foreign scientists working within its borders has meant that its conservation biology community consists entirely of Indians, in contrast to other countries of the global south. Indian conservation scientists, while engaging with western conservation biology, have had their ears closer to the ground, questioned conservation biology’s relevance and adopted a much more bottom-up approach in their work. The Indian conservation science community is, therefore, likely to contain a wealth of unique experiences and perspectives about science’s role in conservation.

Long abstract:

Participatory monitoring activities often go hand-in-hand with community-based conservation initiatives, providing important opportunities to measure ecosystem change over time. However, despite their participatory nature, they often remain externally-led and fail to engage with local peoples’ existing approaches to environmental monitoring, and knowledge of environmental change. Based on 7 months’ research with participatory monitoring teams at two community-based conservation initiatives in Ghana, this paper explores how monitors’ modes of environmental knowing are shaped by the processes and epistemologies they are trained in, and how these reconfigured ways of relating to their environments often disregard rangers’ pre-existing knowledge and experience, which - though unacknowledged - they often bring to bear on their work. Additionally, the research is situated within a wider context of increasing top-down and remote ways of generating environmental knowledge, which often have real-world implications for communities engaged in conservation initiatives.