Do coral reef ecosystems mimic cityscapes? A captivating article by Madhusudhan Katti urges us to reimagine cities as terrestrial reefs that co-exist with other species, just as corals do. Human minds can imagine a different and symbiotic future where there is no competing and killing for space.
This issue of Current Conservation is all about what we can learn from each other through imitation, adaptation and experimentation. Katie Shanks tells us about a fascinating research project that explores how biomimicry can be used to improve technology—whether the wing structure of a butterfly can be replicated to make more efficient solar panels.
Mimicry is also often defined as an imitation that is trying to ridicule or mock. Aparajita Datta’s piece on large dams in Arunachal Pradesh brings out the deep crevasses in the regulatory and legal systems that make a mockery of legal procedures and safeguards. She brings attention to the critical issue of creating paper forests by destroying native forest, aided by the compensatory afforestation mechanism. Ritwick Dutta’s review of the National Wild Life Action Plan (NWAP) 2017-2031 talks about how the plan is in direct violation of the Supreme Court judgment when it does not mention the Asiatic Lion. No tweaks, says Dutta, but an overhaul will address the lacunae.
We do hope you find Current Conservation 11.4 an engaging issue and we welcome feedback and suggestions. We request you also engage with Dan Brockington “colonisation score-card” initiative to derive answers to whether countries need to be colonised and by what sort of power.
Land degradation and poverty Land degradation is one of the most conspicuous symptoms of planetary abuse. Picture a desolate expanse of bare soil and sparse struggling vegetation, or a naked slope gouged with raw gullies, or a forest smothered under a shroud of vines. The ecological integrity of these lands has been damaged through human mistreatment to such an extent that its capacity to support agriculture and supply ecosystem services has been completely undermined. The scale of land degradation is staggering. Globally there are over 2 billion hectares – an area equivalent to Mexico, USA and Canada combined – impacting an estimated 1 billion people, predominantly in the Global South. In sub-Saharan Africa, FAO has calculated that as much as 65% of arable land and 30% of grazing land are degraded. Meanwhile, to meet the demands of growing populations and increased affluence, global food production needs to increase by 70% or more by 2030. Poverty and land degradation are intricately intertwined, as farmers without alternatives attempt to eke out an existence in fragile environments, often having to contend with poor soils, erratic rainfall, and inequitable and limited access to resources. Land degradation reduces agricultural yields and incomes, increases the vulnerability of rural populations to climate and economic shocks, and fuels involuntary migration, social and political marginalisation, and conflict. Moreover, in an attempt to supplement meager incomes, poor farmers invade forests to clear more land or to cut trees for timber and charcoal. Thus, poverty and land degradation are also major causes of deforestation, and hence important drivers of the global climate change and biodiversity crises. Political momentum for forest and landscape restoration (FLR) was borne out of a recognition that to maintain global temperature rise at or below 2ºC, we need to restore 300-400 million hectares (Mha) of forest by 2050. And, to achieve this, we simultaneously need to address the goals of reducing poverty and enhancing food security. Under the auspices of the Bonn Challenge, the global community has set a target of restoring 350 Mha by 2030 through FLR. While this is a very laudable political aspiration, there is a risk that in countries’ rush to meet targets, authorities may advocate inappropriate and ultimately unsustainable interventions that fail to meet the needs of local populations. Agroforestry has a critical role to play in addressing this concern. Multiple roles for agroforestry in restoration In some parts of the tropics, marginal agricultural land is being abandoned as economically unprofitable, thereby releasing land for forest restoration without impinging on local people’s productive use of the landscape. Implementation of relatively simple legal and policy instruments, including for example carbon credits, could consolidate these gains and expand the area available for restoration. However, much of the world’s degraded land occurs in landscapes that are occupied by poor farmers who are dependent on the land and its natural resources for their livelihoods. In such situations, large-scale forest restoration is likely to be in conflict with development goals. Restoration instead needs to focus on restoring ecological functionality to multiuse landscapes, thereby improving the livelihoods of local people while simultaneously enhancing global goods and services, such as carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation.
Trees on farmland provide many goods and services. Products include nutritious fruits and nuts for food, fodder for livestock, fuel for cooking, and timber for building. Trees also provide shade and shelter for crops, livestock and people, and habitat for pollinators and other beneficial organisms. Although often under appreciated, these ecosystem services can make a substantial contribution to farmers’ livelihoods. For example, combining trees with grazing lands, so-called silvopastoral systems, can increase beef and dairy production by over 30% as a consequence of improved grass productivity and access to shade for livestock. Likewise, access to high quality pollination services increases coffee yields by over 20%. In farmers’ fields, the judicious choice and placement of trees can improve soil health, increase water infiltration and reduce erosion. And, of course, trees sequester carbon, both in wood and in soils, and can substantially increase the value of agricultural landscapes for conservation. Although on a per area basis, the amount of carbon that can be sequestered through agroforestry is much lower than for mature forests, the size of the land area available means that agroforestry’s potential for climate change mitigation is substantial. For example, it has been estimated that if all the possible agroforestry land in the EU were realised, it would offset one-third of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, an amount of carbon equivalent to approximately 20 years’ worth of deforestation is stored in agroforestry systems. Hence, most developing countries have identified agroforestry as a key strategy for meeting national commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Similarly, although agroforestry supports substantially lower biodiversity than forests, trees on farmland can provide a significant conservation benefit by creating a much more biodiversity-friendly matrix than one covered in arable or plantation monocultures, and thereby facilitate the movement of wildlife between forest patches. Improvements to soil management, food and nutritional security, and incomes also enhance the resilience of poor farmers. As farmers often fall back on destructive activities such as timber harvesting or charcoal production in times of need, improving their resilience can contribute to reduced deforestation and forest degradation.
In addition, agroforestry can provide viable forest restoration pathways in situations where restoration would otherwise be uneconomic. Natural regeneration provides the cheapest and most sustainable mode of forest restoration. However, when land is highly degraded – for example, very infertile or rapidly eroding soils – establishment of naturally seeded trees may be poor and recovery of vegetation slow. Or, if the target for restoration is far from seed sources, then the quality of vegetation arising from natural regeneration may be poor. However, the costs of land preparation and planting are often prohibitive unless there is an opportunity to recover costs. Agroforestry systems that combine natural regeneration or planting of native tree species with income generation through, for example, shade grown crops (e.g. coffee or cardamon ), timber (e.g. Eucalyptus), non-timber forest products (e.g. rubber, mushrooms, fruits or firewood) or livestock grazing, can be used to transition degraded lands to natural forest. Using agroforestry in this way, as an interim step to ecological restoration of forests, may enable governments and landowners to substantially increase the scale of restoration they can consider.
Putting the “L” into FLR The “L” in FLR speaks more to the process through which restoration should be implemented than it does to the scale of restoration. In essence, the landscape approach is one that involves inclusive, devolved decision-making to improve land-use planning and governance of common-pool resources. An essential element is the need to adopt systems thinking, so that the consequences of land management decisions at different scales are understood and acted upon.
Agroforestry by nature requires a systems perspective. At the field scale, agroforestry interventions aim to maximise multiple benefits, such as improving soil health and providing fuel wood, while minimising negative interactions between trees and crops. For example, Faidherbia albida, a widely promoted fertiliser tree in Africa, fixes nitrogen but its real benefit as an agroforestry tree comes from the fact that it drops its leaves in the early wet season, thereby adding nitrogen and organic matter to the soil and reducing light interception, just when the crops are growing most rapidly. At the farm scale, agroforestry contributes to economic diversification, as well as to food and nutritional security. In the developing world, many rural communities suffer seasonal hunger in the final months before harvest. Even relatively short periods of hunger can have a serious effect on a child’s physical and mental development. However, the traditional practice of planting home gardens with fruit trees can be adapted, through careful species selection, so that there is a year-round production of nutritious fruit and nuts. Diversification at the farm scale is also insurance against pest outbreaks, and climate and economic uncertainty, and therefore increases resilience. Finally, agroforestry involves the integration of woods and forests into the farming system, including for example livestock grazing and the supply of non-timber forest products, such as honey, mushrooms and insects. Community level land use planning and management of these resources is essential to ensure people can continue to derive benefits. Thus, agroforestry brings with it a systems thinking that can be readily integrated into landscape approaches.
Agroforestry options for restoration: Three examples from around the world The rubber tree is originally from the Brazilian Amazon and was introduced in plantations in Asia in the late 19th century. Almost immediately it was adopted by local farmers and incorporated into the swidden agricultural systems as a way of enriching fallows, so called jungle rubber. Rubber is in many respects an ideal smallholder crop: cultivation is low input and technically straightforward, latex tapping is labour-intensive and, as demonstrated by jungle rubber, it is easily incorporated into existing farming systems. Around the mid-20th century, rubber provided around 80% of agricultural incomes where it was grown in Indonesia. However, with the development of high yielding clones, which produce 2-3 times as much rubber, farmers began to adopt monoculture plantation management, as practiced by the large commercial firms. Often, this was perceived as improved management and promoted by government extension services.
However, a sharp fall in rubber prices in the early 1980s led smallholders to experiment with intercropping. Many found that modern clones can be grown just as well when intercropped with timber or shade crops. Research has confirmed these findings and in addition shown that rubber agroforests can be used to restore impoverished soils invaded by Imperata grass. In North East Thailand, smallholders are rehabilitating highly degraded cassava fields with rubber agroforests. Rubber can be grown in anything from simple combinations with fruit trees (e.g. mangosteen) or shade crops (e.g. tea or cardamom) to multi-species systems incorporating high value timber species that mimic secondary forest regrowth. With the demand for rubber set to continue rising, rubber agroforestry offers options to rehabilitate ecosystem services over 5 Mha of monoculture plantations across South East Asia, as well as a strategy for restoring degraded lands elsewhere. At Hutan Harapan, an Ecosystem Restoration Concession in Sumatra, we are using rubber agroforestry as a tool for community development, to reduce land conflicts and avoid further deforestation. We can also expect greater interest of rubber companies in Africa, as land and labour become limiting in Asia, and proactively developing smallholder-managed rubber agroforestry systems would ensure that potential social and environmental benefits are realised.
The second example comes from the African dryland systems. In the early 1980s, much of the Sahel was a treeless wasteland. There were recurrent multi-year droughts, productivity had plummeted and most farmers were dependent on international aid for food. To combat desertification and restore ecosystem services, the international community invested millions in large-scale restoration efforts, planting huge numbers of seedlings of mostly exotic tree species that simply perished from neglect or were eaten by goats. Lack of farmer involvement meant they had little vested interest in the success of projects and most viewed the trees as competition for their crops.
However, in the mid-1980s practitioners noticed that native trees were resprouting naturally from stumps and underground rootstocks, but were cut back each year by farmers clearing their fields. Through a couple of test projects, farmers were persuaded to allow some trees to regrow. The farmers were encouraged to select which trees they retained and to prune the stumps so that just one or a few stems grew from each stump. Almost overnight, the benefits were apparent and the results spread rapidly by word of mouth. Increased fuelwood availability provided additional income and reduced the burden on women, who previously had to walk miles in search of cooking fuel. Trees provided shade and leaves for dry season fodder, improving livestock productivity and generating manure for crops. Crops were protected from high winds, which in addition reduced soil erosion and improved soil health, with resultant increases in crop yields and incomes. Moreover, it has been estimated that the benefits in terms of asset creation, increased consumption of wild resources, health and psycho-social improvements are of even higher value than the increases in income and agricultural yields.
Over an approximately twenty year period, farmers have restored over 5 Mha of Sahel in Niger and neighbouring countries through Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). Largely through the work of NGOs, the technology is spreading throughout the arid to seasonally dry regions of sub-Saharan Africa. For example, it is practiced widely in both Ethiopia and Malawi today. Nonetheless, there is still scope for improving the technology and adapting it to new biomes. FMNR works because the re-sprouts from stumps and underground rootstocks are hardy and require little maintenance. However, species choice is strongly constrained by what’s available in a farmer’s field. Can we enrich FMNR with selected tree species to improve outcomes? For example, perhaps we could select (or plant) more multi-purpose trees, or those that compete less with crops for limited soil water, or that provide better quality fodder or nutritious fruit. Can we design species combinations based on functional traits to optimise outcomes? The final example is from Peru. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that providing secure land tenure and resource access rights is an essential step to achieving sustainable natural resource management. In Peru, millions of hectares of national forest have been encroached, including much of the approximately 3.5 Mha of Amazonian forests managed by smallholders. This places huge numbers of poor people—the de facto land managers—at odds with the law. In an attempt to reconcile this reality with Peru’s national forest laws, which preclude private ownership of forest lands and prohibit deforestation, in 2011, the government introduced an amendment to the forestry law to enable agroforestry concessions. The government now views agroforestry concessions as making a major contribution to the country’s commitments under Latin America’s 20×20 Restoration Initiative and the Paris Agreement. The concept is relatively straightforward – smallholders (who generally manage between 5 and 100 ha) receive a 40 year renewable concession license in return for maintaining remnant forest patches, establishing agroforestry on a minimum of 20% of the remaining area and practicing soil and water conservation measures. They can also qualify for various incentives aimed at increasing tree cover with native species. Social surveys indicate there is strong support for the concept and that it could enable restoration at scale, but researchers also warn that certain provisions will need to be made to ensure the scheme’s success. Essential is a need to adopt a broad definition of agroforestry that includes long-rotation systems, such as fallow forests and small scale timber plantations.
Putting agroforestry into FLR It has been estimated that 40% of the world’s agricultural land (>1 B ha) has over 10% tree cover, although this substantially underestimates agroforestry’s contribution as it omits systems defined as forests but still extensively used within food production systems. Agroforestry has also been recognised as the natural (or appropriate) way to farm in the tropics. Yet, it is one thing knowing that trees on agricultural land provide many goods and services, and another persuading farmers to plant trees. Agroforestry often does not receive the support from governments it warrants and there remains a strong tendency among farmers to eliminate trees from their farms. Indeed, for many, intensification is synonymous with the promotion of monoculture systems. How can we ensure that agroforestry contributes to FLR?
In part, agroforestry is overlooked because it is considered neither agriculture nor forestry and therefore falls outside the remit of institutional structures. A critical aspect to FLR is that it should be cross-sectoral, but nonetheless it helps if agroforestry is given a proper home, usually within the ministry or department of agriculture. A second related step is to develop a national strategy on agroforestry, such as for example in India. Critical here is consideration of land and tree tenure. Without long-term tenure, there is little incentive for farmers to grow trees. A final major constraint is the availability of planting material, which is a concern for FLR as a whole. It is essential that farmers can access high quality seeds and seedlings for the species they wish to plant at reasonable prices.
Nevertheless, even where farmers acknowledge the services trees provide, they may be unwilling to invest in planting, protecting and nurturing those trees unless there is a ready market for the products. Trees take several years to yield benefits and poor farmers often need more rapid returns on their investment, particularly if they consider it risky. There are of course many ways around these problems, such as providing structured markets or schemes for adding value, outgrowers schemes or PES schemes, but these need to planned and built into the FLR process.
Agroforestry has an important contribution to make to FLR, in particular through its role in sustainable agricultural intensification and poverty alleviation, but also through its often under-recognised potential for climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation. Realising these goals will require creating the appropriate enabling conditions so that farmers are eager, and not just willing, to invest in trees.
Further reading Aertsens, J., L. De Nocker, and A. Gobin. 2013. Valuing the carbon sequestration potential for European agriculture. Land Use Policy 31: 584-594. Calle, Z., E. Murgueitio, J. Chará, C. H. Molina, A. F. Zuluaga, and A. Calle. 2013. A strategy for scaling-up intensive silvopastoral systems in Colombia. Journal of Sustainable Forestry 32: 677-693. Robiglio, V., and M. Reyes. 2016. Restoration through Formalization? Assessing the potential of Peru’s agroforestry concessions scheme to contribute to restoration in agricultural frontiers in the Amazon region. World Development Perspectives 3: 42–46. Reij, C., and D. Garrity. 2016. Scaling up farmer-managed natural regeneration in Africa to restore degraded landscapes. Biotropica 48: 834-843. Souza, S. E., E. Vidal, G. d. F. Chagas, A. T. Elgar, and P. H. Brancalion. 2016. Ecological outcomes and livelihood benefits of community‐managed agroforests and second growth forests in Southeast Brazil. Biotropica 48: 868-881. Vieira, D. L. M., K. D. Holl, and F. M. Peneireiro. 2009. Agro-successional restoration as a strategy to facilitate tropical forest recovery. Restoration Ecology 17(4): 451–59.
Loss of tropical forests accelerated greatly during the mid-20th century and continues today. More than half of the world’s tropical forests have been cleared, fragmented or heavily transformed, leading to species loss and reduction in multiple ecosystem services. Between 1981 and 2003, 28% of the land in the tropics experienced some form of degradation compared with 16% for the rest of the world. Despite declines in extreme poverty worldwide, more than two-thirds of the poorest people in the world live in the tropics. The concentration of poverty and land degradation in the tropics calls for a sustained, multi-sectoral focus on large-scale restoration of tropical forests and landscapes for conserving biodiversity, mitigating climate change, and providing sustainable livelihoods. Forest restoration is therefore a key approach for alleviating the impoverishment of people and nature.
Here, I provide an overview of advances and challenges in large-scale forest restoration in the tropics. Most of these advances have taken place during the past ten years. The overview focuses on advances and challenges in three arenas of activity; each arena involves different actors, different types of institutions, and different modes of action (Figure 1). I also discuss the critical need for actions and institutions that link these three arenas more effectively.
Figure 1. The three arenas of forest restoration and their intersections.
In the “theory” arena are social and natural scientists; they conduct research on restoration opportunities, approaches, and biophysical and social outcomes. Researchers predominantly work within academic institutions, but also within government agencies and non-governmental organizations.
In the “policy” arena are decision-makers at different levels of government who determine restoration targets and objectives, seek and allocate funding and other sources of support for forest restoration, and make policies and regulations regarding how to incentivise and promote forest restoration in different regions. Decision-makers can also be leaders of local communities that influence land-use decisions and regulate activities.
In the “practice” arena are practitioners who work on the ground to engage stakeholders, plan restoration interventions, and implement and monitor them. Practitioners can work within government agencies or non-governmental organizations and may work closely with the private sector to raise funds and develop supply chains (seeds, seedlings, or technical expertise) and value chains (products for local or commercial use) to promote and sustain forest restoration. Practitioners can also include community-based groups that implement forest restoration and monitoring.
In the middle of this triangle is the process of forest restoration, which involves civil society and the environment – locally, regionally, and globally.
Advances and challenges in theory, concepts, and scientific understanding The scientific understanding of forest restoration in tropical regions has advanced in several dimensions. A narrow focus on restoring forest structure and diversity to the condition of a “reference forest” is shifting to more holistic perspectives that incorporate concepts of complex systems, resilience, and landscape principles. Forest restoration is now envisioned as part of a “continuum” of activities that take place within landscapes, ranging from remediation and recuperation to rehabilitation and ecological restoration interventions.
Forest degradation and restoration processes are linked through several common components. Recovery debt is effectively the cost of lost ecosystem functions, services, biodiversity, or other attributes due to degradation processes over time. Restoration actions strive to recover those lost properties, but the greater the extent or duration of degradation, the higher is the recovery debt to be “repaid” through restoration processes. Further, new research is providing a more nuanced understanding of how climate, rates of tree growth and mortality, and tree succession influence tropical forest recovery and variation in temporal patterns.
Yet we still face major challenges, in theory, concepts, and scientific understanding. Scientists grapple with how to define and measure degradation and how to identify restoration opportunities at different scales. Unavoidable trade-offs between different restoration objectives (carbon storage, water flows, biodiversity conservation, livelihoods, and implementation cost) are challenging to quantify. Yet, there is a need to understand how multiple objectives can be achieved with a minimal cost within different landscapes or regions. It is rarely possible to maximize all of the benefits of forest restoration in particular locations, so compromise solutions need to be proposed. But we lack detailed knowledge of how different types of restoration interventions influence the supply and quality of ecosystem goods and services over time and how they actually benefit local communities. The evidence for the outcomes of forest restoration within landscapes and regions remains largely anecdotal.
Advances and challenges in policy Several important advances in policy have propelled forest restoration to a high global priority, including incorporation into three multilateral treaties: Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Ambitious global targets established by the Bonn Challenge and the New York Declaration on Forests call for the restoration of 150 million hectares by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030, respectively.
Since 2011, 45 countries have committed to restore a total of 160 million hectares, and new country-level commitments are rapidly growing. These global restoration targets are based on forest landscape restoration principles and support the Aichi Targets of the CBD and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Regional initiatives are promoting national-level Bonn Challenge commitments in Latin America (Initiative 20×20), Africa (AFR100), and Asia-Pacific (FAO Asia-Pacific Forestry Commission). National policies to incentivise forest restoration on private land are being implemented in Brazil, USA, Costa Rica, and Vietnam and on communal or state land in China and Philippines.
Despite this international momentum, many countries have yet to acknowledge the need to restore their deforested and degraded forests and landscapes. Even in countries that have made restoration commitments, lack of land tenure or forest-use rights impede progress with forest restoration, as farmers cannot obtain economic benefits from restoring trees or forests if they lack these rights. Large-scale monoculture forestry plantations restrict land access for local communities and can worsen environmental degradation. A major challenge is to integrate forestry, agriculture, and conservation sectors in forest restoration activities. Finally, while restoration activities in one area, region, or country may increase forest cover and ecosystem services, these gains may be causally linked to deforestation and forest degradation in other areas. Avoiding this type of leakage is a major challenge, as it requires a holistic assessment of the impacts of forest restoration on land use and deforestation outside of target areas.
Advances and challenges in practice In the Atlantic Forest region of Brazil, forest restoration has become a growth industry, with investments in supply chains and nurseries that raise hundreds of species of native tree seedlings. Multi-stakeholder partnerships (researchers, different branches of government, businesses, and landowners) such as the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact in Brazil are forging new public-private partnerships and enhancing capacity building and broad societal and political support for forest restoration. Species and genetic diversity of seedlings and nursery practices are also increasing in many areas. A broad range of restoration interventions is being widely adopted in dryland areas in Sub-Saharan Africa that are improving land management, water availability, and generating higher incomes for farmers. Overall, forest restoration interventions are being planned and implemented with greater levels of stakeholder engagement, including participatory monitoring.
However, forest restoration practice still has major challenges. Many projects are short-lived and ineffective. It is critical to understand how to sustain the longevity and financial support of forest restoration projects. Sometimes, less costly approaches based on natural regeneration can meet restoration objectives better, and it is important to identify when this is the case. Climate change poses enormous challenges for all land management and conservation activities, including forest restoration. Planning restoration that is resilient to climate change remains a huge challenge both within as well as outside of the tropics.
The importance of integrating theory, practice, and policy for large-scale forest restoration Despite some progress in each of these sectors, the corners of Figure 1 remain largely disconnected. Far more outreach and interaction across scientists, policymakers, and practitioners are needed to achieve effective, long-lasting, and large-scale forest restoration in tropical regions. Unfortunately, few institutions and organisations support these interactions with sufficient dedication and budgets.
The research-practice or “knowing-doing” gap in forest restoration is well recognised. Many scientists fail to communicate the results of their work to practitioners in effective ways, and many practitioners fail to see the relevance of scientific results in the context of their efforts on the ground. Scientists and practitioners work on different teams and often in different research sites, and their paths rarely cross. However, there is increasing recognition of the need for a participatory research model. Ideally, local stakeholders should be involved from the very beginning in all aspects of the intervention including study design, data collection, preliminary interpretation of results, and recommendations for future research. Much more progress could be made if practitioners and researchers worked together on the same teams.
Unfortunately, enormous chasms separate science and policy in forest restoration. Scientists and policy-makers seem to differ in every aspect – perspectives, objectives, approaches, and vocabulary. Scientists generally shun the need for practicality that is essential in policy-making and focus on fine distinctions that matter little to policymakers. A common tendency among policy-makers is to equate reforestation with forest restoration, without considering effects on native biodiversity, water resources, or forest-based livelihoods. Policy-makers often overlook the potential contribution that natural regeneration of forests can make in large-scale restoration, favouring the establishment of tree plantations for economic benefits. Establishing coalitions between policy-makers, scientists, and business sectors can be a starting point for bridging these gaps and creating new approaches to restoration policy that incorporates scientific viewpoints.
Finally, linking policy and practice remains another major frontier area for large-scale forest restoration in the tropics. Although high-level government support is needed for fulfilling many objectives of restoration, the most important level of activity happens within landscapes where practitioners are working with the broad and inclusive engagement of local stakeholders. Forest restoration commitments and land-use policy are often generated at the highest government levels and in many cases, these policies are disconnected from realities on the ground. Many opportunities for aligning national-scale targets with practice on the ground are not being explored to the full extent possible due to inadequate governance structures and a lack of attention on land and use rights. Quality standards and guidelines for good practices are lacking for the broad social and environmental goals of forest and landscape restoration, and are just now being formulated for ecological restoration. In many cases, plantation forestry is disguised as restoration or restoration offsets fail to achieve even their minimal expectations and legal requirements. No system is yet in place to ensure long-lasting, equitable, and multiple benefits of restoration for all stakeholders.
Conclusion Forest restoration is an approach, not a goal in itself. Restoration thinking crosses political, social, and economic boundaries, creating a nexus for action and outcomes. But we are not yet there in terms of bringing together the theory, practice, and policy arenas. There is an urgent need to create the time and space for these interactions and to form local and national institutions that will work effectively toward restoring ecological functions and integrity to forest landscapes. Accountability is needed at multiple levels to ensure that forest restoration achieves broad social and environmental objectives. The role of local governance of restoration at landscape scales deserves more emphasis if forest restoration is to reach the scales needed to ameliorate the devastating effects of deforestation and degradation on people and their environment.
Further reading Chazdon, R. L., P. H. Brancalion, D. Lamb, L. Laestadius, M. Calmon, and C. Kumar. 2017. A policy-driven knowledge agenda for global forest and landscape restoration. Conservation Letters 10:125-132.
Chazdon, R. L., and M. R. Guariguata. 2016. Natural regeneration as a tool for large-scale forest restoration in the tropics: prospects and challenges Biotropica 48:716-730. Holl, K. D. 2017b. Restoring tropical forests from the bottom up. Science 355:455-456.
Locatelli, B., C. P. Catterall, P. Imbach, C. Kumar, R. Lasco, E. Marín-Spiotta, B. Mercer, J. S. Powers, N. Schwartz, and M. Uriarte. 2015. Tropical reforestation and climate change: beyond carbon. Restoration Ecology 23:337-343.
Moreno-Mateos, D., E. B. Barbier, P. C. Jones, H. P. Jones, J. Aronson, J. A. López-López, M. L. McCrackin, P. Meli, D. Montoya, and J. M. Rey Benayas. 2017. Anthropogenic ecosystem disturbance and the recovery debt. Nature communications 8:14163.
Tropical forests are a huge shopping mall for indigenous and local communities, from where they obtain food, medicines, construction, and building materials, fuel, and many other contributions to their quality of life, from pigments for artistic paintings to infusions for communicating with spirits. Throughout much of the tropics, forests providing such diverse uses and experiences have been converted to large-scale monoculture plantations focused on a few agricultural commodities to supply demand by global markets. In economics, the replacement of hundreds of forest products by maize, soybean, oil palm, sugarcane, and other staple foods or biofuel has not been considered a problem, based on the argument that modern agriculture has found substitutes for native plants to support human wellbeing. However, it is clear now that the uses of some native species cannot be substituted by their modern counterparts.
For instance, no exotic eucalypt or pine tree species cultivated in Brazil can supply wood for producing fine bows for string instruments as good as that of the Brazilwood tree (Paubrasilia echinata). This tree species, endemic to Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, was the first product exported by Portugal when the country was colonised in 1500, and part of the name of this tree (‘brazil’ is derived from the Portuguese word for ‘ember’ and is a reference to the red dye extracted from the wood of this species) baptized the new country.
Brazilwood is now an endangered species with a few native remnant populations. Similar to Brazilwood, many other native species with commercial potential can no longer be exploited in forest remnants and rely on their cultivation to reach the shelves of stores. Cultivating native plants may be the only way to fully develop their market potential and include them in the modern economy. However, the commercial production of native tropical plants is still risky due to poor knowledge of production and processing technologies, and market uncertainties.
The production of these species could harness the emerging global forest and landscape restoration movement, which has garnered impressive international support to promote reforestation in the tropics. Part of the risks associated with land opportunity costs, tree planting costs, land tenure, forest protection, and stakeholder engagement is expected to be minimised by restoration programmes that promote the commercial cultivation of native plants. At the same time, revenues from the exploitation of native plants in productive, restored forests could contribute to offsetting reforestation costs and make forest restoration more economically viable use of land rather than other agricultural land uses covering deforested lands. Therefore, the commercial production of timber and non-timber forest products (NTFP) in forests undergoing restoration could result in a win-win scenario and provide a path towards the large-scale restoration of deforested tropical landscapes.
The development of productive restoration models is still, however, a relatively new approach to promoting restoration. It is, therefore, necessary to explore pioneer case studies as sources of inspiration and is also an opportunity to leverage the potential of this approach to promote large-scale restoration. Here, we present a group of case studies from Brazil to illustrate restoration models that can be used to merge production and conservation in restoration.
Juçara pulp production in the Atlantic Rainforest Regenerating forests have provided forest goods with market potential to people in many different tropical regions, like jungle rubber in southeast Asia, and firewood production in Africa. In Brazil, tropical forests yield several emblematic NTFP with high market demand in the country and internationally. Iconic examples include the yerba-mate (Ilex paraguariensis leaves) and pinhão (Araucaria angustifolia seeds) in south Brazil, the palm heart of Euterpe edulis, cashew (Anacardium occidentale) nuts and fruit pulp in the Atlantic Forest, the Brazil nut (Bertholletia excelsa seeds), cupuaçu (Theobroma grandiflorum fruit pulp), and açaí (Euterpe oleraceae fruit pulp) in the Amazon, many of them classified as “superfoods” due to their health values. Açaí, in particular, has gained international recognition as a superfood and its exploitation from native riparian forests in the Amazon basin has not been sufficient to satisfy the market appetite for this product.
In southeastern Brazil, a network of environmental NGOs, governments, and research organisations have promoted the cultivation of an açaí cousin, the juçara palm (Euterpe edulis), as an alternative to the market of açaí pulp in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states. Juçara is an endemic species of the Atlantic Forest and is now threatened by habitat loss and overexploitation of its palm heart, the main NTFP formerly exploited in the biome. Local farmers and quilombolas (communities of descendants of escaped slaves) used juçara as the main commercial species in agroforests and managed secondary forests established in abandoned banana plantations and extensive pasturelands.
A cooperative was established and sells processed, frozen pulp to local markets. Many other native and exotic species are cultivated using reforestation approaches with juçara, which have helped to increase forest cover in a globally important region for conserving biodiversity. Production of NTFP is particularly important in agroforestry systems, because the cultivation of crops may create cash flow for farmers and help maintain the restored forest until commercial woody species reach productive maturity.
Timber production in forest restoration The global market for tropical timber is huge, but still heavily dependent on logging from native forests. The reduction of tropical forest cover and enforcement of legal requirements have reduced the commercial supply of tropical timber and pushed prices up, which have fostered investments in the production of tropical timber in plantations. For highly deforested ecosystems like the Atlantic Forest, however, many unique timber species are no longer traded, and their cultivation could yield novel wood products in the market. Several restoration models focused on native timber production have been developed across the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Some of these models intercrop exotic eucalypts with native timber species in order to anticipate cash flow with eucalypt wood production for about 5 years after planting and offsetting restoration implementation and maintenance costs.
The main lessons learned from these projects have been that not all native timber species historically exploited from remnants are good candidates for production in regular plantation schemes because some of them grow too slowly, produce many stems when cultivated at full sunlight exposition, and suffer from pests and diseases when grown at a higher density. One of the key challenges to address when cultivating tropical timber species is the trade-off between growth and ramification or bole shape. Intercropping shade-tolerant timber species with pioneer species may be a good solution for reducing ramification and producing boles with better shape, but competition for light may compromise the growth of the targeted commercial species. At the same time, timber species grown under higher light incidence, not intercropped with shade trees, may overproduce branches and pruning may be needed. Genetic selection may be necessary, because the use of wild materials may result in too much variation in growth, bole shape, and ramification. A simple mass selection yields great results – this consists of planting trees from diverging seed sources to maximise diversity, thinning plants with undesirable characteristics, and harvesting seeds from the good trees remaining in the area.
Finally, it is necessary to develop appropriate wood processing technologies to work with native wood produced in plantations. All machinery and processing techniques employed for tropical timber were developed for working with large boles, but boles produced in plantations rarely reach such large diameters. Timber exploitation in remnants relies on logging few, but very large and old, trees per area, while in plantations a larger timber volume is produced per area, but distributed across many smaller-sized and younger trees. The VERENA project (Economic Value Increase of Reforestation with Native Species) in Brazil (https://www.projetoverena.org/index.php/en/) is an example of a collective effort to unlock the potential of productive restoration through the development of technology and market for native species.
A vision for the future Forest and landscape restoration programmes have relied on natural regeneration and tree planting to upscale reforestation in the tropics. However, the costs of restoration are still prohibitive for most farmers, who do not wish to abandon agricultural use of their lands. Farmers, in general, wish to keep as much land as possible in some form of production. Developing restoration models for producing timber and NTFP − both through tree plantations in degraded lands and enrichment of natural regeneration – is a way to integrate farmers into the restoration movement.
Through productive restoration, it is not only possible to transform forest restoration into economically viable land use, but also into an effective way to promote social and gender inclusion in the rural tropics. The production of timber and NTFP is a labor-intensive process and can be the basis for a wide supply chain of goods and services providing jobs and incomes to people in the countryside, from seed collection to timber and food processing in local cooperatives.
Native species may also create opportunities for the development of innovative products for a society eager for a novel, healthy food, and exotic tastes. Ultra-processing a few crop species in a myriad of ways for generating novelty in the food market has proven to be bad for both people and the planet. Similarly, depleting timber stocks of native species in forest remnants and replacing the use of hundreds of natives with a few exotic species is not a sustainable solution. It is time to return to our origins and rediscover the taste, colour, shape, texture, and beauty of nature. Tropical reforestation can not only be the path to cleaner drinking water from the tap but also healthier and tastier fruit pulps to mix it with, over a table made of marvelous wood while listening to good classical music performed with Brazilwood bows. Life can be much richer this way.
Further Reading Brancalion, P.H.S., D. Lamb, E. Ceccon, D. Boucher, J. Herbohn, B. Strassburg, and D.P. Edwards, D.P. 2017. Using markets to leverage investment in forest and landscape restoration in the tropics. Forest Policy and Economics 85(1): 103–113.
Brancalion, P. H. S., R.A.G. Viani, B.B.N. Strassburg, and R.R. Rodrigues. 2012. Finding the money for tropical forest restoration. Unasylva 239(63):25–34.
Latawiec, A.E., B.B.N. Strassburg, P.H.S. Brancalion, R.R. Rodrigues, and T.A. Gardner. 2015. Creating space for large-scale restoration in tropical agricultural landscapes. Frontiers in Ecology and Environment 13(4):211–218.
Souza, S.E.X.F., E. Vidal, G.F. Chagas, A.T. Elgar, and P.H.S Brancalion. 2016. Ecological outcomes and livelihood benefits of community-managed agroforests and second growth forests in Southeast Brazil. Biotropica 48(6):868–881.
Echoing a similar story the world over, native forests in China have historically suffered severe losses linked to the expansion of agriculture and production forestry. As the ultimate source of agricultural land in much of China, native forests gradually dwindled over thousands of years, before the shock of the Great Leap Forward at the end of the 1950’s when remaining native forests were extensively cleared to harvest fuelwood and expand agriculture. Industrial logging of native forests was completely unregulated in China until the mid-1970s and continued well into the late 1990s (Richardson 1990). In the meantime, large-scale deforestation for plantations and particularly rubber plantations in tropical southern China further exacerbated the destruction of native forests.
Recognising the deleterious environmental consequences of forest loss, the Chinese government has long embraced reforestation as a mitigation strategy. Since as early as the late 1950s, reforestation has been extensively implemented using manual planting and aerial seeding. However, it was not until the massive floods across the country in 1998 – widely attributed to unchecked deforestation – that systematic nationwide reforestation programs were put in place. The Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) and the Grain-for-Green Program (GFGP) are not only the largest in China but are also among the world’s biggest and most extensively funded.
The NFPP, in effect in 18 of mainland China’s 31 provinces since 1998, was a direct response to the 1998 floods. Aimed at protecting native forests and safeguarding against floods, it employs a combination of logging bans, natural regeneration, and the establishment of plantations for alternative timber supply. The GFGP aims to curb soil erosion by providing incentives for households to retire and reforest croplands on slopes prone to erosion, thus replacing “grain” production with “green” forest cover. It was trialled in three provinces in 1999 and rolled out to 23 more provinces in 2000. Both programmes are currently ongoing and expected to last until at least 2020. Notably, both have a clear emphasis on the key ecosystem services provided by forest ecosystems.
This recent boost of state sponsorship for reforestation coincided with profound changes in rural China. Mass emigration to urban areas reduced the availability of rural labour, while remittance from urban or other non-farm jobs accounted for an increasing proportion of rural income. The demographic and economic changes across rural China are palpable, and among them is the increasing tendency of rural households to shift land use away from crop production, or any kind of production altogether. Tree stands or forests, requiring far less labour to manage than food crops, have come to be an appealing land-use option. Recent reforestation in China has thus taken place under a highly favourable socio-economic context.
The combination of strong state sponsorship and conducive socio-economic context has afforded China’s recent reforestation efforts sizeable success, at least as measured by the land area reforested. State Forestry Administration (SFA) reports that 84 million hectares of land in China were reforested* between 1999-2013—an area slightly larger than Sweden and Japan combined. Independent remote-sensing studies show that China’s forest cover increased from 2000 to 2013, mostly in regions under reforestation programs. *
Despite China’s forest cover increase, it is important to note that these “new forests” seem to mostly comprise very few tree species on the stand level, and thus do little to restore China’s beleaguered native forests. As an extensive literature review shows, individual stands of the “new forests” re-established under the GFGP mostly comprise fewer than five tree species. Worse still, with the term “forest” encompassing a wide range of tree stand types, the emphasis on simple “forest cover” as the measure of reforestation success may effectively have displaced the remaining native forests by favouring production-oriented plantations (the term “plantation” in this article refers to tree stands comprising a small number of tree species). This latter concern was corroborated by a recent study in tropical Hainan Province: in the era of reforestation, Hainan’s native forest cover continued to decline despite an overall increase in total forest cover.
Why do these issues matter? The short answer is that native forests and plantations have major differences in the ecological functions they perform and the ecosystem services they provide. Among these functions and services, perhaps none illustrates the differences more plainly than biodiversity: across the world’s ecosystems, native forests harbour far more species and sustain higher abundances of these species than plantations, almost without exception. More biodiverse and ecologically robust native forests also offer perhaps the best chance for the resilience and adaptation of forest ecosystems under climate change. For example, native forests are likely to be indispensable “stepping stones” or outright future habitats for forest-dependent species as they shift distribution ranges in response to climate change. For reforestation to restore not native forests but plantations thus foregoes the attainable environmental benefits – derived from ecological functions and services – that native forests have over and above plantations.
Ultimately, the environmental argument behind virtually all reforestation programs should be about the environmental benefits provided by forests, not forest cover per se. The design and evaluation of reforestation programs therefore must go beyond the simple metric of forest cover to directly measure the environmental benefits delivered by the “new forests”. Furthermore, it is imperative to make native forests the reference ecosystem against which the environmental benefits of these “new forests” are compared. With this vision in mind, knowledge on three issues is needed to understand the environmental implications of reforestation, and how it can be guided to deliver better environmental outcomes. First, how much forest of different types has been re-established, and what land cover did it replace? Second, how do the ecological functions and services of these forest types compare with those of the land cover they replaced and with native forests? Third, what drives the choice of different forest types under reforestation? Central to these inquiries is the distinction of different types of forests involved in reforestation, in terms of plant (mostly tree) species composition.
Over the past four years, my colleagues and I asked this very set of questions with a focus on a region in Southwest China that has undergone substantial reforestation under the NFPP and GFGP. The area of roughly 16,000-km2 lies within Sichuan, the province best known for harbouring ~75% of the extant wild population of the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). It was historically forested but suffered extensive deforestation throughout its >2,000 years of human settlement. SFA statistics for the region suggest that, between 2000 and 2015, the NFPP and GFGP have curbed forest loss and contributed to substantial reforestation, but anecdotal evidence also suggests considerable loss of native forests in the region.
The approach our team used was a combination of satellite imagery analysis of land cover and fieldwork that included ecological surveys and household interviews. We analysed satellite images to understand how the region’s land cover changed between 2000 and 2015, in particular distinguishing among forest types in terms of tree species composition. This analysis, however, cannot assess the land cover change specifically attributable to NFPP or GFGP. We conducted ecological surveys focusing on birds and bees to understand the consequences of such land cover change for biodiversity, the aspect of ecological functions and services that arguably best reflects the ecological distinction between native forests and plantations, yet has been severely neglected in studies thus far on reforestation in China (Hua et al. 2016). Finally, we conducted interviews of rural households to understand the reasons behind their choice of forest types under the GFGP, the single most influential reforestation scheme for this region over the study period.
In a nutshell, our findings are as follows:
• All types of forests combined, the region’s forest cover increased by 32%. However, this increase was entirely accounted for by the conversion of croplands to plantations, particularly monocultures, while native forests suffered a net loss. Interviews of rural households also revealed that the GFGP in the region has overwhelmingly resulted in monoculture and mixed plantations. In other words, in the study region, reforestation has displaced native forests including those that could have regenerated on land freed up from agriculture.
• Plantation-style reforestation on croplands resulted in modest gains (via mixed plantations) and losses (via monocultures) of bird diversity and major losses of bee diversity. No plantations, however, restored biodiversity to levels approximating native forests. Thus, the region’s reforestation has led to mixed results for biodiversity, and has considerable potential for biodiversity gains if it were to restore native forests rather than plantations.
• Households’ choices of forest types under the GFGP were most strongly driven by two factors: their pursuit of higher profits from forestry production, and the encouragement of local governments to establish certain forest types. Households also tended to follow the forest type choices of their neighbours, reflecting the influence of social norms in the region’s reforestation dynamics.
These findings provide a number of policy insights on the design and implementation of reforestation programs for better environmental gains in the region. For one thing, with its strong influence on the outcome of the region’s reforestation, government policies and reforestation programs, in particular, should pay serious attention to safeguarding existing native forests and facilitating native forest restoration. They should discontinue providing perverse incentives for plantations to displace native forests. Additionally, non-policy factors operating on the household level, notably households’ strong emphasis on profitability and their desire to conform to social norms in reforestation decision-making, should be harnessed to facilitate better reforestation outcomes. The former factor highlights the necessity and potential utility of proper, socially-equitable compensation for foregone opportunity costs to obtain the support of households. The latter indicates scope for facilitating behavioural changes through avenues such as social marketing.
It is important to note two boundaries to the above policy recommendations. First, they apply to places and situations where native forests warrant restoration. Because the production of timber and non-timber products is among forests’ key functions and services, production plantations are often legitimate, oftentimes necessary, components of the forest landscape for any geographical region of interest see Paquette and Messier 2010 for a review on this topic. This is particularly so when plantations’ high production efficiencies enable native forests to be “spared” for conservation, and, in turn, yield better overall outcomes for both production and environmental goals. Science-informed planning should inform where to allocate land, and how much space to set aside, for native forests versus plantations. Second, the above policy recommendations may no longer apply when the geographical scope of consideration expands to regions outside of our focal region. As a poignant example, there are wide concerns and indications that the NFPP, by banning logging and considerably reducing domestic timber production in China, most likely fuelled deforestation in other countries from which China imported timber, including a number of tropical countries with arguably higher biodiversity and other environmental stakes.
Knowledge of the true environmental implications of a reforestation programme or an environmental intervention at large, and how it should be steered for best environmental outcomes, therefore, would remain incomplete until these “leakage” effects are accounted for. How to assess such leakage effects is a research frontier in environmental sciences that is more urgent than ever, as countries and regions become increasingly interconnected through a vast trade network.
Worldwide, reforestation is assuming an increasingly important role in meeting the environmental and livelihood challenges of forest loss and climate change and is rapidly garnering sizeable political will and financial investment. Experiences and lessons that China has gained with regard to the design and implementation of reforestation can provide relevant insights for other countries as they undertake reforestation efforts and grapple with similar challenges – and opportunities – associated with the recovery of their native forests.
Further reading:
Brockerhoff, E.G., H. Jactel, J.A.Parrotta , C.P.Quine and J. Sayer. 2008. Plantation forests and biodiversity: oxymoron or opportunity? Biodiversity and Conservation 17(5): 925-951.
Hua, F., X. Wang, X. Zheng, B. Fisher, L. Wang, Zhu, Tang, W.Y. Douglas, and D.S. Wilcove. 2016. Opportunities for biodiversity gains under the world’s largest reforestation programme. Nature Communications 7: 12717.
Paquette, A. and C. Messier. 2010. The role of plantations in managing the world’s forests in the Anthropocene. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 8(1): 27-34.
Richardson, S.D., 1990. Forests and forestry in China: changing patterns of resource development. Island Press.
Suding, K., E. Higgs, M. Palmer, J.B. Callicott, C.B. Anderson, M. Baker, J.J.Gutrich. Hondula, K.L., M.C. LaFevor, B.M. Larsonand A. Randall. 2015. Committing to ecological restoration. Science 348(6235): 638-640.
Zhai, D.L., J.C. Xu, Z.C. Dai,C.H. Cannon and R.E. Grumbine. 2014. Increasing tree cover while losing diverse natural forests in tropical Hainan, China. Regional Environmental Change 14(2): 611-621.
The community-based approach to forest restoration has been adopted in the Philippines for more than two decades. In context, this approach involves community members working as a group to access government lands, restore degraded forests, and utilise and manage resources in a sustainable manner. The recent National Greening Programme (NGP) aims to rehabilitate 8.6 million hectares from 2011 to 2028 mainly following a community-based approach. However, devolving the responsibilities of rehabilitating denuded uplands and managing forest resources to communities has not been straightforward. In many cases, the primary objectives of poverty alleviation and sustainable management of forest resources are far from being realised. Community organisations disband when project funds are exhausted, livelihood projects fail, and tree plantations are abandoned.
As part of the research project funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) in the Philippines, an evidence-based community forest landscape restoration project was implemented in Biliran Province in 2014. The project aimed to identify and address key deficiencies of community-based forest restoration programmes. Evidence for the effectiveness of these programmes is drawn from a series of ACIAR-funded forestry research projects in the Philippines over 15 years, and lessons learned from past people-based reforestation programmes in the country.
The project site has adverse biophysical conditions but represents sites subjected to reforestation in the Philippines. The twenty-six-hectare area was used for grazing with deliberate burning to produce palatable shoots for goats, cattle, and water buffalo. Also common were uncontrolled fires from slash-and-burn farms and intentional burning by land claimants due to disputes over land. The site was planted with trees under four government reforestation projects since the early 1990s, but regular fire occurrence decimated most of the trees. The community is poor, with substantial food security issues and virtually no cash earning opportunities. An existing community organisation was involved in implementing previous government forest restoration programmes, but with minimal participation of members. The land belongs to the government, which is usual in the case of government-funded forest restoration projects in the Philippines. The community holds a Community-based Forest Management Agreement, a tenurial instrument allowing the community to utilise the land for 25 years with a possible extension for another 25 years.
The project was designed following the systems approach, based on holistic thinking that integrates all elements in a system and recognises their dynamic and complex interactions. The project was designed to consider the multiple elements of a community-based forest restoration system and their intricate relationships. Project implementation followed a participatory approach, involving stakeholder groups in all stages including identification of issues and potential interventions, implementation of interventions, and monitoring of impacts. It also employed smallholder-based best practices developed from scientific investigations and lessons learned from previous community restoration programmes. The major factors hampering the success of community-based forest restoration programmes in the country were the absence of livelihoods that provide food and income to communities, lack of social preparation, poor seedling quality, the uncertainty of land and tree tenure, and corruption.
The project implemented a package of interventions to improve the success of community-based forest restoration focused on integrating timber production and ecological restoration objectives with crops to provide food and income to the community. To address inadequate social preparation, capacity building activities engaged smallholders in best practice technologies in community forest restoration. Community organising rejuvenated the group. Gender equality was promoted by engaging men and women in various aspects of the project including making decisions on tree and crop species selection, plantation establishment, livelihood identification, and development of local policies. Identifying mother trees from the natural forest helped to improve the supply of high quality germplasm. The community produced high quality seedlings using smallholder-based best practice demonstrated in training activities. Each member of the community organisation received copies of the tenurial instrument. Local policies including sharing agreements of responsibilities and benefits among community members were developed.
The project initiated farmer-preferred and market-driven livelihood projects to provide short, medium and long-term benefits.
The project demonstrated early success. Community participation improved from five to thirty active members. Tree establishment and quality improved dramatically. After three years, seedling survival exceeded 80%, with Acacia mangium trees in the production zone reaching an average height of 11 metres. Fruit trees and cash crops were planted and the community started harvesting crops to supplement the food requirements of members and provide income to help meet their subsistence needs. The knowledge and skills of community members to produce high quality seedlings and apply smallholder-based best practice silviculture has significantly improved. The community received direct financial benefits from the project for three years for implementing project activities including seedling production, and plantation establishment and maintenance. The community also shifted the communal nursery seedling production into a livelihood enterprise providing income to community members from seedling sales.
The collective action of community members to implement project activities was very high when direct financial benefit was provided. For example, activities such as seedling production, site preparation, and plantation establishment and maintenance encouraged high levels of participation when wages were provided immediately after the completion of tasks. Levels of participation were lower when voluntary labour was required, such as in the management of the communal farm. Monetary benefit appears to be the greatest factor that drove community members to participate in community-based forest restoration. The lower performance of some members also led to waning interest of other members of the community to manage the communal farm.
Eventually, the community decided to divide the farm into plots for management by individual family members. This decision was supported with a community policy regarding sharing of returns between members and the community organisation, with penalties for members who would abandon their respective farms. The distribution of farm plots to individual family members was found to be effective in managing the communal farm. Apparently, community members preferred to provide voluntary labour to manage individual lots rather than work as one group in managing the communal farm. A similar scheme will be adopted in managing the established communal tree plantation.
The implementation of the pilot evidence-based community forest restoration project has provided some lessons that would help improve the success of the National Greening Programme in the Philippines and similar community-based restoration projects in other developing countries in the tropics. The project illustrated the importance of project design to match the needs, interests and circumstances of the communities, and the usefulness of the systems approach in designing the project to harmonise multiple uses of the landscape. As most of those involved in community-based forest restoration in the Philippines are poor, financial incentives and food security become primary drivers of participation. The project has showcased the crucial role of sustainable livelihoods in community forest restoration. It has also demonstrated the importance of adequate social preparation, strong leadership, security of land tenure, and supportive policy and good governance in promoting a successful community-based forest restoration project.
Women play vital roles in undertaking various forest restoration activities. In the project, women members of the community were actively involved in germplasm collection, seedling production, and plantation establishment. Women were also effective extension agents, and held key responsibilities for keeping community records and administering project funds.
The factors contributing to mixed results of community-based forest restoration are complicated, and designing and implementing interventions is equally challenging. Our research demonstrated the usefulness of the systems approach in understanding causalities and developing effective interventions. The application of genuine participatory processes at all stages of the community-based restoration project is imperative, and integration of lessons learned from past reforestation programmes in the project design and implementation plan guided implementation success.
The results of our project revealed that addressing socio-economic and food security issues of smallholders is key to the success of community-based forest restoration. Hence, livelihood projects that provide food and income to the community are an essential component of community-based forest restoration. Social mobilisation and community collective action are facilitated when immediate financial incentives are offered. In the absence of financial incentives, community members prefer to work on individually allocated farm plots and woodlots rather than on commonly owned tree plantations and agricultural farms. This finding suggests that the best way to implement a community-based restoration could be through individual family members managing restoration areas, particularly when project funds are exhausted. While individual families need to form a community organisation to access government lands, and receive financial and material support to develop restoration sites, the long-term management of established trees and crops could be family-based.
The size of the community organisation is important when collective action is needed in forest restoration. Some community organisations in the Philippines manage hundreds of hectares of forest restoration projects, which is beyond the capability of community groups to manage effectively. The pilot community-based restoration in Biliran demonstrates the importance of matching the target area of restoration to the size of the community organisation.
Further reading Baynes, J., J. Herbohn, C. Smith, R. Fisher, and D. Bray. 2015. Key drivers affecting the success of community forestry in developing countries. Global Environmental Change 35: 226-238.
Gregorio N., J. Herbohn, S. Harrison, A. Pasa, J. Fernandez, R. Tripoli, and B. Polinar. 2015. Evidence-based best practice community-based forest restoration in Biliran: integrating food security and livelihood improvements into watershed rehabilitation in the Philippines. In: Enhancing food security through forest landscape restoration: lessons from Burkina Faso, Brazil, Guatemala, Vietnam, Ghana, Ethiopia and Philippines (eds. Kumar C., C. Saint-Laurent, S. Begeladze, and M. Calmon). Pp. 174–217. doi:10.2305/IUCN.CH.2015.FR.2.e. IUCN and Gland.
Le, H.D., C. Smith, and J. Herbohn. 2014. What drives the success of reforestation projects in tropical developing countries? The case of the Philippines. Global Environmental Change 24: 334-348
We stood in a small wood surrounded by young rainforest trees where, fifteen years ago, there was only grass. One tree, a Trichilia connaroides about 30 cm in diameter and over 10 m tall, held loose clusters of bright red fruits. This was one of the first trees to fruit among the 268 saplings of 27 tree species planted here in July 2002 at one of our earliest rainforest restoration sites. The Trichilia now stood among other trees, larger, fast-growing Macaranga peltata, Elaeocarpus tuberculatus, and Semecarpus travancorica, and pole-like slow-growing trees such as Cullenia exarillata, Mesua ferrea, and Ormosia travancorica.
Where we used to see birds of open country, such as mynas or wagtails, feeding on the grassy expanse, we now watched forest birds: a pair of Indian scimitar-babblers foraging in the understorey, a white-cheeked barbet, and a pair of Malabar grey hornbills winging between tree branches above. The restoration site was an extension of the five-hectare Stanmore rainforest fragment, around which stood a eucalyptus fuelwood plantation and large expanses of monoculture tea plantations. The plantations sprawl over the Valparai plateau here in the Anamalai Hills of the Western Ghats, a mountain chain along India’s west coast recognised as a biological diversity hotspot. The 220-square-kilometer plateau, undulating between 900 m and 1400 m elevation, had been clothed in the dense tropical wet evergreen forest until the late 19th century when the first plantations were established during the British colonial period. The plateau is now home to over 70,000 people who live in the estates and small towns such as Valparai.
Today, Stanmore is one of about 45 rainforest remnants on the plateau. The rainforests remain as fragments embedded within private plantations of tea, coffee, eucalyptus, and cardamom, edged by reservoirs, roads, and human settlements, or occur as degraded remnants adjoining larger forest tracts in the surrounding protected reserves. The Anamalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu state with the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve and a clutch of reserved forests in Kerala state together form a tract of more than 3000 square kilometres of forests around the Valparai plateau. No spot on the plateau is over 7 km away from these larger forest tracts. And each of the rainforest remnants, small and large, are valuable for conservation, as we were to discover.
Shredded canopies Each of the native forest remnants—anywhere between one and 300 hectares in size—retains a tantalising trace of rainforest plants and animals that managed to survive a century of fragmentation and disturbance. Entering a remnant from a shaded coffee or cardamom plantation entails passing through a relatively ‘soft’ edge, or when entering from a highway or tea estate an abrupt, ‘hard’ edge. Once inside the remnant, tall trees reach up into the canopy, creating many small openings that stream sunlight into the dense and tangled understorey.
Whereas a single hectare of undisturbed rainforest would hold around 80 tree species, up to a third of which are endemic to the Western Ghats, the disturbed remnant may retain about half that diversity. On rainforest trees, looped with climbers that increase in abundance in degraded forests, troops of Nilgiri langurs forage on leaves in the canopy. In a few larger remnants, the rare and endemic lion-tailed macaque may be seen sedately questing for juicy bites. A suite of forest birds—from babblers and flycatchers to nuthatches and hornbills—adds life and music to these remnants, but the community also includes a wide variety of birds of disturbed and open habitats, such as common tailorbirds and red-whiskered bulbuls.
Each remnant carries vegetation legacies of former land use. Some survive on rocky, shallow soils remain as narrow windbreaks or boundary strips. Roads, trails, and past tree fellings that shredded the tree canopy brought invasions of Lantana camara, Chromolaena odorata, and Mikania micrantha weeds. In some patches, introduced ground cover such as Sphagneticola trilobata and shrubs like Montanoa bipinnatifida proliferate. Where forest understorey had been cleared and planted with coffee, cardamom, or vanilla, a few forest plants now regenerate amidst remnants of crops, particularly Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora) that has invaded into fragments. Where native trees were supplanted with shade trees such as the Australian silver oak (Grevillea robusta), and Eucalyptus, or the African musizi (Maesopsis eminii), the sites contain a mostly non-native tree canopy.
Why fragments still matter Many research projects conducted since the 1990s confirm that these fragments matter for conservation. One survey identified the Anamalai landscape, including these rainforest remnants, as one of the most significant areas for great hornbill conservation in the Western Ghats. In other studies, field biologists recorded in a set of remnants, virtually all the mammal species found in surrounding protected rainforests, including rare endemics like Nilgiri marten and Malabar spiny dormouse. In a landscape where three species of otters occur, otter spraints and signs are scattered along most of the rivers and streams. Several large carnivores—leopard, dhole, sloth bear, and even the occasional tiger—range over the landscape, thriving on a diet largely composed of wild prey from porcupine to sambar. Small fragments cannot meet the year-round needs of large wildlife such as elephants, hornbills, and leopards, but do serve as supplementary habitats or stepping stones in the landscape.
Map of the Valparai plateau showing land use, human settlements, and rainforest remnants (in dark green). The plateau is surrounded by the Anamalai Tiger Reserve (to the north and west) and Reserved Forests in Kerala (west and south).
By night, the forests come alive with owls and frogmouths and flying squirrels, nearly twenty species of bats, and many small mammals including the endemic brown palm civet. The remnants are also home to many recently described species—such as the purple frog and the Anamalai gliding frog. Here, too, species such as the bat Barbastella leucomelas darjelingensis have been recorded for the first time in the Western Ghats, while others like the snail Corilla anax were rediscovered after decades.
The landscape matrix surrounding the remnants also matters. Fragments adjoining coffee or cardamom plantations with numerous native shade trees provide better support for rainforest species than those ringed by open tea monocultures. The diversity of species surviving in the fragmented landscape can be attributed to the rainforest remnants and to surrounding plantations that are biodiversity-friendly, besides the proximity to surrounding forests and the near-absence of hunting.
Overall, the research suggests that fragment size, habitat quality within fragments, and the permeability of the surrounding landscape all influence the persistence of rainforest species. It also points to ways forward to enhance the conservation value of the landscape. First, retain and protect the rainforest remnants that are in reasonably good shape and contain key species or populations. Second, work with plantation businesses and local communities to foster better and diverse land use in the surrounding landscape matrix. Finally, carry out the ecological restoration of the highly degraded remnants.
Bringing back rainforests Over the last sixteen years, we have been working to put this restoration plan into action. In 2001, we began our efforts at rainforest restoration, preparing ourselves for the long haul imagining forest recovery as an inherently long-term effort. Starting with Stanmore and the nearby nineteen-hectare Injipara rainforest fragment, we slowly expanded work in other degraded remnants in the landscape by striking partnerships with the plantation companies in whose estates the remnants are embedded. Over several years, after long dialogues with owners and senior managers, three companies (Hindustan Unilever which later became Tea Estates India Ltd, Tata Coffee Ltd, and Parry Agro Industries Ltd) came on board. Finding that rainforest protection and restoration aligned with their efforts towards sustainable agriculture, their corporate social and environment policies, or their personal interests in wildlife, these companies, and many individual managers extended support. As part of these partnerships, the three companies recognised and protected 35 rainforest remnants within their estates. Further, Tata Coffee now provides space for a rainforest nursery. In the nursery, we germinate and nurture over 160 species of trees and lianas native to the mid-elevation rainforest for use in restoration and native shade plantings.
When funds started trickling in, we began restoration of other heavily degraded sites, adding one to five hectares every year. Early each year, we survey and prepare the sites for restoration. In smaller fragments, rapid assessments of forest structure and vegetation are followed by careful weed removal across the entire site, during which we take care to retain all naturally established native plants. In larger fragments and remnants, we focus on the disturbed edges, reasoning that if these improve, forest interiors will automatically benefit. During the monsoon, 20 – 80 native species are planted in each site following a mixed native species planting protocol, tweaking the mix of species and planting density based on initial site conditions and the history of disturbance.
Now, in 2017, with 40,000 saplings planted out for restoration, the effort spans 50 sites and about 60 hectares in 15 rainforest remnants that together cover over 300 hectares. Over this period, plantation companies, too, planted about 25,000 saplings of around 75 native species, sourced from our nursery, as shade in coffee, cardamom, vanilla, and even tea estates. Each year, the area of restored rainforest increases in small increments, while more native shade trees spread their boughs within commercial plantations.
Looking back, moving ahead Still, there are questions to ask and answer. Does a plantation of rainforest trees constitute a restored rainforest? To what extent, and after how long, does a healthy rainforest’s diversity, ecological processes, and an intricate network of interactions re-establish in restoration sites? When will rainforest bees and beetles return to pollinate the young Myristica tree’s flowers, or great hornbills arrive to eat the fruits, bringing in more seeds from distant rainforests? Will the trajectory of recovery bring restored sites closer to undisturbed rainforest or will competing weeds or insect herbivores overwhelm planted saplings to revert the site to a degraded state? Or will the saplings hold on only as long as they are being cared for?
Our recent research on forest recovery and soils in restoration sites has generated some preliminary answers. After 15 years, actively restored sites are ecologically closer to undisturbed rainforests than sites left to themselves with no restoration intervention. Restored fragments manifest recovery of forest structure, as evidenced by tree density, canopy height, and carbon storage. The number of rainforest species and the similarity of plant species mix are gradually increasing in comparison with relatively undisturbed rainforests. Soil microbes appear to be doing better in some restored sites, as shown by increases in soil nutrients and fertility. Once the growing saplings form a low canopy with other naturally-established native plants, weedy species thin out and decline in the shade.
Yet, restored sites lack key characteristics of undisturbed, mature rainforests. In the restored sites, natural plant colonisation and regeneration of typical rainforest plants, including shrubs and herbs, appears low. On the ground, leaf and other organic debris remain sparse, while up on the trees, epiphytes are still scarce.
While restored sites in isolated fragments are generally an improvement over adjoining naturally- regenerating sites that remain degraded, this is not always the case. At the edge of the surrounding extensive forest reserves, degraded sites appear to recover well through passive natural regeneration even when left alone. As some larger fragments and remnants were in reasonably good shape already, these edges need only protection from disturbance rather than any active restoration.
Landscape futures Quantitative measures of recovery may not capture other tangible and intangible benefits and spin-offs of restoration efforts. On private lands, the recognition and protection of rainforest fragments that were previously ignored by landowners help expand conservation and restoration into wider landscapes beyond protected reserves and involve new constituencies and stakeholders. Remnants have other values, too, as watersheds and refugia for pollinators and natural predators of crop pests. While a start has been made, there is a long way to go before plantation businesses, landowners, and managers integrate ecological understanding and approaches into routine production practices.
Restoration—as a hands-on practice—also forces renewed appreciation of ecological history and the peculiarities of each restoration site. Nurturing the skills needed to work with each parcel of land and learning by doing become at least as important as grasping theoretical foundations and concepts in restoration ecology such as secondary succession or the roles of keystone or framework species. Ecological restoration melds science and praxis in relation to land. As oases of diversity, beauty, and wonder, rainforest remnants add to the fullness of life in heavily used and transformed landscapes. For biologists like us, carry the additional joys of discovery and observing recovery of remarkable rainforests. Over a century since the rainforests were fragmented, we envision a more connected future where farms and forests, wildlife and people, science and wonder, all coexist.
Further reading Mudappa, D., T. R. S. Raman, and M. A. Kumar. 2014. Restoring nature: wildlife conservation in landscapes fragmented by plantation crops in India. In: Nature without borders (eds. Rangarajan, M., M. D. Madhusudan, and G. Shahabuddin). Pp. 178–214. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
Harvested caterpillar fungus ready for sale (Photo: Subhajit Saha)
Used for centuries in traditional Tibetan and Chinese medicine, caterpillar fungus (Ophiocordyceps sinensis) is a fungal parasite of ghost moth larvae (caterpillars). Locally known by a variety of names such as Kira Jari (India), Yartsagunbu (Tibet), Yarso Gumbub (Bhutan), Dong Chong Xia Cao (China) and Yarsagumba (Nepal), it is endemic to the Tibetan Plateau including the adjoining high Himalaya (between 3,200 to 4,500 metres above sea level). In the western Himalaya, the species has been documented in the alpine meadows of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve and Askot Wildlife Sanctuary of Uttarakhand. Caterpillar fungus is used in traditional medicine as a tonic, as an aphrodisiac– it is widely known as ‘Himalayan Viagra’ – as well as for lung, liver, and kidney problems. Global trade of caterpillar fungus rose rapidly after the 1993 World Athletic Championships in Stuttgart, Germany when Chinese athletes reportedly training on dietary supplements of caterpillar fungus and turtle blood set multiple records in distance running. Demand continues to increase in Asia’s fast-growing urban centres, as well as in the West.
Harvesters’ camp during collection season of caterpillar fungus in an alpine meadow of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (Photo: Pramod K. Yadav)
The villagers who harvest caterpillar fungus in the extremely remote Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve and Askot landscape belong to economically marginal communities that have historically been home to shepherds, porters, and traders. The caterpillar fungus ‘gold rush’ has empowered rural villagers and caused a far-reaching revolution in social and economic conditions in the last 15–18 years. Harvesters no longer have to rely completely on agriculture, which is subject to the vagaries of rainfall and wildlife depredation. In India, a single caterpillar fungus sells for about USD 4 – 7, depending on the health and size of the species; approximately 2,500-3,000 specimens comprise a kilogram, which traders can sell to brokers for USD 12,000 to 18,000.
Outreach programme among stakeholders for conservation and sustainability of caterpillar fungus (Photo: Subhajit Saha)
However, the combination of resource scarcity and high publicity has caused a skyrocketing of both demand and price of caterpillar fungus, leading to tremendous competition among harvesters and traders. The collection season ranges from 30-40 days which start at the beginning of May and lasts till the end of June. It depends on many factors like the local weather, snow condition in the pasture, and the elevation of the collection site. About 5–6 years ago, people could collect around 55-60 individuals per day but can now only scavenge around 15-20. Increasing trade-induced rampant harvesting and ecological threats seem almost certain to lead to a decline in the region’s populations. Ultimately, these harvesting practices are not sustainable and put the region’s population at risk. Indeed, a recent study, supported by the Conservation Leadership Programme and Rufford Small Grant, concluded that both the caterpillar fungus population and per-capita harvest are decreasing continuously.
Excessive harvesting itself is not the only threat for these species; they are also at risk from practices such as over-grazing, chopping trees for firewood, and polluting the habitat with garbage. Anthropogenic activities like these are likely to have had negative impacts on a range of endangered threatened species, including ground-dwelling birds (Satyr Tragopan, Monal Pheasant and Cheer Pheasant), charismatic megafaunas such as the snow leopard, blue sheep, and alpine plants. Researchers are currently investigating these and other threats to the caterpillar fungus’ sensitive habitat.
Researchers are in the alpine meadow to investigate anthropogenic effects on ecosystem (Photo: Anonymous)
Through different outreach programmes with stakeholders, the project team has conducted group discussions on how mountain dwellers could move towards sustainability and management of caterpillar fungus in the future, and why conservation of this ‘Himalayan gold’ is essential. However, to ensure the survival of the species, and to facilitate conservation of pristine alpine meadows, it is vital to implement regulations—for example, mitigation measures that could reduce the negative impact of harvesters’ visits—and pursue scientifically proven sustainable harvesting practices. In the future, more outreach and capacity-building programmes are needed to spread awareness of these techniques and educate stakeholders about this sensitive environment. The communities responsible for pollution and other ecological threats at harvesting sites have not really been aware of options for sustainable practices, but do seem open to learning.
It will also be important to resolve legal ambiguities that cause conflicts between harvesters and traders, and between these two groups and the local administration. There is a need to take actions by the state government and forest department through appropriate institutional mechanisms and a holistic policy to mitigate ecological threats and social conflicts associated with caterpillar fungus. There is a need for prompt actions regarding community and market-based initiatives for conservation, sustainability, and trade of the caterpillar fungus. By increasing investment in education, improving food security, and alleviating poverty of economically marginalised rural dwellers, these initiatives could play a key role in building resilience and empowering local communities to lead the fight against biodiversity loss and climatic vulnerability in the Himalaya.
Further Reading Shrestha, U.B. and Bawa, K.S. (2013) Trade, harvest, and conservation of caterpillar fungus (Ophiocordyceps sinensis) in the Himalayas. Biological Conservation, 159: 514–520. Yadav, P.K. (2016)YartsaGunbu: Transforming livelihood of the mountain dwellers with new-fangled dilemma in the Himalaya. Zoo’s Print, 31 (1): 19–21. Yadav, P.K., Mishra, A.K., Kaneria, M., Kapoor, M., Kaneria, M. andAziem, S. (2017) Caterpillar fungus gold rush: Growing dependence on a lucrative trade with disputes among communities in the Himalaya. Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability, 5, 92–96.
As tall as that tree She walked, Majestic! Her trunk touched- Those stars- Blooming on the Acacia… Her reflection, Revamped that stream- Yes, She walked- Majestic! On this land- Where lies her body- Abandoned!
Not all natural phenomena and behaviors are pleasant to observe when we are in the wild. Most of the times, we are left startled and sometimes, even broken. Death is one of those things. Death has always been a crucial part of life and a harsh reality. Bereaved and lost, we stand when someone dies. In humans, we seek solace in lamenting over our lost ones and by being with our family members and friends. We try coming out of it. We divert our attention. However, someone close to us has become a memory. This is the hardest feeling to deal with.
Death, the cessation of all the fundamental functions in an organism, is a part of an ecosystem. Animals die. They get decomposed. And, on the same carcass, blooms another life of scavengers and decomposers. A new life begins. A loss for us is a gain for someone. The question then is whether animals are saddened by the deaths of their close ones. Elephants are! Known for their compassion, empathy, and emotional expressions, elephants too suffer when they lose someone in their herds. What happens when an elephant dies? It is physiologically proven that besides having strongly bonded families, elephants have larger brains with a highly complex hippocampus, bigger than that of humans and primates which aids them in building their memories and feeling emotions. This part of the brain is linked to their psychological state. Many studies highlight the psychological sufferings of elephants due to the stress of losing their close ones. I came across many articles about elephants being bereaved when they lost their members or when they are kept separated from their herds. When they come across the skeleton of a herd member they knew, they sniff and mourn their loss. There are hundreds of such scientific articles, anecdotes, and stories about elephants mourning death.
When I was in Hassan, a district in the state of Karnataka in India, I heard an anecdote about a dead elephant who was buried near a village and how a herd of elephants came to mourn that death.
Encountering something unexpected and unusual has always been the enticing perk of tiring days in the field. But not all of them were as tempting as I thought them to be. I have observed many incidences of killings and deaths in the wild- a ‘freshly’ killed spotted dear stolen by a pack of wild dogs, vultures clearing the flesh from a deceased bison’s ribs, the blooming growth of maggots in a partially decomposed elephant. All I observed of death was associated with animals being chased, attacked and flesh ripped off, something gruesome and unsavoury.
It was in a forested area of Karnataka, where I saw what elephants go through when someone they have been following throughout their lives dies. An old matriarch. It was then that my perception about death in the wild changed completely. The body of an old matriarch remained motionless on the floor of the forest with a few scavengers hovering over it. A young female from her herd most likely a daughter or a sister to the deceased female, started walking around her. Lowering her trunk, she kept periodically sniffing and lifting the trunk of the dead female. As per my observation, the old matriarch must have died a few hours ago.
The feeling of loss in her expression was vivid. Her movement around the dead female- seemed to me like a funeral ritual from human society. Later, another sub-adult female joined her in this ‘ritual’. But she went back inside the bush instantly. Her sudden reaction puzzled me. I wondered if she had sensed my presence somehow even though I was behind a Lantana bush, a few hundred meters away. I, then, saw a herd standing near a bamboo bush. It was her herd. None of them had their ears spread out or trunk stretched high and that effervescence which they always carried was missing. A very distressing silence. It was moving for me as well. Even after I had moved on, the silhouetted images of silently mourning young females haunted my thoughts.
Later that day, I consulted a veterinary doctor from the forest department who confirmed that the death of the old matriarch was due to a severe intestinal infection. That was the day I observed that when an elephant dies, their family members go through an emotional breakdown. They too mourn the loss, like we do. They too console each other in their herd, like we do. This was the first incident that I observed in the wild which left me speechless out of grief. It has been well-documented that while elephants are in zoos, temples or captivity, they undergo depression-like symptoms and even PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) when their mates die. Sometimes it is so severe that they too even die. This incident left me with a question; a question about their death. If elephants suffer immensely from the natural death of their family members, like in the above case, what might they be going through when family members die due to unnatural deaths such as in collisions, electrocution or retaliatory killings? Are we creating severe mental stress in these highly emotional and expressive animals. Could it be that when an elephant dies, there are other elephants from his/her herd who also suffer. This is the thought that still lingers in my mind.
It is a hard nonliving complex three-dimensional structure built by living beings, often covering extensive areas of habitat, and unlike anything else naturally found in the vicinity. It is a product of the labor of an organism that has evolved to transform the materials in its surroundings into a protective home for its progeny and itself. It is built in layers, growing upon itself as its occupants continue to build it over generations. It does the job of protecting its inhabitants well enough to outlast them, standing firm over scores of generations and thousands of years. It helps concentrate the flow of energy and materials from its surroundings to make life more efficient for its denizens, sometimes thriving even in places that otherwise seem deserted. It not only provides shelter and resources and a supply of energy to the species that built it but also supports a wider range of other species that may come seeking its riches and adapt to new ways of making a living in this strange new construction.
Its appearance, color, and occupants vary from one part of the world to another. It is large enough in some places to be visible from space. It is resilient to a surprisingly wide range of environmental variations, yet vulnerable to catastrophic collapse under conditions such as rising sea levels and warming ocean temperatures. And even when it collapses and is no longer able to support its creators and main occupants, it continues to loom in its place, casting shadows deep into history, until the patient forces of water and wind and temperature wear it down and its remains wash up on some shoreline in the sands of time.
It is a Coral Reef, built by ingenious, soft-bodied, tough little creatures that can scarcely survive on their own in the vast ocean outside its protections. It is a City, also built by ingenious creatures with bodies softened by civilization, too clever by half, but creative and tough as hell, and who may also struggle to survive outside the city walls.
Coral reefs are ecosystems rich in biodiversity, often concentrating biological productivity and wealth amid relatively poor waters. Coral reefs are described as rainforests of the ocean harboring as much, if not more, biodiversity underwater as tropical rainforests do on land. They stick out in the underwater landscape as distinctly as forests full of tall trees do in terrestrial landscapes, marvelously unlike anything around them, but teeming with a richness of diverse marine organisms that have evolved to be uniquely adapted to life in the coral reef, lured by its richness to tie their evolutionary fate to that of the reef itself.
It may seem odd, but coral reefs are also often likened to cities. The City, that quintessential “artificial” construction by human beings alienated from nature, symbolic of how we pave over natural ecosystems, is often used as a metaphor to understand and explain the complexity of coral reefs. There are children’s picture books full of the wonderful artwork that explain how coral reefs function much like cities. Tall structures rise up from the ocean floor like skyscrapers. Schools of fish and molluscs and crustaceans scuttle about busily, commuting among productive nooks and crannies where they can feed, nest, and raise babies securely. Diverse species evolve to specialise in different tasks, much like how medieval guilds of craftsmen and workers divided up human labor to make it more efficient, enabling us to produce wonders of art, craft, and technology—diverse, creative, and sometimes horrific.
We have never debated whether coral reefs are complex ecosystems in their own right, worthy of protection. We should also be long past debating whether cities are ecosystems. Of course, they are unique ones described in much of the recent literature as complex social-ecological systems, because we like to pull the human social elements apart from the “natural” in our Cartesian ways of thinking. A much more interesting exercise is to ask what kind of ecosystems cities can be rather than worrying about how unnatural a blight they are on more “natural” landscapes.
As they stand, unlike coral reefs, cities are not founts of biological diversity amid less diverse landscapes. In the relatively short timespan of human history, cities have become known more for destroying biodiversity rather than enhancing it.More recent work in urban ecology has found a surprisingly high diversity of species in many of our cities. Do cities destroy other habitats and ecosystems? Of course. Do cities cause local extinctions of many species? Undoubtedly. We never built them as habitats for any species other than ourselves. Indeed it would seem that we build cities as places where we seek refuge from “nature” in all its vagaries and its “red in tooth and claw” horrors. Yet, we also bring a lot of that nature, and many other species, with us into the city—planting some in our gardens, growing others on our walls and balconies, feeding and watering many with intent or benign neglect, and willingly or unwittingly sharing the bounty of resources we concentrate for ourselves in cities. We know now that we depend on many of these other species for food, water, and air, for our bodies and our minds, and for our culture and artistic inspiration—even though we never built cities for anyone but our own selves. Just like the mindless tiny organisms that build coral reefs.
But unlike the coral organisms, we have minds capable of reflecting on our own actions, and of imagining different futures. Imagine building cities more intentionally like coral reefs on land. The oldest cities are just a few thousand years old—an order of magnitude younger than the oldest coral reefs. That deeper span of time has allowed coral reefs to evolve into the diverse ecosystems we now celebrate and whose decline through our actions we dread and lament. Yet, to borrow that tortured phrase from urban land developers, the coral organisms simply built their little shelters, and they came: all the diverse algae and plankton and fish and mollusks and crustaceans in the ocean to evolve together into a diverse ecosystem thriving under the ocean. A growing body of research on urban wildlife is now showing us that many species on land come into our cities once we build them, so long as we leave enough of our surplus of resources for them. Recognising the value of nature and wildlife, the biological and cultural ecosystem services they provide us in the current jargon, we are also actively bringing other species into our cities. Why not go all the way and reimagine our cities as bustling diverse coral reefs on land?
Surely, if we build cities with intention, with niches full of unique resources, many other species will come on their own, and over time will adapt and evolve into unique urban creatures, tying their fates to ours just like the house sparrow or the chimney swift have already done. Even underwater, our artefacts, like sunken ships, can act as surrogates for species fleeing damaged coral reefs and are being used intentionally to restore reef ecosystems threatened by warming oceans and rising seas. It is not hard to imagine some of our major coastal cities also turning into such surrogate reefs as they submerge under the rising oceans. So let us reimagine and reinvent our cities as terrestrial reefs, as rich and full of other species as we can learn to coexist with, becoming not just their competitors and killers, but also their gardeners and nurturers and symbionts. Let us think as deep into the future as the coral reefs teach us about the past, and turn the metaphor of the coral reef as a city into the real city as a coral reef, diverse and resilient and full of evolutionary ferment to match the tides of our changing world.
India’s wildlife is in a crisis.The crisis stems not just from traditional threats to wildlife such as deforestation, poaching, and habitat destruction, but also from complete policy paralysis and governance failure with respect to the conservation of wildlife. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) today functions with two part-time ministers; the National Board for Wildlife has not met since the present government came to power and the success of the MoEFCC is judged by the number of Environmental and Forest clearances it has granted, therefore facilitating the ‘ease of doing business’. It is with the above background in mind that one has to look at the new National Wildlife Action Plan (NWAP) for 2017–31. The question to ask is whether the new action plan will be able to achieve the goal of wildlife conservation in the current era of ‘business above all’.
The NWAP (2017–31) is the outcome of a task assigned to a committee headed by the former Director General of Forests, Government of India that comprised of 12 members.It is noteworthy that the Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change released the NWAP (2017–31) at the World Bank promoted Global Wildlife Programme (GWP) conference on October 2, 2017. Normally, the NWAP is released by the National Board for Wildlife, which is headed by the Prime Minister, since the mandate of the Board is framing policies and advising the Government on ways and means of promoting wildlife conservation
Is the action plan legally binding?
An action plan is not a legally enforceable document. However, while dealing with the issue of conservation and protection of the wild buffalo the Supreme Court in 2012 highlighted that the NWAP, despite being a policy document, is central to the concept of ecocentrism. The Court observed:
Environmental justice could be achieved only if we drift away from the principle of anthropocentric to eccentric… Ecocentrism is nature-centered where humans are part of nature and non-humans have intrinsic value… The National Wildlife Action Plan 2002–2012 and the Centrally Sponsored Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats Scheme, 2009 are centered on the principle of ecocentrism.
The Supreme Court gave legal backing to NWAP (2002-16),by directing in 2005 that activities in National Parks and Sanctuaries may be permitted so long as it is consistent with the NWAP. Later, in Centre for Environmental Law versus Union of India,the Supreme Court directed the Central Government to implement the Action Plan:
The Government of India and the MoEF are directed to identify, as already highlighted by NWAP, all endangered species of flora and fauna, study their needs and survey their environs and habitats to establish the current level of security and the nature of threats. They should also conduct periodic reviews of flora and fauna species status, and correlate the same with the IUCN Red Data List every three years.
Thus, the NWAP is not just an academic piece of work but also a guiding document for the conservation and protection of wildlife.
A faulty premise
The NWAP (2017–31) is based on faulty premises. It states that about 20% of the total geographical area is under ‘effective wildlife management’ and claims that India has achieved Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi target. This target stipulates that, by 2020, at least 17% of terrestrial and inland water, and 10% of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, should be conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well connected systems of protected areas (PAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures, and integrated into the wider landscapes and seascapes.
However, the statistics with respect to effective wildlife management are highly questionable. The 20% figure is based on the assumption that wildlife is conserved in all ‘State managed forests’.There are, in fact, various categories of state-managed forest such as reserve forest, protected forest, un-demarcated protected forest, etc.These forests are generally managed under Working Plans prepared by the State Forest Department and Forest Development Corporations.There are many which exist only in paper and serve no ecological role. A classic example is the Forest Research Institute in Dehradun, which is a notified reserve forest. Clearly, no ‘wildlife management’ is taking place on this campus, which houses at least five institutions including the regional office of MoEFCC.Even more alarming are the many reserved forests declared by the State without any consideration of ecological factors. If these are the areas the Action Plan has counted as being under ‘effective wildlife management’, it raises serious doubts on both the claims and the premise.
The same applies to protected areas including National Parks and Sanctuaries. Most protected areas are yet to be finally notified under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. In some protected areas, the area under effective protection may be only a fraction of the total area.
Short shrift to its mandate
The predominant thrust of the NWAP is to defend and justify the existing policy as well as the approach of the Government and the various institutions engaged with wildlife conservation. For example, the NWAP states that the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has been fulfilling its mandate by issuing advisories. However, the NTCA has been a mute spectator to many serious assaults on India’s Tiger Reserves. It remained silent when the critical Kanha–Pench Tiger Corridor was destroyed due to the expansion of National Highway-7.One of the rare instances, when the NTCA did issue ‘directions’, was with respect to prohibiting a BBC journalist from entering Tiger Reserves after they ‘wrongly’ projected India’s conservation efforts to the global community.
The section on Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) is extremely limited despite the fact that there is going to be huge pressure on wildlife habitat due to increased investments in highways, waterways, ports, dams, mines, etc. All that is mentioned is the need to assess human-animal conflict in EIA assessments. The Plan does discuss the establishment of the National Environmental Appraisal and Management Authority (NEAMA), which is an attempt to reform the review process and improve transparency in environmental impact assessments of development projects in the country. However, this recommendation merely repeats the MoEFCC’s plan to set up such authority and does not in any way engage with or substantiate how this body would help focus attention on issues relating to wildlife.
One of the interesting targets of NWAP (2002–16) was to undertake, by 2007, a long term project to assess the water contribution of PAs and connected forests to lean season flows, ground water recharge as well as flood and drought mitigation.
One of the interesting targets of NWAP (2002–16) was to undertake, by 2007, a long term project to assess the water contribution of PAs and connected forests to lean season flows, ground water recharge as well as flood and drought mitigation. The responsibility for conducting the study was entrusted to Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. Given the large number of ecologically destructive projects that are approved in PAs, such a study could have helped assess the implications of these projects. Unfortunately, this study is yet to be initiated. There is no reference to this particular assessment in the new NWAP (2017–31).
Whither forest rights?
One of most important changes in the forest governance landscape since the NWAP (2002– 2016), is the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 popularly known as the ‘Forest Rights Act’ (FRA). This led to forest dwellers being treated as right-holders as opposed to privilege holders and encroachers. The Forest Rights Act has also led to conflict between the Forests Departments on the one hand and forest dwellers on the other.
The NWAP states that, “it aims at building, enhancing and sustaining people’s support and participation in wildlife conservation.” Although it recognises that the potential conflicts between forest dwelling communities and the state forest department can only be avoided by making them partners in wildlife conservation, the plan does not go far enough in outlining actions. The NWAP focuses on strengthening and expanding institutions like Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMC), Forest Development Agencies (FDA), Van Panchayats, advisory committees and management committees for protected areas. However, there is no mention of the pivotal role the Gram Sabhas and Forest Rights Committees play under the Forest Rights Act, which is far more important than FDA and JFMC in a legal context.
Whither lions?
Among the most serious concerns with respect to the NWAP (2017–31) is the complete absence of the Asiatic lion from the list of priority species for conservation or species recovery and no mention of the Expert Committee constituted by the Supreme Court to complete the task of translocation of the Asiatic lion from Gujarat to Madhya Pradesh.Surprisingly, there is a specific mention of the ‘Asiatic cheetah’ though the Supreme Court had said that the plan to bring African cheetahs to India was not in consonance with NWAP (2002–2016) as it is an exotic animal.
In response to a Public Interest Litigation, the Supreme Court had directed the Central Government to initiate and complete the process of translocation of the Asiatic lion from Gujarat to its proposed second home in Kuno–Palpur Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh.The Court stated that the protection of the Asiatic lion and providing a second home for the animal was ‘top priority’.
Once the Supreme Court held that the decision for the reintroduction of an Asiatic lion to Kuno was of utmost importance and that the introduction of cheetahs in India was illegal, the NWAP’s silence on the issue of reintroduction of lions while emphasising the need for the reintroduction of cheetahs amounts to an extraordinary case of an Action Plan overruling a judgment of the Supreme Court. This can be regarded as nothing short of contempt of the orders of the apex Court.
The reasons for this omission and silence are not very difficult to discern. The Government of Gujarat has consistently opposed the shifting of lions from Gujarat to Madhya Pradesh. The Central Government’s silence and inaction even after the Supreme Court’s verdict reflect its passive support for Gujarat. The silence of well-known conservationists in the Committee is, however, a cause for grave concern.
Too important to ignore
Georges Clemenceau, French Prime Minister during the First World War said, ‘War is too important to be left to the generals’. A perusal of NWAP (2017–31) leads one to conclude that wildlife conservation is too important to be left to conservationists and forest officials. The NWAP (2017-31), despite identifying some key areas for action, falls short in many respects. It lacks vision and is aimed at maintaining status quo.
The fact that the Action Plan is in direct violation of judgements of the Supreme Court with regard to certain subjects is a cause for serious concern. Not only may this amount to contempt of court, but it also suggests that the members of the committee may either have aligned with the government’s priorities or simply have been unaware of the implications of ignoring the court‘s directions. It would indeed be a tragedy if the cost of silence on these grave issues were paid by India’s vanishing wildlife.
There is an urgent need to review and revise the NWAP (2017–31). The problems are too serious to be fixed by tweaks, and there is a need for a complete overhaul. To begin with, the task of framing the Action Plan ought to be entrusted to a group of individuals with diverse knowledge and experience in a wide range of disciplines that include not just wildlife and ecology, but also environmental and social sciences, hydrology, climate change, governance, and related fields. The Committee should have wide-ranging consultations with people across sectors and importantly, with those having opposing viewpoints. After all, wildlife conservation has less to do directly with wild animals and more with managing pressure on wildlife from the human, industrial and developmental goals of the country. Given the increasing threat to wildlife habitat, we urgently need an action plan that is focused, robust and implementable.
Further reading
Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. 2017. National Wildlife Action Plan 2017-2031. New Delhi. Government of India.
The committee included Bibhab Talukdar of Aranyak, Vivek Menon Wildlife Trust of India, and R. Sukumar of the Indian Institute of Science among others
T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India, (2012) 3 SCC 277: 2012 SCC Online SC 152 at page 283.
Ministry of Environment and Forest. 2002. National Wildlife Action Plan, 2002-2016. New Delhi. Government of India.
Centre for Environmental Law, World Wide Fund-India v. Union of India, (2013) 8 SCC 234: 2013 SCC Online SC 345 at page 265.
Pinjarkar, V. 2017. Kaziranga report gets BBC banned from Tiger Reserve for 5 years. The Times of India, February 28, 2017. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/kaziranga-report-gets-bbc-banned-from-tiger-reserves-for-5-years/articleshow/57382826.cms.
“Biomimicry” is the word we use to describe when we steal or are inspired by nature’s incredible designs and apply them to our own creations. We’ve done it many times over—with Velcro, aeroplane and turbine fins, and the nose of the Shinkansen Bullet Train, for instance. When you see the original models out in the wild—sticky burrs, the flippers of marine animals, or the streamlined bill of a kingfisher, in the case of the examples above—it is clear that nature has much to teach us. However, we can’t learn from nature unless we conserve it. The good news is that biomimicry itself may facilitate more and better conservation.
You might think that butterflies are more likely to inspire artists than scientists, but these insects are the basis of cutting-edge biomimicry research into how to improve solar panels. Some species of butterfly—the small cabbage white (Pieris rapae), the green veined white (Pieris napi), and the large cabbage white (Pieris brassicae)—have figured out that they can heat their flight muscles faster in the morning sun if they position their very white wings in a particular V-shape above their bodies. By energising themselves in this more efficient way, these whites (referred to hereafter as ‘Pierids’) can go foraging for all the best fruit whilst the other butterflies are still enjoying their metaphorical solar coffee. After observing this behaviour, a group of interdisciplinary researchers (of which I am a member) asked whether a closer analysis of the butterfly’s technique might help them optimise solar panels—which are somewhat expensive and, relative to many sun-basking species out in nature, fairly inefficient (especially in places like the cloudy UK, where the butterfly research is being conducted).
Figure 1: When butterfly wings are held at a precise angle (34°), body temperature increases by approximately 17°C.
The secret of the butterflies’ success is their “optical concentrator”. In the human world, examples of optical concentrators include magnifying glasses, telescopes, lighthouses, spectacles, and cameras; each of these devices manipulate light to increase or decrease the size of an image. Solar panels incorporate optical concentrators in the form of specialised “photovoltaic (PV) concentrators”, which combine optics with photovoltaic material that converts the sunlight into electricity. The optics are designed to focus the image of the sun onto the small areas of photovoltaic material in the same way analog cameras compress large scenes onto much smaller photo film. This allows solar panels to receive more energy and, therefore, produce more power—sometimes at even greater efficiencies due to how the materials they’re made of work.
In the world of thermodynamics, the more concentrated the energy is on a converting element (such as PV), the more efficient the conversion process becomes. This is one of the reasons scientists are so keen on developing solar concentrator technology. Single-junction solar cells—the first generation of solar panels—had efficiencies of only around 15%. Due to the constraints of thermodynamic laws, their theoretical limit was 33%, though this could be increased to 45% with concentration. For multi-junction solar cells, the increase facilitated by concentrators is, even more, improving the efficiency limit from 66% to 93%—as long as the cells are functioning in a difficult-to-create perfect system. Currently, the record solar cell efficiency in a real-world functioning system (a 4-junction solar cell under concentrated sunlight, to be specific) is 46%.
In other words, we still have a long way to go but the efficiencies and efficiency potentials of solar cells are still higher than those of wind or wave turbines (currently at around 35% with an efficiency limit of 59%). The efficiency of solar cells can go higher and they can be installed in almost any location—in almost any size and shape. However, to optimise the solar concentrating process, researchers and designers have to make adjustments and compromises on a wide array of solar panel traits— including size, weight, angles, materials, stability, and ease of manufacturing—to produce final products that function optimally across a range of temperatures and under different weather conditions. As if that wasn’t already enough to think about, priorities for each of these change depending on the exact application— so designers must start from scratch for each new project!
Current solar panels are bulky and heavy, limiting our ability to install them directly onto building structures and vehicles. Solar concentrators can be used to design differently shaped solar panels which integrate into buildings as tiles or windows, but these features can add weight and make the solar panels thicker and more cumbersome. What we need is lightweight, reliable, and weather-resistant optics—which is exactly what the wings of the cabbage white butterfly seem to be.
These species have been concentrating light for much longer than we have; if they had been watching when we first developed the telescope, they would have most likely laughed at how clever we thought we were. In order to concentrate light, the butterflies use their wings like a funnel to catch a wide area of sunlight and narrow its focus onto their much smaller thoraxes. If we were to adopt a similar method with our technology, we could reduce the area of photovoltaic material (PVM) required in solar panels—a huge step forward in our search for sustainable clean energy, as PVM is the expensive part of solar panels. Protective glass, wires, and metal framework merely play a supporting role while the PVM does the hard work of converting sunlight into electricity.
So why did we think these butterflies were concentrating light in the first place? Simple observation—the first, and often most overlooked, step in the scientific process. Biologists noticed that these species always basked with their wings in a very particular ‘V’ shape characterised by a consistent opening angle. This seemed too repeated a behaviour to merely result from chance—especially since it was not observed in other species. Enter the physicist studying solar energy technology. By chatting with colleagues in this other discipline, the biologists found out about V-trough concentrator photovoltaics, a type of technology in which the specific shape and the opening angle is used to optimally reflect light onto solar panels at the centre of the base. The scientists predicted that the butterflies’ wings probably had good reflectance (most of the light hitting the butterfly wing is reflected in some direction) allowing them to use the ‘V’ posture to increase the amount of energy being directed toward their bodies. The researchers teamed up to explore this multidisciplinary research question to find out how to steal clever ideas from nature to help us improve our designs…yet again.
Our team has measured the wings of all three species of Pierid mentioned above. We not only found the reflectance of these wings to be very high (more than 80% for the large cabbage white), but also to reflect the range of light useable by solar cells. It is remarkable—and highly promising for the field of solar energy—that a natural substance could achieve this while being very lightweight and weather resistant.
Figure 2: Magnified images of the wing structures of large white Pieridae wing.
Further investigations involved attaching actual butterfly wings to a small (1 × 1 cm) photovoltaic cell and recording the power output at different wing opening angles. We found that the wings successfully increased the power output from the small solar cell at a power-to-weight ratio 17× higher than that of standard solar concentrator technology. This improvement resulted from the fact that butterfly wings weigh significantly less than the standard mirror or lens materials used in manmade solar panels. Attachment of the wings increased the amount of light hitting the solar cell (a result of the concentrator effect) and increased the power output—with minimum added weight. By mimicking the structure of butterfly wings when manufacturing solar panels in the future, we can reduce the amount of rare, toxic, and costly-to-mine PV material. This can reduce the overall weight of the solar panels, which has the added benefit of diminishing the cost and energy required to make and transport the devices.
What do these naturally reflective wings look like? There are large variations in structures and properties observed across butterfly species but the basic arrangement is a series of scales tiled over the wing and partially overlapping in a way similar to roof tiles. Each individual scale is made up of vertical lines of chitin (the material comprising insect exoskeletons), linked by shorter ribs. The cabbage white butterflies contain a unique added layer of ellipsoidal pterin beads; pterin is a molecule made up of two joined rings that give Pieridae wings their white colour and high natural reflectance. The pterin compounds are shaped into three-dimensional ovals that squeeze between the short and long ribs of the wing scales. Scientists are still trying to understand how the butterflies grow such small shapes (~500 nm–about 200 times thinner than an eyelash) that seem joined to the central band of the beads. It is unusual to find this elongated bead shape in nature because it is not something that is straightforward to produce. Further, the beads are joined so delicately that physical abrasion causes them to fall off like pollen grains shaken from an anther. Why have butterfly wings evolved to have such a complex structure which can be thrown away so easily? Is it so the beads can more easily be renewed and the bright, reflective wings can remain pristine? Is it for signalling as well as concentration purposes? Further research is required to fully understand, and therefore utilise in a solar energy capacity, the properties of the unique butterfly wing structure and its optical and physical characteristics.
Currently, we are trying to replicate the complex butterfly wing structure synthetically to produce a similar lightweight and reflective solar concentrator for solar panels. This multidisciplinary research project also aims to explore other ways in which biomimicry can improve technology. For example, we are examining other interesting butterfly wing properties such as water resistance, durability, and transparency (how much light hitting a material passes straight through without being reflected, absorbed, or scattered). These characteristics could help us address problems associated with the glass that is used in all solar technology, either as a concentrating lens (magnifier) or as a protective outer layer. If we could steal a few tricks from butterflies, we could potentially improve outputs from, and longevity of, the next-generation solar panels.
As exciting as the butterfly biomimicry research is, perhaps even more amazing is the fact that it is just the tip of the iceberg; nature contains a vast range of advanced and complex designs that could eventually be studied, replicated, and adapted for our own use. These structures emerged over billions of years as a result of evolution optimising their functioning. This design process far exceeds any ‘trial and error’ optimisation routine that could ever be carried out by us—not only in terms of timescale but also success and sheer creativity. Structures within nature often fulfil multiple functions, and so the resulting features are a compromise reflecting a series of trade-offs associated with the many jobs they must complete and the many physical constraints faced by their owners. In the case of cabbage white butterflies, for example, wings need to facilitate flight, capture heat, provide camouflage (white flowers) to avoid predators, be flashy to catch the eye of potential mates and be both strong and large enough to get the butterflies’ bodies airborne but just enough so as not to weigh the animal down.
These complicated structures may appear random and chaotic to the casual observer when, in fact, they represent a delicate balance of many influences—environmental, genetic, physical, energetic, social, and developmental—that we are yet to understand. Improving our knowledge of how these forces cumulatively drive the evolution of traits (and of the resulting physical characteristics themselves) could be fruitful, as these ‘chaotic’ designs have already proven to be useful in certain applications. For example, Blu-ray disks are patterned with partly-random holes to better manage the lasers hitting them whilst they are being read, and nuclear fusion is made more stable by including obscure twisting designs in the magnetic chambers where the superheated fuel is contained.
The big question is, is it actually possible to actively design this sort of randomness? Luckily, we don’t have to—thanks to biomimicry. By copying nature’s best inventions, we can reach a more sustainable way of living; by using biomimicry to promote conservation, we can help protect the very species from which we can draw further inspiration. As the story of the cabbage white shows, incredible technological breakthroughs can result from paying attention to the world around us, asking the right questions, forging collaborations across disciplinary boundaries, and designing smart experiments to find useful patterns in the chaos.
Further reading
Doeleman, H. 2012. Limiting and realistic efficiencies of multi-junction solar cells. M.Sc. thesis. FOM institute AMOLF, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Leertouwer, H.L. 2007. Colourful butterfly wings: scale stacks, iridescence and sexual dichromatism of Pieridae. Entomologische Berichten 67(5): 158–164.
Shanks, K. et al. 2015. White butterflies as solar photovoltaic concentrators. Scientific Reports 5: 12267.
Shanks, K. Senthilarasu, S. and T.K. Mallick. 2016. Optics for concentrating photovoltaics: Trends, limits and opportunities for materials and design. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. 60: 394–407.
One of the more intriguing debates conservationists have to deal with is whether they represent some sort of colonising influence. Critics of conservation will contend that some of the main ideas in conservation were imposed by colonising powers or extended through neo-imperial influence. Defenders insist that much conservation is homegrown; it’s foolish to treat it as an invasive exotic given that it is so thoroughly blended with local institutions and independent governments.
Recently, however, the whole colonialism debate took a surprising twist when an article unashamedly advocating colonialism as a good thing was published. What is worse is that it was published in the Third World Quarterly (TWQ), a journal that has long been home to left-leaning scholars. And, worse still, the ‘scholarship’ behind this piece was appalling.
There has been a vigorous response to this paper. You could almost hear the spluttering of cappuccino hitting the computer screens of indignant readers. Most of the editorial board of the journal has resigned.At one point the author himself asked the article be retracted.There have been a host of intelligent, reasoned responses to this paper: try here on clickbait, here for an intelligent commentary on TWQ itself, and here for a summary of the whole sorry affair. There may be some positive outcomes, in that the board’s resignation may see new, more just publishing initiatives emerge. There has also been some disgraceful hounding of scholars who spoke out against the article by alt-right trolls.
I don’t think the further discussion on TWQ’s pages, despite the invitation to do so, provides a suitable vent for the issues this article raises. The basic problem is that the scholarship that underpins the article is so poor that it does not deserve that sort of critical engagement. We need to see how ridiculous it is. To that end, I think we should approach this problem slightly differently and ask: If ‘colonisation’ is the answer, what is the question? To kick things off I have developed one answer to that question, and am proud to launch the new Need for Colonisation (N4C) Index. This takes the form of a new miniature survey and scorecard that I believe can produce rapidly available, policy-relevant findings.
The N4C Index is based on a curious but fundamental truth that is buried deep within the argument of Gilley’s article: just because a state is a state, why should that mean that it gets to govern itself? Is self-determination an inalienable right, or a privilege that is earned? We know that states are recent inventions in the course of human history. If they are communities at all, then they have to be imagined as such, conjured up by media, representation, and re-written histories. Their borders are arbitrary, participation in the election of their rulers often derisory, and their governments are subject to corporate whim and multi-lateral restructuring policies. No decent left-leaning intellectual in her heart of hearts deserves her cardigan if she is also a blind-to-all-faults nationalist. We may have to recognise that in some cases things are so bad that colonialism could be the answer to the problems that face our different countries.
But we need also to recognise that in today’s academic circles this cannot be a mere theoretical argument. We need applicable findings that can make a difference and change the world. Based, therefore, on an extensive review of colonial invasions, wars, and imperial conquest, I have derived a colonisation score-card whereby you can determine how desperately your country needs to be colonised and by what sort of power. It works very simply—you answer the question, score your answer and add up the total. The sum will reveal how much colonisation you need.
Scores will be submitted to a major international conference— to be held in Berlin— that will demarcate the new global political geography and who will wield power over whom. I invite any legitimate government and potential colonising forces (as well as governments deserving colonisation) to participate. I also suggest that trends towards scores of zero (indicating perfect legitimate self-government) be monitored as part of counting progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
The questions are:
1. Has your country’s leadership been overtaken by a narcissistic buffoon with a penchant for media gaffes and a silly hairstyle?
Yes–60 points; Nearly–50 points; No–10 points; There is no way that you can call that hairstyle silly–1000 points
2. Does the leadership have a penchant for military spending and nuclear weapons?
Yes–100 points No–5 points No, because they do not spend nearly enough money on nuclear weapons, who could?–500 points
3. Does your country have a great history of colonial rule and military conquest?
Yes–2000 points No–10 points No, we have never sought an Empire–100 points
4. Are your country’s international borders fenced?
No–5 point Not any more because someone dug a tunnel underneath the one secure border we had and anyway anyone can get in from Scotland–1000 points Not yet and I am personally overseeing the construction of the one nearest me to the south–1000 points (if you are from the US) or 5 points (if you are from Scotland or Canada)
5. Do you already have the ideal leader?
No, there is no such thing–5 points Yes – 50 points I think to be ideal then we would be looking for some sort of cross between Rodrigo Duterte, Kim Jong-un, Robert Mugabe, Saparmurat Niyazov, Donald Trump and Jacob Zuma–50,000 points
6. Are you still answering these questions?
No–0 points Yes–500 points
Scores:
Over 10-good, only minor colonisation required.
You could probably still do with a short visit from a small expeditionary force given that you were concerned enough to answer these questions in the first place.
Between 100-1000–serious; urgent colonisation required.
Please invite your nearest neighbour to come and sign some quick treaties ceding territory and trading rights to them. Make sure they are signed by unrepresentative leaders, preferably in languages you don’t understand.
Over 1000-Even more serious.
Your country may or may not be alright but you are a basket case.Are you from Nambia ?
In the north-east region of India, especially in Arunachal Pradesh, a threat to forests is looming large and is expected to lead to a loss of large areas of forests in the next decade—mega-dams and mining.
From 2004 to 2013, at an all-India level, 6000 km2 of forests were given clearance for various kinds of development projects including 2500 km2 for mining—an area equivalent to three tiger reserves. Of this, ~1600 km2 was given clearance for projects in Northeast India, with 90% of these projects in Arunachal alone. The projects cleared include open-cast coal mining, limestone, thermal power, uranium, cement and fertilizer plants, oil exploration, and drilling (at least 14 in three states).
In addition, a multitude of dams is proposed and ongoing in several states of Northeast India. In 2009, there were 130 proposed dams in Arunachal (38,613 MW), which by March 2013 had increased to 153 (43,118 MW). The forest areas to be submerged are large including 5000 ha in Dibang, 1400 ha in Lower Demwe, 4000 ha in Lower Siang, and 4000 ha in Lower Subansiri adding up to 15,000 ha (150 km2) of forest in Arunachal Pradesh. There are numerous upstream, downstream, cumulative ecological, and social impacts of these dams.
Rivers be dammed
Often, these dams are proposed as being more benign and less ecologically damaging as they are termed ‘run-of-the-river’ schemes. This is misleading. Run-of-the-river schemes are defined as:
A power station utilizing the run of the river flows for the generation of power with sufficient pondage for supplying water for meeting diurnal (daily) or weekly fluctuations of demand. In such stations, the normal course of the river is not materially altered.
A storage dam is defined as:
This dam impounds water in periods of surplus supply for use in periods of deficient supply. These periods may be seasonal, annual, or longer.
However, even though many of these dams may not require large submergence areas, they drastically reduce or change the natural water flow regimes of the rivers. In addition, given that multiple projects are proposed on the same rivers, large stretches of a single river can be affected.
The November 2012 minutes of the Expert Appraisal Committee on River Valley and Hydroelectric Projects states:
On the main Siang river, the reservoir of Lower Siang HEP spreads for about 77.5 km, followed by reservoirs of Siang Upper Stage-II and Stage-I for 57 km and 74 km respectively i.e. total river length in reservoirs will be 208.5 km without any free-flowing river stretch in between. On Siyom river, there are six planned projects in cascade affecting 90 km of river stretch (63.5 km in reservoirs and 26.5 km in tunnels) without significant free-flowing river stretch in adjacent projects. Similarly, 7 projects are planned on Yargyap Chhu in cascade.
The negative impacts of such dams can be severe, including loss of fisheries, changes in wetland ecology in the floodplains, disruption to agriculture in the chaporis (islets) and impede on other livelihoods due to blockage of rivers by dams. Moreover, there is increased vulnerability to floods due to boulder extraction for dam construction and sudden massive water releases from reservoirs during monsoons. Dam safety and other risks are critical to consider in a geologically fragile and seismically active region. Scientists have suggested that the proposed dams in Arunachal will have a severe effect on wildlife in important Protected Areas like Dibru-Saikhowa and Kaziranga, with negative impacts on species such as floricans, wild water buffaloes, and river dolphins.
An argument that is often made in favor of dams in low human population density areas such as in Arunachal is the ‘small displacement’ of people involved, suggesting that there is little social impact. For example, the proposed 3000 MW Dibang Valley hydropower project, which will submerge around 5000 ha, is in the thinly populated Dibang Valley district in Arunachal Pradesh that has a population density of 1 person per km2. However, the entire global population of a tribe—the Miju Mishmi, numbering 9500—resides here. There are 17 dams are proposed in this valley and yet the social impact is deemed as low with an entire tribe either directly or indirectly affected.1
The bewildering numbers of dams in every single river basin appear to have been proposed with no foresight in terms of the logistical feasibility and existing infrastructure to access these areas and the capacity to build such large dams.
A double whammy: replacing native forests with paper forests
Compensatory afforestation is also offered as a way of minimising ecological damage by proposing double the area to be ‘reforested’, but there are few documented examples of scientifically planned afforestation with native species. Despite huge sums of money being allocated and spent, afforestation efforts often fail. In many cases, natural scrub forests or grasslands, looked upon as ‘wasteland’, end up being the target of afforestation efforts. Hence, not only are certain forest areas permanently lost, ‘compensatory afforestation’ involving monocultures of non-native species with limited biodiversity value result in damage or loss of natural habitat in another area.
Compensatory afforestation in states like Arunachal Pradesh is usually undertaken in existing Unclassed State Forest (USF) areas (which are used by the community) and under de facto ownership of local people. As a result of the afforestation activities, these community-use forest areas can be taken over by the Forest Department.
Another bizarre consequence of dam clearances is that the area under ‘Recorded Forest’ ‘increases’ after submergence. The area of forest, which is lost and underwater, is declared as a Reserved Forest with fishing rights. Consequently, on paper, government records will show an increase in the Reserved Forest area after submergence.
I met a chief engineer for one of the hydropower project companies in Arunachal Pradesh who had been associated with the only concrete gravity diversion dam (405 MW) that has been built and completed in Arunachal Pradesh on the Ranganadi river. He said that the Ranganadi is now a dead river and that the dam project was a ‘Himalayan blunder’. Coming from a dam builder, this was a rare admission and telling. Since the project has been commissioned, it has generated far less power than its originally planned capacity, while the river and its aquatic fauna have been negatively affected. The dam has also caused hardships and changes for the Nyishi community residing in the area.
The problem with Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs)
If all these dams and others in the other Himalayan states come up, India would have the highest dam density in the world (0.33 /1000 km2), which is 62 times greater than the global average— one for every 32 km of the river channel. Of these dams, 88% are in species-rich ecosystems with a projected loss (extinction) of many plant and animal taxa2.
While the construction of mega dams in Arunachal Pradesh and their negative consequences have been highlighted in the print media by a few environmental activists/journalists, there are surprisingly few reviews/critiques in peer-reviewed mainstream conservation science discourse and literature. Apart from a few networks/organisations like the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers, and People (SANDRP) (https://sandrp.in), the River Research Centre, and Kalpavriksh, mainstream wildlife biologists have failed to acknowledge the seriousness of this issue.
Conservation scientists complain that EIA studies are undertaken by dubious agencies with no scientific credibility, but few are willing to participate in making the EIA process better or critically evaluating an EIA report. The non-availability of scientific literature on the impacts of dams, the lack of published expert opinion/critiques of projects and their EIA studies can be a major hindrance for dam opponents who have mounted legal challenges to these projects.
It is well known that EIA studies are seldom conducted by ‘independent bodies’ as they are usually paid for by the project proponents resulting in an obvious conflict of interest. Worse, few EIA studies conduct or provide ecological analyses on the potential impact on wildlife in the area.
In the Tawang Stage II EIA study, the report only listed five of the common mammal species that occur in the area, with vague statements that the area is visited by ‘many bird species ’. Earlier scientific research has recorded at least 34 species of mammals in the Tawang area, almost all of which occur close to the dam site. While it is true that some species are restricted to higher altitudes and would not be directly affected, the EIA failed to mention that one of the main populations of the newly discovered Arunachal macaque (Macaca munzala) is also found at the site. The area is also visited by the black-necked crane, a highly threatened bird species, and other key species such as the takin (Budorcas taxicolor) and the Chinese goral (Nemorhaedus caudatus).
Missing the woods for the trees
I would like to make two points here. First, more scientific studies on the actual and potential effects of dams and how they can affect our river systems/terrestrial habitats and flora and fauna are much needed.We also need better critiques of existing EIA studies and attempts to improve the way EIA studies are conducted to ensure that minimum standards are followed.
Second, some development projects are obviously needed for the people of Arunachal Pradesh to create genuine economic opportunities and jobs and improve living standards. However, conservationists, scientists, bureaucrats, and government policymakers should not gloss over the impact of these projects on transforming natural landscapes irreversibly, especially in comparison to the relatively lower-impact subsistence land-uses by forest-dependent people.
Despite the more obvious large-scale threats from mining, dams, and other projects, the subsistence needs of communities’ residents around reserves have more often been portrayed in mainstream scientific literature as the overriding threat to conservation. There has been an undue emphasis on documenting the ecological impacts on biodiversity due to hunting, logging, and shifting cultivation in Northeast India. While this is important, as field biologists, we have neglected to assess the loss of biodiversity and forests due to government policies, industrial growth, and development. The emphasis seems skewed and disproportionate to the degree of threat.
To take just one example, the impact on wildlife and forests of a series of seven dams on the Lohit river due to a 7500 MW dam, the loss of 1400 ha of forest, and the influx of around 7000-10,000 migrant labourers that are resident for close to 7-8 years are likely to affect the ecology of that area much more than the subsistence shifting-cultivation and hunting practices of 3500 Idu Mishmi people. And this is just one river basin; the same applies to all the river systems in Arunachal.
In fact, communities can be allies in conservation as borne out by the case of the proposed 780 MW Nyamjangchu Hydro-electric project in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh. Here, the petitioners against the dam were the Save the Mon Region Federation, a local community organisation of Buddhist lamas and monks from Tawang. Environmental lawyer Ritwick Dutta fought the case in the National Green Tribunal (NGT). After a long-drawn-out court case which began in 2012, the NGT finally suspended the Environmental Clearance (EC) for the project in April 2016 while asking for a fresh study including public consultation. While many other socio-cultural concerns were expressed, the proximity of the dam site to the wintering grounds of the black-necked crane was a key factor.It was a rare judgment where wildlife played a significant role in the suspension of clearance. Among other documents, a critique of the EIA study was used in the court case3.This highlights the positive outcome due to the cooperation between community groups, research organisations, scientists, lawyers, and activists which unfortunately does not happen as often as it should.
The success of the Save the Mon Region Federation should enthuse other community groups in Arunachal to challenge farcical public hearings, faulty EIAs, and other issues with the clearance process. But as with most such dam projects, this is just a temporary victory.
A call to conservationists
On the one hand, we insist on relocation as a policy for safeguarding tiger populations and creating inviolate spaces based on the premise that human residence in a reserve is inimical for tiger conservation. We also want buffer zones where people and tigers are expected to ‘co-exist’, and where land use is to be made compatible with tiger conservation. Yet, when vast swathes of those same lands are being given away for dams and coal mines or converted to monoculture cash-crop plantations, we do not seem to protest as loudly. Maybe it is just easier to study the impacts of local communities rather than engaging with damaging policy decisions or critiquing government-supported development projects.
Fortunately, there has been a subtle shift in the last few years with greater acknowledgement among many biologists and conservationists of the threats from developmental projects. Following the elections of 2014 and the changes to environmental governance being brought in to favour industry and economic growth, several scientists, conservationists and members of civil society are acknowledging the far-reaching destructive impacts of ‘development’ projects. But we need more voices and inputs from scientists on the impacts of such development projects on both species and habitats as well as on local communities.
Further reading
Rajshekhar, M. 2013a. Hydelgate: Why Arunachal Pradesh’s hydel boom is going bust? Economic Times, April 20, 2013. https://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-04-30/news/38930347_1_hydel-arunachal-projects-jindal-power.
Rajshekhar, M. 2013b. Hydelgate: How corruptions, shoddy allocations in Congress-ruled Arunachal Pradesh are drowning India’s hydro-power plans. Economic Times, April 30, 2013. https://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-04-30/news/38930283_1_hydel-india-inc-jindal-power.
Rajshekhar, M. 2013c. Hydelgate: how the hydro-power boom changed Arunachal Pradesh? Economic Times, May 6, 2013. https://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-05-06/news/39065189_1_hydel-boom-land-rights-forest-rights-act.
Lakshadweep left this marine researcher captivated, both underwater and over land; Meenakshi Poti
For four months last year, I had the opportunity to live on the islands of Lakshadweep. Imagine,
from walking between throngs of people in the shadow of concrete towers, I was transported to a
place with turquoise water as far as my eye could see, coconut tree skylines and a handful of
people I would get to know by name.
Today, thousands of miles away from that wondrous abode where the sea, the sky and the
inhabitants seemed to care for me like I was one of their own – my bond with the islands has
only grown stronger.
Lakshadweep is India’s smallest union territory, located in the Arabian Sea. It is an archipelago
of 36 islands — 12 atolls, three reefs, five submerged banks and ten completely uninhabited
islands. Before my time there, I had never been to an island before. I applied for a research
permit, and two months later, I boarded a ship from the port of Kochi. It took two days to reach
the Agatti and Kalpeni islands, where the population is a mere ten thousand.
I was there to study the foraging habits of endangered green turtles – a species that is relatively
under-studied compared to Olive Ridleys and Leatherback sea turtle populations in India. Green
turtles are the only herbivorous sea turtles. They feed predominantly on seagrass found in the
shallower parts of the sea.
In fact, the region around the Lakshadweep islands supports the largest population of green
turtles in the Indian subcontinent. But the situation here is quite complex. Fishermen blame the
decline in their catch on these foraging turtles. They believe that fish stocks have fallen because
the seagrass meadows – which act as fish nurseries – have been overgrazed. This has led to an
increase in fisher-turtle conflicts in the recent past.
My focus was on studying how the decline of seagrass in the lagoons would influence the turtles’
diet. I mapped the seagrass distribution across the Agatti and Kalpeni lagoons, and sought to
understand how their diets shifted in areas where the seagrass densities were low. An
understanding of the green turtle foraging ecology is integral to their conservation, because of
their endangered status.
Every day in Lakshadweep, I would wake up early, as it gets uncomfortably hot after sunrise.
But for me, it wasn’t only the heat that urged me awake, it was the excitement to get to my
‘office’ and observe foraging green turtles over seagrass meadows, busy fish over the reefs, rays
flying by and an occasional shark. I would speed down the narrow streets of Agatti on my
dilapidated Ladybird cycle, with my research equipment – snorkel, mask, flippers, weights,
GoPro, and makeshift writing pad – sticking out of the front basket.
Weaving past bunches of busy hens and galloping goats, I would arrive at Jaffer’s house. Jaffer
played the role of friend, boatman, chef and island newspaper. I hired his boat, Nihla Fathima for
my work in the lagoons. She was a high-tech, swanky thing, with great speakers (I often heard
Coldplay and Dire Straits while Jaffer was cleaning his boat).
My dives involved taking counts of seagrass in the lagoon – quite a challenging task as it
involved laying transects and plots all across the lagoon. Each plot would take me a minimum of
three hours to finish, as I would “duck dive” to the base of the lagoon to take seagrass counts by
laying down small subplots made out of PVC pipes. Despite the rigour and intensity of
snorkeling for close to six hours every day, I enjoyed my fieldwork thoroughly.
After I surfaced from my dives, I would have lengthy conversations with the rest of the boat
crew – mostly in broken Malayalam, hand signals and my facial expressions – which would
leave them endlessly amused. All of them were involved in pole-line tuna fishing, but they
would make some forays out on the water for tourists too.
They would lay out a plate of khaddi (assorted snacks) for me after I surfaced from a dive, with
fresh lemon juice, kattan chaiya (black tea) or tender coconut water. Sometimes, Jaffer would
make delicious fish biryani while I worked underwater. (Although I went there as a vegetarian, I had no choice but to switch to a fish and chicken diet as vegetables, shipped from the mainland,
are not very easy to get a hold of. Once, we spotted carrots in the local store after several weeks,
but they refused to sell it to us as these were “advance booked carrots”.)
After long days out on the water, I would spend the evenings on the beach, chatting with the
women and children, with a cup of kattan chaiya in hand. The women of Lakshadweep are quite
reserved and are not allowed to swim in the azure waters that surround them because of their
religious beliefs. They were always curious about what I saw underwater, and would imagine the
marine wildlife in their backyard through my stories and descriptions. Later, when I was alone, I
would reflect on the stories that were exchanged with wonder.
There were so many special moments I wanted to share with my family and friends back at
home. But throughout my time on the islands, I had very limited internet and network coverage.
I’m not too talented at photography, so I documented whatever I could through art. I decided to
make postcards to send to people back home. This way, I would remember the features of the
organisms I was seeing or the landscape I was living in vividly.
Each postcard took me around a week to make, because I would usually be exhausted after
fieldwork. The first set of postcards never made it to my friends – I was so disappointed. So I
decided to write inland letters instead. I sent letters to some friends and my family. Funnily,
some of them reached long after I returned from the islands! As for those handmade postcards, I
feared losing even more somewhere over the sea, so I handed them over in person, once I got
home.
I can easily say that some of my closest friends now, I made in Lakshadweep. Even though I
haven’t been back for a year, I still receive messages from the locals to enquire about me and my
family. And of course, I still paint, write and dream of Lakshadweep.
To read more about sea turtle and marine conservation projects, visit www.dakshin.org
This article was originally featured in Nature inFocus
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Can communities play a role in conservation? And should they?
In our cover story, Katie Bodowski offers us suggestions for better orangutan conservation in Southeast Asia with the community as a conservation partner. Aarthi Sridhar writes about the traditional Mural fishery in the Palk Bay region of India proving that we can learn a lot about sustainability by studying local adaptations. John Kurien discusses the almost revolutionary steps taken to initiate community-based fisheries management in Cambodia.
This issue also launches two new columns. Michael Adams challenges us to re-examine our understanding of what ideal ecosystems look like while Rohan Arthur debates the efficacy of public dissent. Our regular column COP Watch continues with a look into the implications of the USA backing out of the Paris climate accord.
Populations of elephants have been rapidly declining over the last 50 to 60 years, primarily as a result of poaching for ivory, as well as due to habitat loss, live-capture, and human-elephant conflict. Unlike African elephants, only male Asian elephants have tusks and the number of tusked males also is limited and differs from place to place. As a result, while African elephants are poached only for the ivory, Asian elephants are poached for ivory as well as other organs, like skin, hair, genitalia and meat.
In Myanmar, an important range country, the wild elephant population has collapsed from around 10,000 in the 1940s to about 2000 today. In 2014, a community educational outreach program, Human-Elephant Peace (H.El.P), aimed at monitoring and reducing conflict with elephants, was initiated by a group of American institutions and the Myanmar Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation. In this paper, Sampson, McEvoy and co-investigators report how they unexpectedly found out that 133 elephants had been poached between 2010 and 2016, 25 of which had been killed in 2016 alone. Mass killings of elephants in certain areas of Myanmar were also discovered.
Sampson and her colleagues surmise that poachers used common herbicides to poison elephants, using darts. They suggest that after 2-3 days, once the poison kills the elephants, the meat and skin are extracted and smuggled across the Myanmar-China border. In China, elephant skin is used in the treatment of dermal and intestinal diseases, as well as in jewellery production. Elephant feet are used as medicine converted to furniture, while the trunk and genital organs are consumed.
When Asian elephants are poached for ivory, only the males are killed and although the ratio of males to females becomes unbalanced, there are usually enough males to slow down the rate of decline. However, the current crisis in Myanmar, in which both male and female elephants are poached, for parts other than ivory, poses a comprehensive threat to the populations – the loss of both mature females and males of breeding age, combined with the slow reproductive rate and long gestation period will result in faster population declines. The authors conclude that developing legal frameworks and working with the government as well as local communities to stop poaching and trafficking is urgently required.
Sampson C, McEvoy J, Oo ZM, Chit AM, Chan AN, Tonkyn D, et al. (2018) New Elephant Crisis in Asia—Early warning signs from Myanmar. PLoS ONE 13(3): e0194113. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0194113
Tirtha Patel is a research and teaching assistant for Environmental Studies and Applied Mathematics at FLAME University in Pune, India.
tirthaa.patel@gmail.com
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Fisher’s rights are human rights! – a slogan adopted by traditional fishing communities from India to Africa to Canada as they lobby for recognition not just for their traditional rights but for the state of our oceans today. Overfishing, in part due to the expansion of industrial fleets, along with a slew of other anthropogenic actions, has reduced fish stocks around the world. The FAO reported that the number of overexploited stocks has tripled over 30 years from 10% to 29.9 % with the number of fully exploited stocks increasing from 51% to 57%. Despite all this, there’s still hope for our oceans if countries act now. The United Nations included marine conservation as one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 14) to attain by 2030 and maritime nations recommitted themselves to this task at the United Nations Ocean Conference in 2017. With this marine issue, we try to delve further into the idea of fisheries governance, its conservation complexities and why we should care about this sector. Joeri Scholtens and Maarten Bavinck highlight the role that fish play in ensuring food security for some of the most poor and vulnerable in society. Jackie Sunde discusses the struggle of traditional fishers in South Africa to obtain recognition of their historical rights in the post-apartheid era. In India, where trawling is a source of great contention amongst scientists, government and traditional fishers, Mahableshwer Hegde and Manju Menon discuss a particularly destructive trawling technique – bull trawling – and how communities are working together to push for legal reform to address this threat to the long-term sustainability of their fisheries. Tom Horton sheds light on the attempts to restore Atlantic Bluefin tuna populations and the conservation challenges inherent in attempting to protect migratory species. Danny Buss shares her team’s efforts to figure out ways to estimate the number of whales present before whaling took its toll on populations. Sahir Advani’s article throws light on ray fisheries and the conservation bias which favours charismatic manta rays over the less popular but equally threatened devil rays.
Editor: Marianne Manuel
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I am on my way to Barcelona. If I squint I may just see the chimneys that signal the entrance to the city, but I know it’s just my imagination – the city is still an hour away. The train from the provincial town of Blanes to the metropolis traces the Mediterranean coastline, a sleeper-and-iron transect that wanders along its beaches and coves. After every big storm, the sand from the beaches has to be cleared from the tracks. This railway line would violate every one of our coastal regulation zone (CRZ) rules in India. This is Spain. The track was constructed a long time ago. It probably violated many environmental guidelines back then. It was built anyway. The journey is undeniably lovely.
Barcelona is in ferment. The Catalans are demanding a referendum. They want nationhood. A separation from the idea of Spain and a recognition of their autonomous economy, culture, identity and history. Yesterday they took to the streets. The government in Madrid, in a ham-handed provocation, sent in the central police force to arrest and grill Catalan bureaucrats for colluding with the separatists. It didn’t help that this was the same police force set up by the repressive dictatorship of Franco. The Catalans, in protest, took to the streets, pouring out of their houses carrying flags of an independent Catalonia, flowers to hand to the police, pots and pans, righteous indignation. They encircled the administrative buildings with loud protests. The police could only leave when, past midnight, the masses granted them safe passage.
Dissent as democracy.
I live with a Catalan nationalist. She is a strong believer in the idea of a separate nation. I have watched how, over the last decade, her vague dissatisfaction has grown to a more focused indignation and a sharp anger at the increasingly authoritarian handling of the Catalan question. So yesterday, when she heard of the protests in the city, it was the most natural thing to leave work mid-sentence, jump into the car, and drive the 140 km to Barcelona to add her voice to the throng.
Standing with her in the crowded, angry square, watching a large banner welcoming us to the self-declared Republic of Catalonia being unfurled on a nearby building, I felt a sense of profound disconnection. How was I to relate to this? The Catalans have their political heroes, their ideological wise men and women who show them the way. They may bicker over the little things, but they stand together on the important things. They seem to have a plan. And the Catalans believe them. When they call, the Catalans rise up to dissent. Change, they are assured, will come. A bright new future awaits, just there, past the next legal hurdle.
While one part of me envies this fervent energy, another – the resigned realist – cannot help smiling at the powerful belief the Catalans rest in their leaders. Our own experience in India tells how little our belief in politicians really brings. We are not ruled by a Franco – at least not yet. Still, we know better. Politicians of every stripe are an amoral, self-interested bunch of crooked power-brokers. The only thing that separates a good politician from a bad one is her ability to manipulate popular belief for as long as it takes to get what she wants. We know this in India. To find a politician that speaks with our voice is a vanishingly rare thing. And when he does, we have to look to him with growing suspicion. What’s in it for him? When is he going to disappoint? We look at every call to dissent and we smile the smile of the failed romantic. Ah, yes. How wonderfully quaint to believe that dissent can bring change for the better.
Dissent as naiveté.
The coastline outside my train window is heavily modified. Harsh breakwaters – concrete and rocks – try vainly to protect small bits of coast from erosion. The beaches behind these breakwaters are artificial. The have to be replenished every few years with sand from the rivers, smoothed down each morning for a fresh batch of tourists. To the south, without having to squint, the three chimneys of Les Tres Xemeneies rise above the September haze that envelops the city. It is a defunct thermal power plant built right on the beach, destroying vast acreage of the Bésos Delta when it was first constructed in 1970s. There were protests when it was first proposed. It will be an environmental disaster. It will be an architectural eyesore. It was built anyway. Coastal regulations were not so strict back then.
I think of our own coastal regulations in India. The year 1991 seems like a long time ago, but when plans for the coastal zone regulations were first being circulated, there was a genuine sense that this was something different. It was not so much a legal notification as a vision statement. Of the special ecological status of the coast and islands. Of the unique traditions that linked coastal communities with their ecosystems. Of how vulnerable these narrow stretches are to rampant over-development, overuse, overpopulation. Climate change was not yet the buzz phrase back then, but here was a document that did everything you could expect from a government taking cognizance of how climate change was likely to impact the coast and islands. Sure, we bickered over the details. But here was something we felt we could be genuinely proud of. Something to believe in. We know the reality. It is the reality of most environmental legislation today. There have been, to date, more than 20 modifications to the original notification, each a rationalization, a clarification, a dilution, a workaround. If current reports are right (and a recent right to information request confirms this), there are plans to make the notification a shadow of itself. The coast, in case you hadn’t heard, is open for business. There are industrial and tourism opportunities everywhere, for the taking. This is not the 1990s. Or even the 2000s. The decades of dissent are done in India. So yes, there will be a few small protests, but they will be ignored, laughed at, labeled reactionary. Anti-national. There was a time when “environmental stories” bought eye-balls for our infotainment industry but between the raucous politics of division and celebrations of India’s neo-liberal dreams, they have other, more entertaining things to occupy themselves with now. We have no environmental heroes in India anymore. Nobody who can get us out on the streets with our pots and pans. And while our government is not yet as blunt-headed as Madrid in dealing with dissent, the machinery of state is powerful enough. It is surprisingly easy to quiet the noisy NGO sector – show them up for the squabbling complainers that they are; magnify their differences so they make for easy pickings; remove them from all policy forums; weigh them down with bureaucratic filings; quietly threaten to revoke their legal legitimacy; squeeze their funding sources. Between fear, cynicism and plain tiredness, civil society voices are reducing to a whimper over government and big-business disdain for the environment.
Dissent is dead.
Barcelona’s skyline is getting clearer on the horizon. Once reviled, Les Tres Xemeneies, now marks where the city begins. It is stripped bare of everything except its brick chimneys, but remains an architectural statement as iconic as Gaudi’s unfinished cathedral. It stabs a coastline already much transformed. It tells its own powerful tale of dissent. Conceived in the 1970s, it faced huge opposition from environmental groups and the local government. The power company that owned the property built it against a strong wave of local anger and ecological protests. Its three tall chimneys rose as a mutant three-fingered ‘f*** you’ to the environment, the coast, the local community. The plant polluted the nearby beaches and seas with black rain. Mistreated its workers. Saw more violent protests, this time from workers, in which police intervened. People died. And in time, like other grand projects of the time, it became unprofitable and faced demolition. Once loathed as an aesthetic disgrace blotting the city skyline, the citizens of Barcelona now rallied to save the structure as a symbol of cultural and environmental resistance. It lies bare now, its future uncertain. It may become a museum.
Dissent as art. Signifying all it fails to achieve.
Last night’s crowds would have dispersed by now. They were up late, banging pots and pans on the streets and from their kitchen windows. Their dissent will continue. Will they get the change they want? And if it comes, will it be all they expect it to be?
The format of this issue’s COP Watch is somewhat different to our original plan. This is because one enormously significant event has occurred since the last issue of CC, which we felt deserved our full attention. On the 1st June 2017, the President of the United States of America announced that the USA would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, claiming that the agreement “disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries” and would result in “vastly diminished economic production”.
The USA is the World’s largest economy and the 2nd biggest emitter of CO2, contributing 14.9% of global emissions in 20151, so their withdrawal would have major implications for future increases in global temperature. We have three main questions:
Can the USA legally withdraw from the Paris agreement?
The simple answer is yes. In his press statement, President Trump stated that the Paris accord was “non-binding”. This is true. Under the terms of the agreement, parties are allowed to withdraw simply by submitting written notification. BUT, the USA cannot do this until 3 years after the agreement came into force, that is to say until 4th November 2019. What is more, once written notification has been received, it will be a full year until the withdrawal takes effect, taking the date to 4th November 2020. That is the day after the next US presidential election, and many believe that President Trump is unlikely to serve out his full term. What is more, countries can re-join the Paris treaty at any point. So, the next few years will be very interesting.
In the meantime, the United States must abide by the terms of the treaty. This does mean that they must set nationally defined emission reduction targets, pursue measures to achieve these targets, and report regularly on their progress. This does not actually mean that they must actually reduce their emissions, and there is no penalty for not meeting their targets. Is the incentive to set and pursue the ambitious targets needed to slow the pace of temperate rise, undermined by a stated intention of leaving the treaty. Surely the answer is yes.
Are there any sanctions or punishments which can be enforced, should the USA fail to abide by the terms of the treaty?
Yes. In an interview for the Financial Times3, Daniel Bodansky, a professor at Arizona State University and an expert on international climate law said “there aren’t any specific penalties for violations, but other countries are allowed to take ‘counter-measures’ in response”. These otherwise illegal “counter-measures” become legitimate tools once a treaty signatory fails to live up to its obligations. Would other countries be likely to challenge an economic behemoth like the USA by imposing such measures? Your guess is as good as mine, but it seems unlikely.
Is there anything ‘we’ can do?
I believe the answer to this is a resounding yes. Firstly, given that for the next four years the USA is legally committed to setting and working towards targets of emission reduction, we can lobby, campaign and watch like hawks to make sure they are doing this. To achieve the latter, through COP Watch here at CC, we will do our best to keep you up to speed with developments. The website https://climateactiontracker.org/ is another great resource, detailing the actions each country is taking towards meeting their targets. And for those ready to take action, there are several campaigns already running. The Guardian newspaper in the UK listed 10 which they felt were particularly effective (more information here:
A Google search of “climate change action campaigns” will bring up many other options depending on the type of campaign that appeals to you.Secondly, given the likelihood that there will be a new President in position on the day the USA would actually leave the treaty, we must surely do all we can to convince that President to take the USA back in.
Conclusions
In many ways to backtrack from switching to an economy based on renewable energy sources seems like a negative economic step for the USA. Renewable energy sources are becoming cheaper by the day as the technologies for their production become more efficient and our ability to store energy for low-production periods improves. Meanwhile, fossil fuels are becoming more and more expensive. And of course ultimately, fossil fuels will run out, meaning that in the long-term we have no choice but to switch to renewables. While other major global powers, including India, China, and the EU Nations, forge ahead in renewable technologies, placing their economies on a strong footing for this inevitable low carbon future, the USA’s actions seem to condemn them to a game of catch-up which must jeopardise their continued status as the World’s primary economic power. Perhaps this will be enough to make President re-think his plans. If not, all is not lost. But we must act.
Finally, in other COP news, 15 more countries have ratified the Paris agreement since our last issue. This takes the total number of ratified signatories to 157, out of 195 countries that originally signed up. Well, swings and roundabouts I suppose.
The shaky video shows the arc of its tail scything through brown water as the Black Marlin swims through the creek, hunting bream and tailor. The phone camera pans around and the built structures of the Port Kembla steelworks frame the scene, heavy trucks rolling over a concrete bridge, smokestacks, and factories crowding the landscape. The most polluted creek in the Illawarra region of south-east Australia, Allens Creek flows through the steelworks, its banks lined with concrete and weeds, its waters littered with plastic, broken glass, and rusting steel. Recently steelworkers watched amazed as that Black Marlin hunted in the shallow waters inside the steelworks itself.
The Black Marlin is an apex predator of oceanic environments, a wide-ranging ocean swimmer that can grow to 800 kilograms. Regarded as the premier game fish amongst anglers, they epitomise the oceanic wild – fast, powerful, and beautiful.
The waters and banks of Allens Creek are a complex amalgam of industry, abandonment, toxicity, flourishing, and decline. From the position of the dominant material logics of power and capital, these are the increasingly forgotten, ignored, or avoided places. The presence and agency of the Black Marlin in the middle of the steelworks bring into focus debates about the nature of nature in the twenty-first century. The giant ocean fish swims into the heart of industrial Port Kembla not because it is disoriented, but because the ‘dirty ecologies’ of this human-transformed environment provide resources and shelter. Patricia Yaeger (2013) discussing the amazing film Beasts of the Southern Wild, argues
“The film’s rags and wastelands—its killing fields—become powerful emblems of the Southland’s (and our nation’s) commitment to toxic inequality…The citizens of the Bathtub practice a dirty ecology, making do with what they can salvage from other waste-making classes.”
The imagined community of the Bathtub, lost in the interstices and flood zones of the modern American juggernaut, reflecting class and racial neglect, is, like Allens Creek, simultaneously full of life and energy. Both the humans and the non-humans living in these environments thrive or struggle with repurposed elements from other ecologies. The toxic dirt and debris of the steelworks waterway are the hidden byproducts of the glistening steel towers in modern cities; the marginalised workers fishing in these waters are increasingly discarded by the processes of capital and automation.
All this of course is not so far from jugaad. Radjou et al (2012) define some underlying principles of jugaad as seeking opportunity in adversity; doing more with less; thinking and acting flexibly; simplicity and ‘heart’ – elements of these easily map onto both human and other ecologies. Around the world, many human communities approach innovation and change through the same principles that define jugaad.
The powerful presence of the Black Marlin highlights for us what water and its denizens might have to teach us. How do we learn in these interstitial environments? What are the seen and unseen processes of respect, reciprocity, generosity, and humility between humans and non-humans in these liminal zones? How is the ocean water itself, covering 71% of the planet and containing 99% of its inhabitable area, a key learning opportunity for us?
In much of both popular and scientific discourse there is an increasingly insistent environmental story of damage, extinction, and decline. Simultaneously, some scientists, environmentalists, humanities scholars, and artists are rethinking the nature of nature. I want to argue that all environments are still whole environments, that the whole is constantly reassembled, reorganized, from whatever are the available constituent parts and processes. This idea of new ecologies emerging from pre-existing and new constituents has been discussed by a number of researchers. In 2013, the edited volume Novel Ecosystems (Hobbs, Higgs, and Hall) presented a range of perspectives, Emma Marris’s book Rambunctious Garden (2011) had earlier explored the challenge of ‘saving nature in a post-wild world’, and George Monbiot’s Feral: Searching for enchantment on the frontiers of rewilding (2013) also provocatively explored these ideas.
The spaces of Allens Creek, marine aquatic and terrestrial, have rewilded themselves. New communities flourish here, made up of both pre-existing species and new arrivals. These are the unguarded, unmanaged spaces where lives can flourish and decline often unobserved by the auditing eyes of power. The human observers of the Black Marlin are working-class men, steelworkers, and fishers who occupy marginalised spaces in society. These are people for whom much of their learning and knowledge is embodied; they carry their skills in their hands. Fishing is a working-class recreation, but one with often very high levels of knowledge and embodied skill.
In a world where many human societies are increasingly narcissistic, where our only concern is ourselves, the appearance of the Black Marlin in the steelworks is a transcendent experience. Perhaps our task is to harmonise ourselves with these old and new environments, not continually attempt to ‘manage’ them into some other state that we in our hubris think is more desirable, whether ecologically or economically. Part of the opportunity for learning is to honor the knowledge of those vernacular worlds. Another part is to trust our own embodied, intuitive understandings, our affective and emotional responses, our ancient ways of understanding that lie beneath the more recent cognitive processes.
The waters of the Blue Planet are simultaneously and paradoxically both vulnerable and damaged, and unlimited in their power to damage and make vulnerable. The South Asia floods, almost invisible in world media next to Hurricane Irma, bring this home yet again to the world’s most populous region. Our shared material bodies: humans, the Black Marlin, the ocean water itself, is composed of the same elements: each is a rearrangement of the other, and each will be rearranged again as they die and return to the matrix from which the next lives will grow. Embracing humility, listening, slowness, might transform our practices of care through making space for others, helping others endure, moving our human selves to the edges instead of the centre.
REFERENCES
Hobbs, R.J., Higgs, E.S. and Hall, C., 2013. Novel ecosystems: intervening in the new ecological world order. John Wiley & Sons.
Marris, E., 2013. Rambunctious garden: saving nature in a post-wild world. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
Monbiot, G., 2013. Feral: Searching for enchantment on the frontiers of rewilding. Penguin UK.
Radjou, N., Prabhu, J. and Ahuja, S., 2012. Jugaad innovation: Think frugal, be flexible, generate breakthrough growth. John Wiley & Sons. Yaeger, P., 2013. Beasts of the Southern Wild and Dirty Ecology. Southern Spaces, 13.
While walking through the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra it won’t be long until you come across some amazing sights, sounds, and smells. Leeches inching up your legs, the loud hoots of gibbons, and the sweet smell of wet soil after a downpour. Keep looking up and if you’re lucky you might see a glimpse of red hair high in the canopy. Asia’s only great ape, the orangutan, is an iconic species of Southeast Asia but is, unfortunately, becoming a rare sight in the wild.
Two subspecies of orangutans live in Southeast Asia: the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) and the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelii). They are the only great apes found in this part of the world and spend most of their lives high in the rainforest canopy dining on fruit, leaves, roots, and flowers. As their survival depends on healthy forests, deforestation has had a devastating effect on orangutan populations. In the year 2000, Bornean orangutans were listed as endangered on the IUCN list, while Sumatran orangutans were classified as critically endangered and are predicted to go extinct by 2100 if conservation efforts are unsuccessful.
Habitat loss is the biggest threat to orangutan populations and palm oil is the biggest culprit. Palm oil is a type of vegetable oil used in food such as biscuits, chocolates, packaged food, and bread, in addition to soaps and cosmetics like lipstick and toothpaste. Because palm oil is used in so many products, the high demand for it is responsible for destroying much of Southeast Asia’s rainforests and biodiversity. The areas primarily cleared for palm oil plantations are the peat forests and lowland forests, which are unfortunately the preferred habitat for orangutans. As little as 40 years ago both Borneo and Sumatra were covered in forests, but today the landscape has drastically changed and only small pockets of forests remain. Orangutans struggle to survive in these fragmented forests as they eat, sleep, and travel through the trees, rarely touching the ground. The number of orangutans has plummeted from over 230,000 to around 25,000 individuals in 100 years. To make things worse, loggers, poachers, and palm oil farmers have now started to encroach on the last few refuges for struggling orangutan populations.
Habitat loss is not the only threat orangutans face, poaching and the illegal pet trade are also threatening their numbers due to the high demand for bushmeat and exotic pets worldwide. Both industries go hand-in-hand as adult orangutans are killed for bushmeat and their babies sold as illegal pets. Law enforcement is minimal in Indonesia so despite having complete wildlife protection laws, Indonesia’s law enforcement is notoriously weak and ineffective. In addition, the majority of primates being kept as pets are by local people, suggesting the need for more education and law enforcement in local communities. All of the threats to orangutan populations are interconnected and require both local and global intervention to address them.
Community Based Conservation
Community-based conservation (CBC) is a tool currently used by NGO’s and governments to address the threats to orangutan populations in both Borneo and Sumatra. CBC started to evolve in the 1980s when scientists saw the need to incorporate human welfare into conservation. Traditional conservation methods involve creating protected areas off-limits to humans, but despite having more protected areas in the world today than we’ve ever had, we continue to lose species and habitats at an alarming rate. Conservationists and social scientists are realizing that displacing local people from their homes to create protected areas is not effective. Instead, teaching local people to coexist with wildlife and the resources they share has had better results.
A community-based approach can be changed to address threats and create solutions for the many different landscapes, cultures, species, and communities in need of help. CBC programs are currently succeeding for various species in multiple countries including the black rhinoceros in Namibia, cotton-top tamarin in Colombia, and Grevy’s zebra in Kenya. Despite some success, for conservation to become a social priority more people need to understand that conserving their native environment is in their best interest and that without nature, people cannot survive.
CBC efforts for orangutans; are they effective?
To conserve native species and their habitats, it is imperative that humans coexist with orangutans and other wildlife. Coexisting not only benefits the native species but also the native peoples. Without seed-dispensing orangutans, the forests that people depend on would not thrive, the tourism industry imperative to the economy would collapse, and Indonesia’s most iconic species would disappear. Currently, conservationists use four main strategies to address threats to orangutans: fighting illegal trade and poaching, managing protected habitat, establishing orangutan friendly management in areas such as palm oil plantations, and rehabilitating and releasing orphaned and injured orangutans. All of these strategies involve some form of community-based conservation as local communities move closer to the last patches of forests left in Borneo and Sumatra.
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
Palm oil is a very profitable crop; it is widely used and has created many jobs which have improved the lives of poor communities as many plantation owners provide their workers with healthcare, salaries, housing, and schooling. Despite having some benefits, it is the leading cause of deforestation in Southeast Asia and the biggest threat to the survival of orangutans. To help reduce the destruction caused by palm oil plantations on the ecosystem a non-profit organization called the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was established in 2004. RSPO provides financial incentives to boost the growth of sustainable palm oil worldwide and includes members from plantation companies, manufacturers of palm oil products, retailers, banks and investors, and environmental and social NGOs. RSPO has created a list of environmental and social criteria that must be met by companies in order for their palm oil to be considered ‘sustainable.’ These guidelines help to minimize the destructive nature of palm oil plantations on both the environment and local communities in the region.
There are many branches to the RSPO non-profit; one of these involves community-based programs that provide tools and education to the local communities. In Indonesia, RSPO certifies small plantation owners so they have the knowledge and ability to produce more palm oil using less land. RSPO gives the farmers the opportunity to raise their income by offering access to training, education, and funding that allows them to provide for their families while helping to protect biodiversity in the region. The RSPO community-based programs benefit the local people by providing many resources to better their families and livelihoods while working to create more sustainable practices to protect the environment now and in the future.
Education and empowerment in the community
Community environmental education (CEE) and community empowerment strategies are both powerful tools used in CBC efforts in Southeast Asia. Both strategies encourage local communities to become involved in managing their natural resources in ways that benefit them and their environment. Education is one of the most powerful tools in conservation as it allows people to gain awareness, skills, and knowledge while providing opportunities to participate in decision-making. Once people understand their environment and are aware of how its problems affect them, they are more motivated to work towards finding solutions that better their community and support the wildlife they cohabitate with.
Hutan, a French NGO based in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo is one of the successful CBC programs supporting orangutan conservation. Beginning in 1996, Dr. Marc Ancrenaz and Dr. Isabelle Lackman have spent over twenty years in Sabah trying to build the trust of the locals while working to conserve the area’s wildlife. They partnered with the Sabah Wildlife Department to create The Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project (KOCP) and after eventually gaining the local people’s trust, they got them involved in the conservation efforts. Hutan-KOCP integrates scientific research, community engagement, education, and capacity building to conserve the wildlife living within and around the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary. They involve the local community in every aspect of their program from hiring local people to monitor the native wildlife, manage the sanctuary, collect scientific data, and conduct anti-poaching patrols, to holding community meetings, offering environmental education classes, and awarding the community exclusive rights to develop ecotourism within the sanctuary, including a homestay program in the village. Since the program’s establishment, there has been a significant decline in the unsustainable use of forest resources and an increased understanding of the importance of protecting the rainforest and its wildlife. A program called the Wildlife Wardens gives eighteen highly trained local people the power to arrest poachers and illegal loggers, allowing them to have a hand in protecting the natural resources and wildlife they depend on. So far, the programs and opportunities Hutan-KOCP provide have been effective in engaging the local people in sustainable behavior, creating a sense of pride in the community, boosting the local economy, and has created 26,000 ha of protected forests in the area.
The future
CBC largely depends on the willingness of the local community or village to take responsibility to preserve and protect their natural resources. Successful CBC projects have two things in common: they work at a community scale, and the community has been properly prepared to manage the project or most aspects of it on their own. A community-based program is considered successful if there is a change in human behavior over time and the local communities show the ability to sustain the conservation project with little or no oversight from the NGOs. To be successful, NGOs must provide more than just information and awareness of sustainable practices; they must offer new skills and give communities the opportunity to practice new behaviors and take action themselves.
Due to their charismatic nature and similarity to humans, orangutans have become the ambassador species for conservation in the battle against unsustainable palm oil and deforestation in Indonesia. Local communities have to be dedicated to protecting the only great ape living in Southeast Asia and work collaboratively with NGOs to ensure they are around for the future. Conserving biodiversity can only be achieved through changing human behavior, as humans are the main cause of biodiversity loss, to begin with. To change human behavior, understanding the needs and wants of the community is important. Tools and programs such as RSPO, education, alternative livelihoods, and creating a sense of pride in the communities are used by NGOs to try and protect the last populations of orangutans in Indonesia.
References
Ancrenaz, M., Dabek, L., & O’Neil, S. (2007). The costs of exclusion: recognizing a role for local communities in biodiversity conservation. PLoS Biol, 5(11).
Hadisiswoyo, P. (2010). Community Environmental Education is a key to rainforest and orangutan conservation: Lessons from Sumatra, Indonesia. International Conference on Community Learning, 1-10.
Nilsson, D. (2016). The psychology of community-based conservation programs: A case study of the Sumatran orangutan (Ph.D. Thesis). 1-177.
Nilsson, D., Gramotnev, G., Baxter, G., Butler, J. R., Wich, S. A., & McAlpine, C. A. (2016). Community motivations to engage in conservation behavior to conserve the Sumatran orangutan. Conservation Biology, 30(4), 816-826.
Prayogo, H., Thohari, A. M., Duryadi, D., Prasetyo, L. B., & Sugardjito, J. (2014). Habitat Suitability Modeling of Bornean Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus) in Betung Kerihun National Park, Danau Sentarum and Corridor, West Kalimantan. Jurnal Manajemen Hutan Tropika: Journal of Tropical Forest Management, 20(2), 112-120.
Cambodia’s vast aquatic milieu is part of the larger Mekong River Basin and its fertile floodplains. At the heart of this area is the Tonle Sap Lake– the largest freshwater lake in South-East Asia and the most productive and bio-diverse freshwater zone in the world.
The Tonle Sap River flows out from the Lake and joins the Mekong at Phnom Penh the capital of Cambodia. During the peak flooding season from June to September the seasonal monsoon causes the Mekong and its tributaries to spill out of their channels.
The flooding is so heavy that the flow of the Tonle Sap River is reversed back into the lake inundating huge areas of forest and grassland across the country. When this happens, the Tonle Sap — now designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve – grows from about 2500km² to cover over 16,000 km² or about 7 percent of Cambodia’s land area.
Tonle Sap teems with fish that nourishes Cambodia’s population making them the world’s largest consumers of inland fish. In 1873 the French Protectorate introduced tenure rights to the most productive parts of the Lake by auctioning licenses to individuals to erect fish enclosures called ‘fishing lots’ over vast areas of the lake.
Lake and Genocide
The Tonle Sap was also a mute witness to the genocide of the Pol Pot regime in the 1970s. The populations around the Lake were uprooted and scattered far and wide to realise his dream of making a communist state, based exclusively on a rice-growing proletariat subsisting on state welfare. Many Vietnamese fishers and Khmer farmers who were educated and fishing lot owners were killed for fear that they would rise against the state. Fishing came to a standstill.
The Pol Pot vicious regime was defeated in 1978. Cambodia slowly returned to the democratic mainstream in 1993 only after over a decade of ‘socialist’ rule. The fishing lots gradually reappeared and their auctioning by the state was revived as it did form sizeable revenue – between USD 2 and 3 million per annum. Fishing lot owners became a rich and privileged group. Many former military men also got involved. They jealously protected the lots from ingress by the large displaced Khmer peasant population who settled around the Lake after Pol Pot. Conflict over access to fish became endemic. Many deaths were reported.
Aquarian Reforms and Community Institutions
This situation was altered drastically in October 2000. Cambodia’s Prime Minister made the unexpected announcement cancelling half of all fishing lot licenses, including those belonging to a few hundred powerful individuals. He turned over the rights of access to thousands of poor rural families to harvest fishery resources for food and livelihood. It was an action that yielded important political rewards for the Prime Minister in the next elections in 2003.
This was a state-sponsored aquarian reform backed with legal protection. The Fisheries Administration (FiA) was asked to start a Community Fisheries Development Office to assist the riparian communities with setting up new community fisheries institutions (CFi). Civil society organisations and international development partners were encouraged to help out.
CFi are spatially demarcated areas of flood-pulse land and water terrains. This realm is first roughly charted out by a group of founders. Concrete boundary markers are placed at points that are perennially underwater. A democratically elected team from among the group of founders is designated as the CFi Committee. It is their task to make the CFi function as a modern riparian commons. Each CFi is encouraged to prepare their own management plan to chart out how they will utilise and conserve their common domain and its resources.
The technology of fishing lots was ecologically sound. It is just that due to the ownership pattern the overall benefits from the fishery were accruing to just a few. In the CFi the fishers only use what is designated as ‘family-scale’ fishing equipment. Basically, these are nets, traps and hooks of limited size which can only harvest small quantities of fish just adequate for home consumption and sale for a little cash.
Assessment
An assessment made in 2012 of the 450 CFi established by then demonstrated that the aquarian reforms resulted in a much wider spreading of the benefits gained from the huge teeming fishery resources of the Lake and also the other riverine and marine areas brought under the CFi regime.
Leading the list of benefits was the greater quantities of fish consumed by the rural population – particularly the children. Secondly, the use of the small cash incomes from the sale of fish contributed to family expenditures such a children’s school books; covering minor health costs; minor repair of homes; purchase of rice in the lean season, and such like. For the rural communities such small but crucial expenses made significant differences in their lives. Knowing that all this comes from resources over which they have collective control is a great source of empowerment.
There have also been tangible improvements in the local ecosystem through the collective efforts of the CFi members to protect the flooded forests; plant mangroves; stop destructive fishing and other conservation measures. The structured role of women in the CFi committees provided new avenues to gradually bring in more gender equality in the communities. Some of the best functioning CFi is marked by the greater participation of women in them.
Noting these small but significant nutritional, economic and social benefits which widely accrued to the communities from his earlier policy pronouncements, the Prime Minister completed his reforms by taking over the remaining half of the fishing lots. Some were converted into exclusive conservation zones in the Lake, which in his words were, “to protect the lake’s pressured wild fisheries on which tens of thousands of subsistence fishermen rely.”
The Future
Today there are over 500 CFi in Cambodia. The majority are around the Tonle Sap. Their commons cover over 850,000 hectares spread across 19 of the 25 provinces of the country. There are 188,000 commoners of which over 61,000 are women. Not all the CFi in Cambodia function as ‘lively commons’. Many remain ‘empty shells’ for lack of leadership and timely support from civil society and development partners.
Yet the future is bright. The framework for a modern commons and the rich experience of 15 years of thousands of commoners is a huge social capital that can be tapped with the right facilitation and support. The riparian communities and the Royal Government of Cambodia are committed to this.
‘Power lines’ is the underlying theme of this issue of Current Conservation. There might be a direct reference to these words only in one article, but the message runs across several other contributions. The discussion of Palacin et al’s 2016 paper narrates how birds struggle to navigate electricity lines disrupting their migratory routes. These tensions of the Great Bustard in Spain are not too far behind from what is happening in a prime tiger habitat in India. The country’s first experimental river interlinking project is out to fragment and submerge parts of Panna Tiger Reserve, says Joanna Van Gruisen’s in-depth understanding of the Ken-Betwa project.
Eben Goodale takes the discussion forward to highlight how conservation science needs to communicate with those affected or likely to be affected by the practice of conservation. The need for conservationists to engage with the politics of place is one message there. Caitlin Knight’s piece marches for science with it suggesting that science is so much a part of life that it is imperative for scientists not to engage with both society and policy. There is one contribution, which take us away from the anxieties that contemporary conservation practice has to encounter. It is the review of
the book Cheats and Deceits by Martin Stevens. It’s not humans, but wildlife here that are using an “array of techniques… to further their own agendas.” Finally, we carry an obituary of the environmentalist Duleep Mathai, whose foundation (DMNCT) has supported CC since its inception.
Editor: Kanchi Kohli
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We can look at oceans in many different ways: as a vibrant ecosystem, a medium for trade and travel, a sink for carbon, a vast space of uncertainty and danger, or – as we will do here – a provider of food and livelihood. After all, oceans play a vital role in providing human society with income and nutritious food. However, as we argue in this paper, the contributions of fisheries to food security are increasingly undermined by a set of powerful trends.
Estimates suggest that, worldwide, about 120 million people are engaged in fishing, while more than 3 billion people obtain 20% or more of their animal protein intake from fish. Due to the relatively easy accessibility of fish resources, and to the fact that small cheap fish tend to have impressive nutritional properties, fisheries are particularly important for the livelihood and food security of the poor. Countries with vast rural unemployment, like India, employ millions of people in the fisheries sector, and the populations of many African and Pacific countries that have high levels of malnutrition rely heavily on fish for their vital nutrients. We argue that this provisioning role of the oceans is increasingly under threat by a set of powerful global trends. These trends manifest in our societies in various ways, but to really understand them, we need to study the underlying ‘discourses’. Discourses represent shared ways of interpreting the world around us, and therefore shape our imaginations of what is feasible and desirable.
The first narrative is that of ‘blue growth’, which frames oceans as a frontier of economic growth. The second narrative is that of the so-called global crisis in fisheries resulting largely from overfishing. Third, informed by the prospect of 9 or 10 billion human inhabitants on the globe by 2050, there is a powerful narrative that pleads for the expansion of aquaculture. We will provide an account of these three trends and explore why each of them may undermine the interests of those most reliant on the seas for their food and livelihoods.
Fish and food security for the poor
Food security is commonly understood as a situation in which all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. How important fish is to a household’s food security depends on many factors. It is not only about whether fish is available in the marketplace: it is also a question of accessibility, affordability, seasonal stability, and cultural preferences, and of how fish is prepared, cooked, and shared among household members.
Fish can contribute to a household’s food security in various ways. First, there is the nutritional contribution of fish consumption because fish provides energy, is a superior source of protein to other animal source foods, and is rich in essential nutrients such as vitamin A, calcium, iron, and zinc. These are precisely the nutrients essential to prevent wasting and stunting of the human body. It is for that reason that scholars have recently made pleas to put fish higher on the agenda of global programs targeting malnutrition.
There is something counter-intuitive here: it is mostly poor countries in Africa and Asia with relatively low fish consumption per capita that are most dependent on fish as a source of nutrition. Almost 75% of the countries where fish is an important source of animal protein are income-poor and food deficient. This is because the importance of fish for the poor is not so much a matter of how many kilograms of fish one consumes, but rather about the relative position of fish in one’s overall diet. Hence, one ‘humble sardine’ a week in a monotonous diet is a much more significant contribution to global food security than the same sardine in a rich man’s diet.
Second, fish provides income for more than 660 million people (including fish workers, traders, and their families), a number that is still growing. The income generated through the selling and marketing of fish throughout the value chain is critical for being able to buy food items. Third, the fact that women control much of the income generated through processing and marketing tends to positively impact a household’s food security.
For any of these pathways that fisheries contribute to food security, small-scale fisheries are much more significant than large-scale fisheries. Small-scale fisheries not only provide the bulk of employment, but the fish landed by small-scale fishers is almost exclusively used for local consumption, and hardly destined for export or reduction to fish meal for aquaculture. Another interesting observation is that small fish, such as sardines, are more important than big fish. This is not only because small fish tend to be cheaper, but also because small fish tend to be eaten whole (with heads and bones), making them nutritionally superior.
Given the above, if we agree that food security is a concern, any intervention in the oceanic realm should be scrutinized from two perspectives: a) are small scale fishers being displaced to benefit competing users of coast and ocean?; and b) are cheap yet nutritious fish varieties redirected from domestic consumption to export and fish meal industries?
Blue Growth
With nations across the world striving to raise the status of the maritime realm in the economy, ‘Blue Growth’ has become a new buzzword. The European Commission defines ‘Blue Growth’ as ‘the long term strategy to support sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors as a whole’. Likewise, a recent Indian Oceans Dialogue conference emphasized Blue Economy as “based on the sustainable development of oceanic resources for the benefit of humankind”. Blue growth parlance builds upon what Hance Smith in his millennial essay called the ‘industrialization of the ocean’ – a trend that commenced as part of the industrial revolution and has resulted in more intense and diversified sea use. This includes new industries for energy and mineral exploitation, recreation, and coastal engineering, and nowadays pays significant attention to conservation too, such as through the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal of bringing at least 10% of global coastal and marine space under Marine Protected Areas.
Premised on the creation of more healthy oceans and the rational planning of economic activity, the language of blue growth promises to bring about benefits for all. The underlying neoliberal ideology is characterized by what Igoe and Brockington describe as “win-win-win- win-win-win-win solutions, that benefits corporate investors, national economies, biodiversity, local people, western consumers, development agencies and conservation organizations” all at once. One can doubt, however, whether blue growth will be as inclusive, and useful for protecting the food security needs of the poor, as its proponents suggest. We signal two disquieting trends. The first is that with the rise of competing uses of the sea, food production is accorded lesser priority. The recent outcry of Dutch fishers that their fishing grounds are being reduced to the size of a postage stamp is in fact a universal complaint: all over the world fishers are losing prime territory to other marine industries. Although such industries, for example, offshore wind farms, are sometimes argued to be beneficial to fisheries and mariculture, their main purpose is obviously of a different order.
Secondly, the industrialization of coastal regions, which is part of blue growth, is also affecting terrestrial living space, particularly of small-scale fishing populations. Naomi Klein has provocatively described the effects of ‘disaster capitalism’ following the tsunami in Sri Lanka, which resulted in the removal of fishing hamlets to the interior and their replacement by a more profitable tourist enterprise. It is clear that this trend of ‘coastal grabbing’ is actually occurring in many parts of the world. The loss of coastal land potentially affects the livelihood options, particularly of small-scale fishers and their dependents. With alternative livelihoods in Asia, Africa, and Latin America not being readily available, the pressure currently placed on small-scale fishing could well reduce the food security of their practitioners in the future.
The crisis of overfishing
In 2000, a group of scientists led by Boris Worm devised a grand doom scenario predicting empty oceans by 2048. Scores of scientific articles predicting fisheries collapse, in conjunction with popular documentaries like “The End of the Line” and powerful voices of ocean campaigners have made the general public – at least in the Western world – associate fisheries first and foremost with ecological catastrophe. In 2013, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, 32% of the world’s fish stocks were being exploited beyond their sustainable limit, up from 10% in the 1970s. We do not wish to deny the gravity of the situation, yet pose questions alongside the dominant understanding of causes and perceived implications of this state of affairs. The discourse of overfishing and crisis tends to paint a Malthusian picture of an almost empty ocean with vast and expanding fleets of fishing boats engaged in a hopeless race to the bottom. If this is agreed to be the nature of the problem, the solution lies – depending on one’s particular ideologies and disciplinary engagement – in reducing the number of fishers, establishing property rights, reducing fisheries subsidies, creating marine protected areas, and tackling illegal fisheries. While none of these solutions are inherently problematic, each of them potentially endangers the viability of small-scale fisheries.
The alarmist focus on overfishing, within a frame of scarcity and overpopulation, blinds us to questions of who actually drives and benefits from overfishing. A group of Swedish scholars recently calculated that the world’s biggest 13 fisheries corporations control 11-16% of the global marine catch and 19-40% of the most valuable stocks. Data from the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission show that, in 2014, a mere 81 fishing vessels from the EU caught almost as much tuna in the Indian Ocean than the entire Sri Lankan and Indian fleet (consisting of thousands of boats) combined. This concentration of catches and revenue in the hands of a limited number of firms does not so much downplay the issue of overfishing, but challenges the current mode of production and puts distributional questions centre stage. In short, fisheries specialists have concentrated predominantly on questions of biological sustainability and economic efficiency, hopelessly neglecting issues of fairness and the importance of fisheries for reducing malnutrition and supporting livelihoods.
From fish hunting to fish farming
Predicted trends of population growth have always prompted doom scenarios that question whether every human being can in the future be fed. The current fear of moving towards a world population of 9 or 10 billion, is therefore translated seamlessly into the question of how to enlarge aggregate food production. The argument, then, is that, if fish is important to food security, more fish will need to be produced to feed the growing world population. And since wild fish production has stagnated since the 1990s, while global aquaculture production has recently grown steeply, there is no doubt in this line of thinking that if food security is the concern, aquaculture is the answer. Aquaculture indeed accounts for an increasing proportion of global food-fish supplies and has increased global per capita food-fish supplies.
However, ever since Amartya Sen in 1981 wrote about the atrocious famine in West Bengal, India, that occurred in the late 1930s and early 1940s, we are aware that food insecurity is not only a function of the availability of food, but of distribution too. How do we make sure that seafood actually benefits the people who need it the most? Who actually benefits from the meteoric rise of aquaculture production? It is impossible to answer this important question in generic terms. For example, small-scale ponds around the world and the massive production of carp in China have contributed to the availability of fish for lower-income people. Yet, many fish farming practices have, apart from environmental concerns, a range of disturbing distributional attributes. Farmed fish obviously need to eat. High-value carnivorous fish and shrimp, in particular, need to eat up to 6kg of marine fish to be converted into 1 kg of farmed fish. Although efficiencies in fish farming are steadily improving, the fact is that in 2015 about 15 billion (!) kilogram of low-priced fish like anchovies were reduced to fish meal and oil to feed higher value farmed fish. The poor are unlikely to benefit from this value addition. While exceptions are there, most farmed fish is geared to serving the middle and upper classes rather than the poor. Given the increasing prices of fish meal, it is unlikely that this may easily change in the near future. Aquaculture’s demand for wild fish also has the potential to increase price levels and volatility. People who are dependent on low-priced fish for their nutritional needs are particularly vulnerable to such fluctuations. The final perversity is that farmed fish while being a fine source of animal protein, is inferior to small wild fish species as a source of essential fatty acids and micronutrients. In short, aquaculture may add more fish to the market, but it is doubtful whether it will be of much help to the poor.
Conclusion
Malnutrition is currently resulting in the death of 5 children every minute, which is more than the number caused by HIV/AIDS, warfare, genocide, and terrorism combined. Fisheries do and can continue to play a significant role in preventing these appalling conditions.
Yet both the blue growth narrative, as well as the crisis and conservation discourse and even the food-security-as-food-production ideology – at least in the way it is currently shaped in the fisheries domain – are potentially at odds with improving human nutrition for those who need it most. These discourses, therefore, need to be continuously scrutinized by questioning how they come about, what actors are pursuing them, and whose interests they represent.
Distribution and access are important concerns that cannot be left behind if we are interested in a genuine improvement of human food security. For seafood to matter for the poor, we must develop new narratives that allow for the safeguarding of small-scale fisheries and enhancing the flow of low-price seafood to the poor.
Further reading
Béné C, R Arthur, H Norbury, MJ Williams. 2016. Contribution of fisheries and aquaculture to food security and poverty reduction: assessing the current evidence. World Development 79: 177–196.
High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE). 2014. Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture for food security and nutrition. Rome:FAO.
Tacon AGJ and M Metian. 2011. Fishing for Feed or Fishing for Food: Increasing Global Competition for Small Pelagic Forage Fish. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment. 38(6):294-302.
It’s 6am and I’m on my way to check out the tuna landings at a jetty in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. In front of me a man walks determinedly past the piles of nets and row upon row of tuna. He’s talking animatedly into his cellphone while in his other hand he has a giant cleaver. Curious to see where he’s going, I follow the man until he stops near a lower part of the jetty where instead of rows of tuna, there are more than two dozen Mobulid rays of varying sizes laid out.
Collectively referred to as Mobulids, Manta and Devil rays are large cartilaginous fishes that are closely related to stingrays. There are 8 species within the family Mobulidae, and of these, the Reef and Oceanic Manta rays have received lots of attention from conservation groups. Manta rays are bigger than their Devil ray cousins and have mouths that are positioned right up front in their head as opposed to a little further back in Devil rays. Mantas also have large club shaped appendages at the end of their heads which they use to funnel plankton into their mouths while they swim. The feeding appendages on Devil rays are thinner and curl into long spirals when they aren’t being used for feeding. These ‘horns’ on the not-so-evil Devil rays’ heads have led to their incongruous name.
Mobulids are caught in both incidental and targeted fishing in many parts of the world.
Despite the greater number of devil ray species (6) the two species of Mantas continue to steal the limelight. Manta rays are revered by certain maritime cultures, considered charismatic in some parts of the world, and have been iconized as saviours and villains in books and comics such as Girl from the Sea of Cortez and Aquaman. Mobulids, and especially Mantas, are receiving a lot of attention from scientists and conservationists. Recently the entire taxonomic classification of the family was revised, with the genus Manta being dissolved and the number of previously recognized species cut from 11 down to the present 8. Even with this new genetic evidence, there is still a lot we don’t know about Mobulids and their populations due to poor monitoring leading to uncertainties about population trajectories. With some of the lowest fecundity rates amongst the world’s sharks and rays, even low levels of fishing pressure can rapidly deplete Mobulid populations.
Alongside the jetty, in a boat that has already unloaded its tuna catch, three fishermen struggle to hold aloft and weigh a Mobulid ray that has a wingspan longer than a man. A trader examines the weighing scale, declares the weight to be 90kg and tells the boat owner standing close by that he’ll pay Rs 2700 (US$ 42) for the whole ray. The boat owner agrees and his crew toss the ray onto the jetty to join the pile of other rays that are being decapitated. A man, dodging a flying ray body, sees me, grins, and says “It’s great that at least the meat now has some price and that profits can be made by landing the rays. In the past, we would just have tossed these rays back alive into the sea because they had no value, took up deck space, and barely anyone would eat them”.
Targeted small-scale fisheries for Mobulid flesh have existed for centuries in places like Indonesia, Philippines, Mexico, and Taiwan. While Mobulids may have been caught using spears and harpoons, they were also caught as bycatch in nets targeting other marine species. Recreational fisheries have also existed in parts of the world – Teddy Roosevelt during his presidency in 1916 harpooned two Giant Oceanic Manta rays off Florida. Presently, there are thirteen fisheries in 12 countries that specifically target Mobulids, and thirty fisheries in 23 countries where Mobulids are caught incidentally alongside other target species. The leading example of fisheries with incidental Mobulid catches are tuna purse- seiners. Mobulid meat has historically had a low value, involving only local sales, causing fisheries for them to be geographically restricted. But the new targeted Mobulid fisheries that have arisen in countries like Sri Lanka, India, Mozambique, and Egypt, catch Mantas and Devil rays not only for their meat, but also for their highly valued gill plates.
The man I was following earlier finishes his cellphone conversation, places his phone in a pocket, nods to a friend who is crouched near the rays, and bends down to get to work, cutting off a Mobulid ray’s head. He hacks a semi-circular head portion out of the Mobulid ray’s body and proceeds to gently pry apart the upper and lower jaws to get to the intricately shaped, yet strong gill plates that help in filter feeding and breathing. The man’s friend carefully grades and sorts the gill plates according to size and puts them into plastic bags, while roughly tossing the ray bodies into the back of a waiting truck. When the man with the cleaver takes a break from all of his cutting, I ask him where the ray bodies are going and why he kept aside the gill plates. He tells me that the bodies would probably be salted and dried and sold very cheaply in parts of Kerala, India where its eaten. With regard to the gill plates, he said he really had no clue as to what they were for. All he knew was that they went overseas but didn’t have any value in India.
There is not a lot of transparency in the trade, resulting in fishers not knowing what Moubuilds are used for or what their real value may be.
Mobulids, like most other sharks and fish, breathe through gills. Water goes into the mouth and exits through the gills. Harder cartilaginous structures called gill plates filter out plankton for the ray to eat, while also protecting the more delicate gills. These gill plates are used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to boost immunity, increase blood circulation, and treat a variety of ailments that range from asthma to infertility. The market for Mobulid gill plates arose in the 1990s and has continued to grow due to increasing demands for dried gill plates from TCM. Many TCM practitioners say gill plates have no recorded medical benefits and are not an integral part of preparations, but sales of gill plates continue to be promoted by trade agents. Much of the market for these gill plates is in Guangzhou, China, and was valued at US$ 30 million in 2013. There has been poor documentation of the source markets for the gill plate trade, as well as the historical catches of Mobulids in other parts of the world to supply the gill plate market. There has also been very little attention given to Devil rays, with most conservation groups focusing on the more charismatic Mantas.
I was curious to properly identify the species of Mobulids that were on the jetty. So, when I returned to the dive resort I was staying at, I consulted the pile of reef fish ID guides that were left out for guests. The only species of Mobulids listed in all of them were Manta rays, while I was pretty sure the species I saw were Devil rays. A quick internet search yielded more promising results – the Mobulids I had seen that morning were Bent-fin Devil rays and were categorized as Vulnerable in the Indian Ocean by the IUCN.
In March 2013, both species of Manta rays (M. birostris and alfredi) were listed under Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This meant trade in manta products would only be allowed if member countries could prove that these fisheries were sustainable and that the survival of manta populations would not be further threatened. This would involve adequate monitoring of Manta fisheries in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India and the Philippines, which are the highest contributors to global Mobulid catches. While this was a big win for global conservation interest groups, very little attention was given to the poorly understood and equally threatened six species of Devil rays.
Mobulid prebranchial gill plates being cut. They will later be dried, and the rest of the head and the innards will be thrown into the water. The meat is salted and sold for a very low value.
In a recent study, Julia Lawson and her other co-authors from around the world highlight some of these discrepancies in attention towards lesser-known devil rays, and provide conservation strategies that would mask further biases towards the better-known manta rays. The reason Mantas have hogged the limelight until now has been because the conservation and awareness activities that involve manta rays have been funded by the tourism sector. In order to receive adequate attention, Devil rays may need to piggyback on the manta conservation efforts. Lawson et al suggest that species conservation planning frameworks would equitably lead to the conservation of all mobulids and not just Mantas. Unlike most other scientific articles that gloss over the practicalities of policy making, the authors describe in detail their consultation process and how they reached expert consensus in drafting a framework targeted at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Their approach clearly works and has already witnessed success – through the expert advice generated during the process of writing this paper and the petitions by leading conservation organisations like The Manta Trust, in April 2017, all mobulid rays were included in CITES Appendix II.
With the trade in Mobulid species now being regulated at the international level by institutions like CITES, it is up to countries with prominent fisheries for mantas and devil rays to ensure that wild populations are not threatened. According to Lawson et al, this would involve additional research on Mobulid life history characteristics, effective monitoring of incidental and targeted catch with efforts to reduce bycatch, greater levels of enforcement of ray flesh and gill plate markets to ensure more responsible trade, and most importantly, efforts to reduce demand for Mobulid products. Increasing awareness about the importance of both devil and manta rays and the need for their conservation would hopefully make the public more sympathetic towards them.
References
Croll DA, H Dewar, NK Dulvy, D Fernando, MP Francis, F Galván‐Magaña, M Hall et al. 2016. Vulnerabilities and fisheries impacts: the uncertain future of manta and devil rays. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 26, no. 3: 562-575.
Lawson JM, SV Fordham, MP O’Malley, LNK Davidson, RHL Walls, MR Heupel, G Stevens et al. 2017. Sympathy for the devil: a conservation strategy for devil and manta rays. PeerJ 5: e3027.
William TW, S Corrigan, L Yang, AC Henderson, AL Bazinet, DL Swofford, GJP Naylor. 2017. Phylogeny of the manta and devilrays (Chondrichthyes: mobulidae), with an updated taxonomic arrangement for the family. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society: zlx018, https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlx018
Whales have had a pretty tough time throughout recent anthropogenic history. During the 17th Century, the Baleen whales (an iconic group of large whales with baleen plates hanging from their upper jaw which they use to filter krill, zooplankton and other small fish species from the water) in particular, began to be targeted as a global resource. This was predominantly for oil (extracted from their blubber) to produce candles and lubricants, and to make whalebone stays from the baleen plates, which were used in corsets. As whalebone corsets grew in popularity and the demand for whale oil increased to lubricate new machines developed during the industrial revolution, rates of whale exploitation grew exponentially across the globe.
Commercial whaling brutally hit Antarctica during the early 1900s, with the realisation that many iconic species, including Blue (Balaenoptera musculus), Humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae), Fin (Balaenoptera physalus) and Sei whales (Balaenoptera borealis) travel south and gather to exploit the high concentrations of plankton found there during the summer months. These Antarctic whale populations were massacred before “sustainable fishing” was even a concept. For example, records from a whale processing station at South Georgia estimated that 118,000 whales were slaughtered in only 19 years (1911-1930).
And yet, this story of decimation may be turning into one of conservation success. Thankfully, throughout the period of commercial exploitation no one species was exploited to extinction. By 1946 a global convention for the regulation of whaling was signed, creating the International Whaling Commission, which in turn established guidelines for the whaling fleets and increased protection for the whales. By the 1970s, four species – Blue, Fin, Humpback and Sei, – had protection and by 1986 all commercial whaling was suspended (Tonnesen and Johnson 1984). Since then, recovery has been evident for most whale species, albeit slow (Roman and Palumbi 2003; Baker and Clapham 2004).
Meanwhile, catastrophic events such as the near extinction of many of the Baleen species were a wakeup call that highlighted a pretty important question – how many whales were there before whaling began? We didn’t know, and without information about baseline population sizes, and studies to monitor changes in population sizes over time, how could conservation strategies be implemented, and population recovery rates accurately be predicted?
This leads me to the questions I am currently exploring as part of my role as research assistant at the University of Exeter and which I will investigate further during my PhD research at the British Antarctic Survey, commencing later this year:
Prior to commercial whaling, no monitoring of whale populations was in place. How many whales were there? Does anybody know?
If not, is it possible to accurately predict pre-whaling abundances of all whale species using historic whaling records? What other methods are currently utilised and what do we know so far?
Are there new methods which we could use to estimate pre-whaling abundances?
These questions are currently being tackled by our research team, led by Professor Dave Hodgson, at the University of Exeter. Using computer modelling techniques, our team is testing whether it is possible to make accurate predictions for all sorts of biological measures. For example, primate brain sizes – can we predict the brain size of one species based on data we have for other closely related species? Or if we know the wing length of 14 out of 15 closely related bird species, can we use this information to accurately predict the wing length of the 15th?
And we are applying the same techniques in an attempt to estimate pre-whaling abundances. To do this, the team at Exeter has gathered current global population estimates from the International Whaling Commission’s website, for all Baleen whales. We will begin by trying to predict the abundances of species for which we already have the data. If we can do this accurately, we can be more confident about our predictions for species for which the data is missing. This is very much ongoing research, but we hope that by combining information on known ecological traits such as prey type and reproductive rate, the extent of commercial exploitation, phylogenetic relatedness and current geographic range data we may be able to produce accurate estimates of pre-whaling abundances, and in doing so provide vital information for the conservation of these charismatic species in the future.
References:
Baker SC and PJ Clapham. 2004. Modelling the past and future of whales and whaling. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19(7): 365-371.
Estes JA. 2006. Whales, whaling, and ocean ecosystems. California: University of California Press.
Lubick N. 2003. New count of old whales adds up to big debate. Science 301(1): 451-451.
Roman J and SR Palumbi. 2003. Whales before whaling in the North Atlantic. Science 301(1): 508-510.
Tonnessen JN and AO Johnsen. 1982. The history of modern whaling. California: University of California Press.
Over the late summer and autumn months, visitors to the western coasts of the British Isles might see splashing at the surface of the water. While dolphins, seals, and basking sharks could often be spotted, bluefin tuna are now being increasingly reported, bursting out the water whilst feeding on shoals of small silvery fish. Bluefin tuna is one of only a handful of fish (one out of a group of 30, out of ~25,000 fish species) that are “warm-blooded”, or endothermic, meaning they can exploit food-rich, but cold, regions like the northeast Atlantic. To stay warm, they need to feed often and on high-quality food, such as herring, mackerel, sardines, and sprat. It is this constant need to feed that brings them to the waters of the northeast Atlantic at the end of every summer and drives the frenzied feeding behavior that makes them so conspicuous.
There are three species of bluefin tuna: Pacific, Southern, and Atlantic. All three species have been heavily fished for decades. The global bluefin fishery is driven by insatiable market demand and a seemingly limitless price-tag in the Japanese sushi-sashimi market, in which bluefin tuna is the most highly-prized delicacy (a single 222kg fish fetched $1.8 million at the season-opening auction in Tsukiji fish market, Japan in 2013). As a result, all three bluefin are now listed as endangered, or critically endangered, by the World Conservation Union.
The Atlantic bluefin population is comprised of at least two separate ‘stocks’, split according to where they breed; an eastern stock that spawns in the Mediterranean Sea and a western stock that spawns in the Gulf of Mexico. This population structure is maintained by adult bluefin returning to their birthplace to spawn. In terms of their conservation, it largely comes down to fisheries management, through quota setting and trade regulation; in the Atlantic, this is done by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which delineates how many fish can be caught by each fishing nation whilst monitoring and regulating international trade of Atlantic bluefin, much of which goes to Japan. Like many fisheries, the bluefin tuna fishery in the Atlantic was largely unhindered at the turn of the century, despite ICCAT being formed in the 1970s with the stated goal of “obtaining the maximum sustainable catch of tuna and tuna-like species”.
In the 1990s the fishery expanded from predominantly coastal to also include the waters of the high-seas, with the central north Atlantic and the waters off Ireland becoming an important fishing destination for longline vessels. This expansion brought higher catches and created a high-seas fishery that was particularly difficult to monitor and regulate, given the remoteness of the fishing grounds. As a result, illegal, unregulated, and unreported catches (IUU) were widespread and were consistently over quotas, which varied between 29,500- 32,000t per year after being established in 1998. For instance, work to reconstruct historical catches from Japanese import records during the 2008 Atlantic bluefin tuna ICCAT stock assessment, showed that in 2006, the reported total catch of eastern bluefin was 31,000t, yet as much as 54,000t were imported to Japan from Atlantic fisheries. Annual catches were maintained in the region of 50-60,000t from the late nineties up to as late as 2007. Hints of a declining eastern stock led ICCAT to establish a multi-annual rebuilding program in 2006, setting out to reduce Total Allowable Catches (TACs) from 29,500t in 2007 to 25,500t in 2010, also instating a closed season for purse seiners, the abolition of spotter planes and measures to increase compliance and reduce IUU fishing.
The recovery plan quotas were revised three times after the 2008 stock assessment (2008, 2009, and 2010), which showed that the eastern stock had been fished to precariously low levels and was in danger of collapsing. Ultimately quotas were slashed and maintained in the region of 13,000t for five years (2010-2014, Fig. 1), which is a measure taken by ICCAT in line with scientific advice. In recent years, all bluefin fattening farms and EU fishing purse seine vessels have begun to use electronic catch documentation systems. These were implemented by ICCAT to detect fraud and deter IUU shipments, as well as to improve tracking of bluefin tuna catch and commerce. Such measures likely led to further reductions in IUU, and together with the reduced quotas, it is likely that from 2010-2015 eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna were fished at anywhere between a half and a third the pressure they had been under for the past two decades. These changes were made in time to take advantage of a period of favorable bluefin tuna recruitment on the spawning grounds in the Mediterranean, and it showed in the 2014 stock assessment, which hinted at a period of population growth for the eastern stock.
Figure 1: Catch quotas set by the International Commission for the conservation of Atlantic Tuna since 1999. Red asterisks denote years with stock assessment
The nuts and bolts of the stock assessment process are time-series of catch rates (indices of catch per unit effort (CPUE)), and for the purposes of the assessments – higher CPUEs are assumed to be indicative of more fish (not changes in the geographic distribution). One of the longest, and most robust CPUE indices, is that of the Japanese distant-seas longline fleet. This fleet operates throughout the open Atlantic, and seasonally in the high latitude waters of the northeast Atlantic, up to 60°N. Our research has shown that the mean annual CPUE in this fishery has risen by up to as much as 300% of the long-term annual mean (1991-2015) since 2010. This increase in catch rate has coincided with a marked contraction of fishing effort (in both hooks and spatial coverage), and broad-scale oceanographic change in the northeast Atlantic. There may well be more fish in the northeast Atlantic, but it might be hasty to assume that this is solely because there are more fish in total, and it is more likely that multiple factors are acting in concert.
Ocean physical processes, including temperature and currents, oscillate on multiple different time scales; over years and decades. These long-term changes have been shown to affect the distribution of marine species both physiologically (i.e. too warm/cold) and through resource availability (i.e. enough forage fish for bluefin). If CPUEs are to be continually used as an estimate of real abundance, then consideration must be given to other factors that affect bluefin tuna distribution. Instead of assuming there are simply more fish, our work is asking the question: “What other factors might affect Atlantic bluefin tuna catch rates?”. In answering this question, we hope to further the conservation of Atlantic bluefin, by shedding light on how the ocean physically influences their distribution in the Atlantic.
To further complicate matters, it is unclear whether the fish that comprise the seasonal aggregation in the northeast Atlantic, belong to the Mediterranean (eastern) or the Gulf of Mexico (western) stock. Early work by Prof. Barbara Block and Dr Mike Stokesbury (Tag-a-Giant foundation of Stanford University; TAG) hinted that the northeast Atlantic could be a “meet and eat” for fish from both the Mediterranean and Gulf of Mexico stocks (Fig. 2). These ‘mixing’ regions are of particular importance for conservation and management, as currently all fish caught east of the 45°W meridian (Fig. 2) are deemed to be Mediterranean breeders or eastern stock fish. Individuals from the two stocks of bluefin differ very little in their appearance, but considerably in their sizes and biological traits; the Gulf of Mexico breeding stock is only a 20th the size of the Mediterranean stock and the fish are thought to mature much later (around 12 years old as opposed to as early as 4 years old in the Mediterranean). This means that the western stock is far more vulnerable to overexploitation, and consequently has remained at about 17% of historical levels for several decades without recovery (in 2011 the eastern stock was estimated at 33% of historical levels). Hence, understanding the movement ecology of Atlantic bluefin tuna is another vital step to be able to monitor stock-specific fishing pressures.
Figure 2. Map showing movements of two Atlantic bluefin tuna (221 & 225cm) caught and released simultaneously, with electronic tags off northwest Ireland on the 20th September 2003. Modified with permission from Stokesbury et al
In 2014 and 2016 the University of Exeter, in collaboration with TAG, the Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Marine Science Scotland and the Irish Marine Institute, re-ignited efforts to track bluefin tuna from the coasts of the UK and Ireland on their spawning, and return migrations. At present 19 bluefin tuna have been fitted with sophisticated tracking technology that monitors not only their movements, but both diving behaviour and the external temperatures that they experience. By using novel algorithms designed to pick out spawning behaviour from how the fish behaves in the water column we also hope to be able to pinpoint exactly where these fish spawn, whether in the Gulf of Mexico or the Mediterranean. By defining precisely where these fish spawn we can test whether current management measures, such as closed areas and seasons, for purse seiners in the Mediterranean are effective. Such methods have been used in the Gulf of Mexico, and resulted in Final Amendment 7 to the 2006 Consolidated Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Fishery Management Plan (NOAA). This amendment put regulations in place to reduce adult bluefin catches on pelagic longlines in the Gulf of Mexico, based on tracking data and the use of novel spawning detection algorithms. This is yet to be done for the Mediterranean.
Currently, Ireland and the UK lack the quota to fish bluefin tuna. So, for the bluefin that have suddenly returned to the UK and Ireland, these coastal waters act as a form of protected area for the time being. However, as is made evident by our recent work, bluefin tuna found off the British Isles have probably visited waters where they can be legally fished, in countries such as; Spain, France, Italy, Canada, North Carolina and Morocco, and the waters of the high seas (where the Japanese longline fleet operate). Efforts should be continually made to track bluefin and their fishermen adversaries to monitor the pressures that they face throughout their distribution. The recent reappearance of bluefin tuna in coastal waters of the British Isles, for whatever reason, highlights the incredibly dynamic nature of these ‘superfish’ and the fact that we still have plenty to learn. Taken together, the outlook for bluefin tuna seems to be fair, although, a better understanding of their ecology in the high-latitude North Atlantic is much needed. The data collected from our research efforts will form the basis to beginning to understand why we might be seeing more bluefin in our waters, and will hopefully aid in the management and conservation of these remarkable predators in the future.
References
ICCAT. 2003. Basic Texts, 3rd revision. Madrid: International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT).
Stokesbury MJW, R Cosgrave, A Boustany,D Browne, SLH Teo, RK O’Dor, and BA Block. 2007. Results of satellite tagging of Atlantic bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus, off the coast of Ireland. Hydrobiologia 582: 91–97.
Taylor NG, MK McAllister, GL Lawson, T Carruthers, and BA Block. 2011. Atlantic Bluefin Tuna: A Novel Multistock Spatial Model for Assessing Population Biomass. PloS ONE 6(12): e(27693).
Introduction The histories of traditional fishing and coastal communities in South Africa, like those of many coastal communities in post-colonial contexts the world over, continue to be shaped by the legacies left by their colonial occupiers. These communities remain marginalized within the political economy of fisheries governance management and marine conservation in South Africa and are engaged in a prolonged struggle for the recognition of their fishing rights.
Building on the approach to native administration developed by the British colonial administration from the 1850s, the apartheid state created a separate, deeply unequal, and distorted system of spatial planning and administration, based on racial and tribal classification. This impacted traditional fishing communities extensively as they predominantly comprised poor African and coloured families who depended on marine resources for their food security and livelihoods. Racially-based, discriminatory legislation divided access to the coast, restricting African persons of different tribes to a residence in areas known as tribal homelands. Large stretches of the coast in these homelands were declared marine protected areas, several of them later declared complete no-take marine reserves. The local owners of the land were forcibly removed from these coastal reserves and resettled, effectively dispossessing communities, whose ancestors had resided in these areas for centuries, of access to their land and marine resources. Even outside these designated homelands, traditional fishing communities were marginalised as the focus of state policy and support centred on the development of the white-controlled industrial fisheries. These policies undermined communities’ customary systems of tenure, their culture, and their local ecological knowledge.
Post-apartheid state reform
In 1994, following the election of the first democratic government in South Africa, these fishing communities held high hopes that their rights would be recognised and they would secure redress for the dispossession that they experienced at the hands of the white minority apartheid regime. Prior to this, the State fisheries department had only recognised three categories of fishing — commercial, recreational, and subsistence. Subsistence fishing was tightly controlled for local use. Artisanal and other small-scale fishers who fished for their own food and for a livelihood were not legally recognised. The relative invisibility of the small-scale sector resulted in the failure of the state to recognise the important contribution that this sector makes to food security, poverty relief, and livelihoods. In addition, a top-down approach to marine conservation failed to take cognisance of local coastal communities’ customary relationship to coastal lands and waters. After the election of the new democratic government, a far-reaching process of legal reform was initiated. Most notably, a new Constitution was adopted in 1996. The South African Constitution is hailed as one of the most progressive, aspirational constitutions in the world. The Bill of Rights outlaws discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language, and birth. It protects a range of socio-economic rights and makes provision for the protection of tenure security, and redress for those who experienced dispossession as a result of apartheid. For the first time, customary rights to natural resources gained legal recognition in the Constitution. It recognised customary law as an independent source of law and confirmed that any rights arising in terms of such law must be recognised in so far as they are consistent with the Bill of Rights.
Notwithstanding this Constitutional recognition of customary rights and the right to culture and tenure security, the new national legislation introduced in 1998 to transform the fisheries sector failed to recognise small-scale fishers and still favoured the large, industrially-orientated fisheries sector. Furthermore, the policy introduced to restructure the industry and allocate fishing rights was based on a system that allocated rights to individuals or companies, either through a quota-based system or an effort-controlled system.
This individually-orientated rights system reflected no real understanding of collective rights or the systems of community-based, customary governance that operated within many of the indigenous coastal communities. Rather, it introduced an individualistic, privatised notion of rights to resources. As a consequence, it undermined the social tenures and care economies that have operated in these communities wherein access to and use of marine and other resources reflected bundles of rights and obligations embedded in the social and cultural relations operating within these communities. In most of these local systems of governance, individual rights are nested within the family or household rights which in turn are nested within a broader clan-based or community right. Whilst these common property regimes have been impacted by the imposition of a statutory system of administration over the past century, and some have been completely undermined, many of them retain their integrity within local systems of customary law and governance.
Fishers’ rights are human rights
Small-scale fishers — with support from Masifundise Development Trust, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), and the Legal Resources Centre, a human rights litigation organisation — embarked on a range of advocacy actions in response to the failure of the reforms to affirm and protect their rights. They supported the mobilisation of small-scale, traditional, and artisanal fishers and the development of a community-based umbrella network called Coastal Links. In 2004, they launched legal action against the minister concerned to fight this discrimination, citing their Constitutional rights to food security, their culture, and right to their occupations and livelihoods. They argued against the discriminatory nature of the policy which privileged large commercial fisheries but failed to recognise those most dependent on marine resources. Coastal Links and Masifundise launched a campaign, “Fisher’s rights are human rights”, to highlight the interdependence of their right to access to marine resources with other human rights.
In 2007, the Equality Court ordered the minister responsible for fisheries to develop a new Policy for Small-scale Fisheries through a participatory process that would recognise the socio-economic rights of these traditional fishers. During the policy development process, many communities advocated strongly for a paradigm shift in fisheries governance from the state-centric, top-down system to community-based systems of fisheries governance. They articulated the inseparable linkages between the socio-ecological systems comprising small-scale fisheries and the economic and cultural aspects that comprise the lives and livelihoods of these fishers. They argued against the individual orientation of the rights regime that had excluded them. They wished to avoid the social conflict and division that the individual quota and licensing approach to fishing rights allocation had introduced, which often pitted neighbour against neighbour in a fight for a limited number of fishing rights. Instead, they called for a community-based system that would enable small-scale fishing communities themselves to define bonafide fishers dependent on marine resources for a livelihood. They argued that this would enable them to include the work that women did along the value chain and hence promote gender equity in a community-based tenure system. Such a system would accommodate the recognition of the customary rights of many communities. At the time, the fisheries authority denied that any community had presented them with evidence of customary fishing rights in accordance with the proof required to meet the Constitutional recognition of customary law, and the legal question of what constituted a customary fishing right was yet to be established.
After a prolonged process of consultation, a Policy for Small-Scale Fisheries was gazetted in 2012 and the legislation was finally amended in 2016 to recognise small-scale fisheries as a legitimate category of rights-holders. The legislation was amended to enable the minister to recognise and allocate community-based rights to small-scale fishing communities and to identify zones for the use of small-scale fishers. During this period small-scale fishing communities gained international visibility through the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (FAO 2012) and the Guidelines on Small-Scale Fisheries. The South African Department responsible for fisheries management participated in the negotiations and adoption of these instruments and has committed to the implementation of these instruments at a national level.
Struggles and resistance
Progress towards realisation of the vision of the new policy and implementation of the legislative amendments has been painfully slow due to political interests. The dominance of a neoliberal approach to fisheries and marine resource governance has resulted in the continued privileging of large, industrial, export-orientated fisheries. This sector, with close ties to the ruling elite in government, has actively resisted efforts to transform in favour of the principles of securing food sovereignty and local livelihoods and recognising customary rights. Instead, they argue that they can contribute more to job creation and poverty alleviation through an export-oriented fisheries policy that uses commercial quotas as the means of managing resource allocation. To date, the fisheries authority has failed to allocate a viable portion of the nearshore resources to small-scale communities. On the contrary, individual commercial rights have continued to be allocated the most valuable resources in the nearshore. Conservation management tools such as marine protected areas have continued to be designed and implemented in a top-down manner without traditional fishing communities’ participation.
The neoliberal turn towards the ocean and the valorisation of the ‘blue economy’ have also exacerbated the marginalisation of the small-scale sector just as the fishers were on the brink of realising their rights. Now, in contrast to the re-prioritisation of marine resource allocation in favour of local coastal communities’ pre-existing rights, attention has turned to the ocean economy. The President is driving a national initiative to maximise the productive potential of the oceans, described as ‘unlocking a new economy’. South Africa is also playing a leading role in the Indian Ocean regional drive to exploit this ‘blue economy’. These initiatives are dominated by powerful gas and oil mining interests, industrial aquaculture, and energy and marine transport sectors. Instead of a paradigm shift in favour of a sustainable, equitable, and human rights-based approach, a powerful current of extractivism has hit the coastal and fisheries sectors. Lip service is paid to the use of marine spatial planning (MSP) as a governance tool to ensure that the interests of ‘all stakeholders’ are considered but in reality, the power of capital predominates and is shaping the marine and ocean space in new but uncomfortably familiar patterns. Small-scale communities with ancestral links to coastal lands and lengthy histories of reliance on marine resources are marginalised in the narratives of economic value and ecosystem services. Hand in hand with this drive for exploitation is the strengthening of a neo-protectionist conservation approach which argues for an expansion of the marine conservation estate in order to counterbalance the anticipated surge in ocean exploitation. This conservationism operates akin to an additional form of extractivism, further dispossessing traditional fishing communities from the marine commons.
Whilst the continued marginalisation of the small-scale sector has impacted individual fishers, families, and communities heavily, deepening poverty and undermining the social fabric of these communities, these communities continue to fight for the implementation of the vision of the small-scale policy and for their rights. In the face of new permutations of neoliberal capitalism and domination in the marine commons, they are forming new alliances and developing new strategies. Increasingly, they are realising the need to build alliances with other small-scale producers, harvesters of natural resources, and workers in ‘precarious work’ sectors. These strategies draw inspiration from local as well as international social movements. They are expanding their horizons to harness the power of new information communication technologies. These tools are strengthening their position within markets as well as enabling them to demonstrate the critical contribution that their local ecological knowledge and skills make towards climate-smart, equitable, sustainable human rights-based fisheries management and marine conservation.
References:
Isaacs M. 2011. Governance reforms to develop a small-scale fisheries policy for South Africa. In Chuenpagdee R. ed. Contemporary visions for world small-scale fisheries Amsterdam, Netherlands: Eburon. Pp 221-235.
Raemaekers S. 2016. Abalobi Small-scale Fisheries Data App. Accessed on August 1, 2017. www.Abalobi.info https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/30/south-africa-traditional-fishers-buoyed-by-data-logging-app-abalobi
Sowman M, S Raemaerkers and J Sunde. 2014. Shifting Gear: A New Governance Framework for Small-Scale Fisheries in South Africa. In Sowman M. and Wynberg, R. (eds.). Governance for Justice and Environmental Sustainability. Lessons across Natural Resources Sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa. London: Earthscan/Taylor and Francis.
The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf. ISBN-13:978-1848548985 John Murray, 22 October 2015 (winner of the 2015 Costa Biography Award and the 2016 Royal Society Science Book Prize)
Ocean currents, landscape features, towns, universities, wildlife: these are just a few of the many things named after the polymath Alexander von Humboldt, widely known and respected as the “most scientific man of his age” (to quote American president Thomas Jefferson). von Humboldt’s contributions to science were not just to particular fields of research, but also in the form of study techniques, collaborative culture, styles of thinking and communicating, and application of findings. He is also notable for making science accessible to laymen, and, in the process, inspiring art, conservation practices, and enlightened social policy. Today, von Humboldtis no longer the household name it once was. How was a man like this forgotten—and what shaped him to begin with?
Andrea Wulf seeks to answer these questions in her multi-award-winning The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, The Lost Hero of Science. Because of von Humboldt’s central position in the global scientific community and his ability to bring together both potential collaborators and disparate topics, Wulf calls him “the hub of a spinning wheel, forever moving and connecting”. This is also a good visual for the way in which the author uses von Humboldt’s biography as a central theme from which she branches out to explore the evolution of science and society’s relationship with it.
The Invention of Nature is ambitious, which not only tells the story of a single interesting man but also contextualizes his intellectual contributions. Accordingly, the book sometimes feels as densely packed with information as von Humboldt’s homemade box-and-envelop filing system. For example, when discussing how von Humboldt changed science, Wulf first recounts previous research practices in detail before exploring von Humboldt’s modifications and then examining their modern manifestations. To demonstrate how von Humboldt sowed the seeds of contemporary nature writing, Wulf relates how his predecessors described their environments and then quotes both von Humboldt’s work and that of more current authors. And so on, for each of von Humboldt’s accomplishments—and there were many—Wulf provides both a history lesson and a comparison with contemporary culture; she even includes eight chapters with entire biographies of other great thinkers influenced by von Humboldt. Between these tangents and the repetition of some information in multiple places, the narrative thread is sometimes temporarily lost in a tangle of facts.
That said, one of the most remarkable aspects of the book is its extensive referencing of primary materials. The author cites correspondence, journals, notebooks, specimens, and multiple translations of scientific works (von Humboldt spoke and wrote in several languages); in researching the book, she even visited sites where von Humboldt conducted research. The resulting level of detail breathes life into the subjects, and, in particular, highlights the near-manic fervour that was both a gift and a curse to von Humboldt; although it spurred his prolific writing, it also ensured he was almost permanently restless. Wulf’s use of original quotations prevents The Invention of Nature from straying into the realm of hagiography; instead, readers can see von Humboldt as his contemporaries did: a man with genius, but also with flaws.
This multifaceted account of von Humboldt’s interdisciplinary life should appeal to a wide range of readers regardless of their age or area of expertise; his knowledge was so comprehensive, and his contributions so extensive, that there will inevitably be something here for everyone. The book also indirectly asks some profound questions for readers to contemplate long after turning the last page. For example: By pursuing increasingly narrow specialisms, do individual scientists prevent themselves from seeing, as von Humboldt did, how many diverse pieces connect to create a whole? Might our publication and funding practices hinder the sort of widespread enlightenment that resulted from the open and generous knowledge sharing that von Humboldt fostered? If we diminish the role of subjective insights in the search for “truths”, could we prevent the creative processes that so inspired von Humboldt? von Humboldt recognised that knowledge and power were intimately linked; he also saw that “nature, politics, and society a triangle of connections”.
These seem especially relevant observations in a year that has brought us Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and a growing feeling that we live in a “post-truth” era. In the context of these current events, Wulf’s epic story of a “largely forgotten” man whose “knowledge had bridged a vast range of subjects” including “art, history, poetry and politics alongside hard data” is infused with new meaning. It encourages the reader to value facts and to expend the energy necessary to verify them; it emphasises the dangers of elevating the worth of money over that of nature and of human rights; it celebrates the potential of art and nature to inspire and also to communicate. In short, it serves as an advocate for reason, initiative, pragmatism, and perseverance. We might do well to heed Wulf’s advice that we reinstate him as our hero.
