Bye Bye!

This blog process has been an interesting look into the impacts of biodiversity and biodiversity loss on humans and the relationships between them. I hope I have succeeded in considering multiple perspectives and arguments from across a wide range of disciplines and countries. I will find it odd no longer spending my weeks researching and hunting for information!

Rousseau- Tiger in a Tropical Storm

It is dangerous to think of biodiversity and human populations as mutually exclusive but I feel more and more of us are beginning to understand the extent to which we are reliant on the natural world. We may be just a tiny part of a complex and expansive network that makes up life on earth but we are unique in our ability to manipulate the resources around us. We have the potential to find affective solutions that achieve the balance between maintaining biodiversity and supporting human wellbeing for centuries to come however it will take creativity, compromise and innovation. 

Community Conservation- an achievable aim?

When most people think of conservation, protected areas typically spring to mind. However this traditional paradigm of fortress conservation was so heavily criticised as a result of its impact on local people. For example, exclusionary conservation is thought to have resulted in 14-24million environmental refugees in Africa alone leading to landlessness, joblessness, economic marginalisation, food insecurity and a rise in morbidity and mortality (Adams, 2007). Post the 1987 Brundtland commission's report and the rise in discourse surrounding ‘sustainable development’, conservation efforts turned to the development and implementation of community based conservation. This initiative focuses on the importance of conservation for ecosystem health and biodiversity whilst ensuring social justice and material wellbeing and advocates that sustainable use or incentive based conservation is most viable giving rural communities economic interest in preserving the ecosystem and species survival (Hutton, 2003). 

The Ngorongoro Crater- a typical Tanzanian protected area

Tanzania has huge potential for community conservation. It is of high biological importance with 10% of land already designated as protected areas but very low levels of economic development with a GDP of just $609 per capita (World Bank, 2012). Wildlife Management Areas (WMA’s) were Tanzanias attempt at community conservation initiated in 1998. In this instance village land outside protected areas or parks were set aside to promote conservation and bring prosperity to villagers. Once an area was designated a WMA, communities were granted legal rights to manage the resources and could seek outside investors for wildlife based business ventures. As of the 31^st March 2006, 4 WMAs have been established with mixed success (Igoe, 2007).

The Burunge WMA is located between lake Manyara and Tarangire national parks and the Manyara game reserve. Its location in a wildlife migration area and a large elephant population raises concerns over safety and difficulties with farming. There was huge confusion over the establishment of the WMA carving up villages and resulting in the eviction of 64 families. The conflict that ensued resulted in several arrests and harm at the hands of the private game hunting company that relocated to the area. Furthermore, corruption in the distribution of benefits means the villagers have seen little economic return and there is much confusion at the community level over who is responsible for management (Igoe, 2007). Although this case study would appear as a failure for community conservation methods, I feel it is more a failure of ‘top down’ approaches so typical in conservation.

Burunge WMA- Tourist camp

Ololosokwan village in northern Tanzania lies adjacent to the Maasai Mara and Serengeti national parks and residents are predominantly Maasai agro pastoralists. The village lies in one of the most wildlife rich areas and until top down management attempts were made, I feel it was a good advocate for community based conservation. Two ecotourism ventures, an eco lodge and campsite, developed with private companies have earned the village $55 000 annually. The village also developed by-laws to regulate land use and management including methods to control illegal hunting and requirements for all tourist revenues to be placed in a village bank account with quarterly reports on earnings and expenditure. In 1992 the government established a hunting block with the United Arab Emirates Ortello Business Corporation. To provide exclusive access to the village lands the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism banned game viewing and photographic or walking safaris within any wildlife protected area except for National Parks (MNRT 2000). This attempted to close the village’s existing ecotourism ventures. A WMA was then proposed but villagers protested. (Nelson, 2013).

Ololosokwan community conservation method

At present when human populations particularly in Africa are expanding at such a rate, I feel that if conservation or biodiversity preservation is to succeed, it needs to incorporate the needs of local people. Otherwise these vital sites will become battle grounds for conflicting interests resulting in failure on both sides. Although I feel uncomfortable with the idea of commodifying these areas, local people need income and resources and ecotourism does seem to pose a solution in some instances. This however should come from within the communities in a bottom up approach with states offering support. In other instances, when ecotourism is not relevant or unfeasible, mechanisms for community conservation should be considered on a case by case basis as as ideal as conservation mechanisms may sound in theory, there is never a one size fits all solution.

Sources:

Adams, W. Hutton, J. (2007). Peoples, Parks and Poverty: Political Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation. Conservation and Society.  5(2). pp 147-183.

Hutton, JM (2003) sustainable use and incentive driven conservation: realigning human and conservation interest. Oryx. 37 . pp215-226

Igoe, J.,Croucher,B. (2007) Conservation, Commerce and communities: the story of community based wildlife management areas in tanzanias northern tourist circuit. . Conservation and Society. 5(4) pp 534-561

Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (MNRT) (2000). The Wildlife Conservation (Tourist Hunting) Regulations. 

Nelson, F. (2007). Emergent or illusory? Community wildlife management in Tanzania. Pastoral society of east africa. [online]. Available at: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/12540IIED.pdf [Accessed 12.01.2015]

World Bank,(2012)  GDP per Capita.[online].  Available from: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD. [Accessed 12.01.2015]

Just a walk in the park?

Many of us enjoy a walk in the park, or forest, or mountains, but only relatively recently have scientists begun to consider why this might be. The link between nature and biodiversity on mental health is of particular interest as incidences of mental health are on the rise and is estimated to affect over 450 million people worldwide, biodiversity is in decline and now more than half of the worlds population live in cities (World Health Organisation, 2003)(United Nations, 2007). A multitude of studies now address this link from a number of different disciplines including urban planning and environmental psychology.  

A cross sectional study by de Vries et al looked at associations between living in a highly diverse environment with general health. They compared the percentage of green-space, agricultural land, forestry, nature areas, gardens and degree of urbanity with health, measured via self reported symptoms, perceived general health and a 12 point general health questionnaire. This large study (n= 10,179) found that living in a green environment was positively related to the three health indicators and that these effects were more significant in lower income groups or those that spend more time at home (de Vries et al, 2003)(Hough, 2014). This sort of study has significant repercussions for urban planners as the way in which an urban area is designed has the ability to influence health and wellbeing.

Further work has addressed the more specific link between nature or biodiversity and mental health. There are two major explanatory theories, the stress reduction theory, or SRT, and the attention restoration theory, or ART.

SRT proposes the healing power of nature lies in an unconscious autonomic response to actual elements. Landscapes with views of water and or vegetation with high levels of complexity or biodiversity would have been most beneficial for human survival and at a preconscious level we may have evolved diminished states of arousal and negative thoughts at sites such as these (Bratman, 2012).  Ulrich, who developed this theory, carried out multiple tests. In one instance, 120 subjects were made to watch a stressful film for 10 minutes and then viewed scenes and sounds of six different settings from urban to very natural. During this process, stress indicators were measured including the subjects heart rate, skin conductance, muscle tension and systolic blood pressure was measured. Subjects were also asked to self rate their state. In all instances, subjects viewing natural scenes recovered from the stress at a faster rate than those presented with urban scenes (Ulrich, 1991). 

The ART proposes nature replenishes certain types of attention through unconscious cognitive process in response to natural landscapes. This draws on the distinction between two components of attention, voluntary or directed, and involuntary. Direct or voluntary attention requires the use of cognitive control in order to ignore distractions. After prolonged use this capability becomes fatigued resulting in irritability. Involuntary attention is used when individuals are presented with ‘inherently intriguing’ stimuli and the ART approach posits that viewing nature acts in this way. This allows neural mechanisms underlying direct attention to rest and replenish which can benefit performance on other tasks and impact levels of depression and stress (Bratman, 2012).  This also has been tested on multiple occasions. For example, Taylor et al compared children from the same population, whose characteristics and demographics only differed by their view from home; urban park or barren concrete. On average, the more natural the view, the better performance on a number of tasks used to measure attention such as the digit span backyard and Stroop colour word test (Taylor et al, 2002). 

There are many more studies that measure the links between nature and mental health in different ways and within different disciplines, although I will not go into any more at the present. Correspondingly, it seems obvious that impacts on mental health be included in the list of ecosystem services and act as another argument for biodiversity conservation. Furthermore, these links should be considered in future urban planning projects to improve the overall quality of life and health for urban dwellers. 

Sources:

Bratman, G. et al.  2012. The impacts of nature experience on human cognitive

function and mental health. Annals of the New York academy of sciences. Vol. 1249. pp 118-136. 

de Vries S et al. 2003. Natural environments—healthy environments? An exploratory analysis of the relationship between greenspace and health. Environ Plan A. Vol. 35. pp. 1717–1731

Hough, R L. 2014. Biodiversity and Human Health: evidence for causality? Biodiversity Conservation. Vol. 23. pp 267-288. 

Taylor, A.F. et al. 2002. Views of nature and self-discipline: evidence from inner city children. Journal of  Environmental Psychology. Vol. 22. pp49–63.

Ulrich, R.S. et al. 1991. Stress recovery during exposure to natural and urban environments. Journal of Environmental Psychology. Vol. 11. pp 201–230

United Nations Population Fund State of World Population. 2007. Unleashing the potential of urban growth. New York: UNFPA.

World Health Organisation. 2003. Investing in metal health. Geneva: WHO