Paper short abstract:

Drawing upon field experiences and conservations with avian ecologists working around protected forests in Chile, I examine how the ideas of forest vitality and human disturbance are produced and contested in conservation science and how they reconfigure debates on farmers' environmental impact.

Paper long abstract:

For the last 40 years, scientific research in Chile has been shaped by two tendencies: a paradigm of environmental impact assessment (EIA) characterized by the leading role of private environmental consultancy companies, and underfunded university-based research based on competitive schemes emphasizing academic freedom and career trajectory. Only recently, researchers have been engaging with more experimental forms of community engagement in science in the attempt to bridge a gap between scientific achievements and application to social issues. Ecological research carried out in conservation areas serves as a testing ground for rethinking the role of politics in conservation, as it prompts scientists to provide certainty over the nature of human activities and their long-term impact beyond observable landscape sciences. Drawing upon field experiences and conservations with avian ecologists working around protected forests in southern Chile, I examine how the idea of human disturbance is produced and contested at the same time in conservation science. By prompting new ways of perceiving forests inspired by observations of avian communities’ collaborative and predatory behaviors, avian ecology complicates notions of forest vitality and life cycles employed in negotiations between conservation actors and farming populations. To explore this point, I focus on the afterlife of dead trees.