Editor’s Note

Conservation, with its colonial legacy, continues to be dominated by the ideals of the urban elite and the pursuit of a monolithic, ‘pristine’ human-free nature. Contrary to the latter claim, a 2021 study published in PNAS demonstrated that “people have shaped most of terrestrial nature for at least 12,000 years”. Moreover, it showed how the current biodiversity crisis is a direct result of the appropriation, colonisation, and intensified use of the biodiverse cultural landscapes long-sustained by prior societies.

This special edition on coexisting with reptiles (guest edited by Dr Simon Pooley) highlights our deep cultural connection with biodiversity, including the scaly, slithering kind. Moving away from Eurocentric narratives of coexistence, the articles in this issue acknowledge the tolerance of local people across the world who live in close proximity to dangerous wildlife. Here, their relationships with crocodiles, Komodo dragons and king cobras are often governed by mutual respect, fear and resignation, and neo liberal conservation interventions could do more harm than good.

In what has been a terrible year for humanity with the ongoing war on civilians in Palestine, imagining a world where we coexist with reptiles might seemingly require a certain level of cognitive dissonance. Yet, it is precisely this renewal of our kinship with nature that will help us reclaim our kinship with each other.

P.S. This editorial represents my views alone and does not necessarily reflect those of
the guest editor or contributors.

— Devathi Parashuram