Individual Presentation Submission

In December 2022 the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity agreed a series of measures that requires ‘effective conservation and management’ of 30% of the world’s lands, waters and oceans. Determining where this attention should be directed – the exercise of conservation prioritisation – preoccupies many of the world’s leading conservation scientists. Conservation prioritisation is data hungry. It requires numerous data layers depicting land cover and land cover change, eco-region maps, agricultural activity, human populations, wealth, species distribution, predictions of how all these will change as the climate warms and so on. In this presentation I outline a new way of looking at the challenges of prioritisation by considering the data justice issues that it presents. I outline first why we need to think about data justice, and how it differs from other established concepts like epistemic justice. I then discuss what forms of data are being used in some conservation planning exercises and how using a data justice lens can help us better to understand the challenges they pose. I suggest practical ways of responding to some of the ethical challenges that arise.

None -- paper is not yet assigned to a session

Abstract
In this presentation, we consider jurisdiction as a key dimension of transboundary political ecology. Jurisdiction is both a legal and extra-legal concept, one that can denote ownership and authority to interpret and apply the law but also reflect a sense of entitlement or power over objects and/or bounded space. Unlike territory, jurisdiction allows for an examination of the more subtle and discrete features of spatial-legal-ecological relations, including how they play out at and across legally codified or disputed borders, both internal and international. Our presentation elaborates the concept of jurisdiction and its utility for transboundary political ecology, and vice versa, in relation to both the land and sea. Specifically, we examine:

* how ecological processes and more-than-human actors disrupt and complicate jurisdiction, especially as they refuse jurisdictional confinement and push across borders
* how mobile more-than-human actors (and efforts to exploit, protect and surveille them) embody legal protections/exclusions that change from one jurisdiction to the next, and why this matters
* how the fragmentation of authority and decision-making capacity into discrete jurisdictional units disrupts ecological processes, including possibilities for ecological restoration and Indigenous-led involvement across jurisdiction and borders
* how more-than-human actors and ecological processes are strategically deployed to challenge spatial-political fragmentation, including across international borders

We also invite audience participation to think through what a political ecology of jurisdiction might entail and what is at stake in its formation.

(No session proposal)

Biodiversity conservation in the Global South has traditionally been viewed as an ‘alpha-male’ dominated, settler-colonial activity – but this is changing. A global movement aims to transform conservation, with gender diversity and inclusivity seen as critical for holistic and fair ecosystem stewardship. Gender mainstreaming programs have brought more women into conservation, but there has been little empirical research on the lived experiences and motivations of conservationists involved in these shifts. We explore these identity shifts through the lens of sense of place as a vehicle through which to articulate the relational ties between landscapes, biodiversity and those who care for them. We present results of (virtual) photo-elicitation with women conservation practitioners in South Africa to understand how they navigate and perform socio-spatial identities within the highly gendered, and militarised landscapes in this region. Participants’ photographic narratives revealed deep, shared meanings imbued in the protected areas of the Lowveld: revered as the ‘mecca of conservation’ and an ‘epicenter of biodiversity’. The findings highlight the role of women in restoring relationships and practices ‘beyond the fence’, yet show that in order to cope and claim space participants both challenge and draw on normative femininities and masculinities. Personal approaches are shaped by and inadvertently reproduce hegemonic masculinities which are a barrier to more inclusive conservation practices. We use this pilot study to introduce and elicit feedback on our new research project with cases in South Africa and Australia which take a performative and intersectional approach to trace the production of gendered conservation identities in the media and explore how men, women and non-binary individuals contest or transform these identities in their daily conservation practices.

Proprietary content / research