Territorial Conservation Research Articles

The politics of mourning in conservation conflicts: The (un)grievability of life and less-than-human geographies

Accounts of conservation conflicts often reveal that people living around protected areas feel like their lives are less valued than animals' lives —they are confined to ‘less-than-human geographies’. Recent literature on necropolitical ecology illustrates how such geographies were created and maintained by the state, which holds the power to decide over life and death in and around conservation areas. This paper integrates Judith Butler's politics of mourning into necropolitical ecology to interrogate which lives are considered grievable and which ones are not in conservation landscapes. It focuses on two vignettes of violent human-carnivore interactions in Queen Elizabeth National Park, western Uganda: the poisoning of allegedly 11 (but actually three) lions and the killing of a baby girl by a leopard. Both incidents happened in the park's condoned fishing villages, where historically marginalised Basongora pastoralists have been confined to live since the park's creation. We examine how the lost lives —of humans and animals— are publicly mourned and which lives are actually considered lost. We show how the politics of mourning in violent human-wildlife encounters goes beyond the (colonial-)state; rather, the unequal distribution of precarity is entrenched by a range of public authorities (e.g., (social) media, (I)NGOs, and politicians). This is, in part, because sovereignty in conservation territories has become transnationalised as post-colonial states allow international NGOs to carve out their own zones of influence. This coloniality of power influences human-carnivore relations and reifies racialised conservation spaces as less-than-human geographies.

FLUORESCENCE TESTING OF THE EUROPEAN BEECH IN THE BOTANICAL SITE OF NATURE OF LVIV

The botanical sights of nature were studied, including the decorative forms of the European beech (Fagus sylvatica), which were used in the landscaping of Lviv. The relevance of monitoring studies of the state of the urban dendroflora of botanical natural monuments is due to the need to form a basic level of ecological data to assess the nature and dynamics of ecosystems. The scientific and historical value of nature conservation territories of the botanical category is shown. Photobiological methods were used to perform a comparative analysis of the pigment content and fluorescent parameters of tree species in the ecological and phytocenotic zones of the complex green zone of the city.
 The high plasticity of the structural organization of the chloroplasts of European beech leaves, characterized by the content of chlorophyll and carotenoids, was established. The studied plants respond to increased urbogenic load by increasing the content of chlorophyll and carotenoids in the park and street plantings.
 It has been established that the use of the fluorescent method is promising in scientific research, when controlling the sanitary condition of tree plantations, as it provides the determination of an integral scientifically capable parameter - the vitality index of trees. Based on the measured fluorescent parameters, the vitality index of the trees was determined. In street plantings, the vitality index decreases by 2 times, which indicates a decrease in the activity of the donor part of the photosynthetic apparatus.
 The practical use of modern methods of fluorescence express vegetation testing, which provide a correlational synthesis of morphophysiological and biophysical mechanisms of photosynthesis and graphoanalytical information, is substantiated, which is necessary for the creation of information and diagnostic systems for comprehensive monitoring of urban ecosystems, preservation of biodiversity and protection of the floristic gene pool of urban areas.

Вплив воєнних дій на природоохоронні території Донецької області

Ukraine is going through a difficult time, and therefore the topic of the influence of military actions on the protected areas is extraordinary, since the war has negative consequences for nature: pollution by explosive objects (mines, unexploded shells, etc.), fortification construction, damage to current grounds and vegetation by explosions, military transport, forest and steppe fires etc. Donetsk region is exactly that part of Ukraine, where almost all the first nature reserves were organized at the beginning of the 20th century. Unique natural sights and endemic habitats have long been attracted the attention of scientists and conservationists. However, currently some of them have been and continue to be negatively affected by the war of 2014 and until now. The study of the impact of military actions on the protected territories of the Donetsk region was carried out based on the analysis of cartographic sources – the status of nature conservation territories was determined by dividing the objects into 4 groups: fully occupied, partially liberated, liberated and not occupied. The area of the territory that accurately indicates the damage was calculated (according to the area of occupied objects of the nature reserve fund). The partial impact on some protected areas of Donetsk region was characterized and the main causes of the impact of the war on natural objects were determined, namely shelling, shell explosions and caused fires. Also the impact of military operations depicted on satellite images was studied, using the case territory of the branch of Chalk Flora Nature Reserve, Holy Mountains National Nature Park and "Donetsk Ridge" Regional Landscape Park.

Understanding ‘night grazing’: Conservation governance, rural inequalities, and shifting responses ‘from above and below’ throughout the nychthemeron in Laikipia, Kenya

Across much of eastern Africa, the land area coverage of private or otherwise non-state conservation areas is rapidly increasing. In Kenya, these trends have sparked renewed contestation and debate concerning the property rights and broader terms of access to non-state conservation spaces. Pursuant to these disputes, emergent conservation territories are increasingly governed through practices of landscape stratification, demarcation, and surveillance, as well as via the formalization of community-based grazing arrangements in hybridized ‘buffer zone’ spaces. Examining the empirical implications of these practices in Kenya’s Laikipia County, we highlight the somewhat counterintuitive ways in which private conservationists increasingly employ grazing arrangements ‘from above’ not only to regulate access to natural resources, but also to influence subject formation processes and to fix or otherwise reshape the spatial contours of pastoralist systems. Emphasizing the limitations of such initiatives, however, we foreground the significance of ongoing patterns of agro-pastoral transformation and their implications for the persistence of night grazing or other illicit nocturnal responses ‘from below’ amongst certain strata of Laikipia’s internally diverse communities. Whilst such forms of nocturnal agency are inherently significant insofar as they frustrate conservationists’ efforts to uniformly enforce resource access restrictions throughout the nychthemeron or complete 24-hour ‘day-night’ cycle, we suggest that these practices also grant important insight into the nature of shifting ‘conservation subjectivities’ in East African drylands.

Gentrifying the African Landscape: The Performance and Powers of for-Profit Conservation on Southern Kenya’s Conservancy Frontier

Across eastern and southern Africa, conservation landscapes increasingly extend far beyond the boundaries of government-owned protected areas. Several countries have now granted full legal recognition to various types of private or otherwise nonstate conservation arrangements, thereby often seeking to create novel opportunities for ostensibly “green” capital investments in various for-profit conservation enterprises. Following the adoption of the 2013 Wildlife Conservation and Management Act in Kenya, for instance, nonstate conservancies now encompass 6.36 million hectares—or 11 percent of the country’s land area—with at least a further 3 million hectares proposed or in the process of territorialization. Examining the consequences of this precipitous rise of conservancies in southern Kenya’s Maasai Mara region, we suggest that—in addition to significant potential for considerable profit margins to be realized by individual firms—these investments retain a number of other unique powers or capacities to transform prevailing varieties of environmental governance. In this case, these capacities manifest in two interrelated forms: first, in the dissemination of environmental crisis narratives that stigmatize pastoralist communities and thus drive down land rents or values and, second, in the recapitalization of conservation territories and the reconfiguration of prevailing land uses in ways that enable novel forms of rural gentrification via the capture of heightened or differential ground rents.

Territórios da conservação e fronteiras

Com enorme satisfacao realizamos esse dossier no ano de 2020 publicado neste importante instrumento de divulgacao cientifica, a franco-brasileira Revista Confins. Construido a partir do “Grupo de Estudios Territorios Poder y Ecologias desde el Sur” ” no Centro de Investigacion y Transferencia Santa Cruz del Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas (CONICET-CIT SC), Provincia de Santa Cruz - Argentina, vinculado ao Conselho Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociais (CLACSO), propom...

Development of management measures to bring the territory of Carpathian Biosphere Reserve into alignment with the international requirements

The modern ecological challenges of the territories with conservation status have impact not only at the national level, but also at the global. That is why the solution to address the administrative challenges of these territories located in our country and bringing them into alignment with the international requirements is becoming more relevant.The purpose of the study is to develop measures aiming to create a transit zone of the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve in the context of the sustainable development.Research materials and methods of the study. From the traditional general scientific methods used: analysis and synthesis; comparison and analogy; generalization and abstraction; project management (planning and implementation of measures aiming to create a transit zone of the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve).The relevance of this work is quite high. The conservation business in Ukraine is developing and improving every year. The process of increasing the conservation territories is relevant not only in Ukraine but also beyond its borders. Unfortunately, the legal framework of our state in the field of conservation does not fully ensure the proper use, reproduction and protection of the biosphere territories with conservation status.The Carpathian Biosphere Reserve is one of the largest environmental, scientific, environmental and educational centers of the Carpathian region. Since 1993 it has been part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves of the MAB-UNESCO.The article gives an example of bringing the territory of a biosphere reserve to the international requirements for biosphere reserves; the main directions of activity aimed at collaboration of the administration of the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve with local communities and recommendations to implement the measures to ensure the creation of a transit zone of the biosphere reserve in Ukraine.Some issues remained unresolved and some were only partially resolved, that is why the issue of improving the existing legal framework remains very relevant, taking into account the international commitments of Ukraine in the field of the sustainable development of reservation areas.

Ecological background of the transboundary protected touristic territory in Western Altai

Among the priority areas of international cooperation, environmental activities and the environmental imperative can be distinguished, which is directly reflected in the development of networks of specially protected natural areas (SPNA) of bordering countries, represented by various forms of organization of environmental institutions (biosphere reserves, nature reserves, national and natural parks, wildlife sanctuaries, etc.). International transboundary territories can often include objects of environmental protection and conservation of biological and landscape diversity of border regions, in particular, transboundary SPNA. The article deals with the organization of transboundary tourist areas in the Altai, including environmental institutions – transboundary conservation and tourist territories (TCTT). As an example, the transboundary biosphere reserve "Great Altai" on the basis of the State Natural Biosphere Reserve "Katunsky" (Russia, Altai Republic) and Katon-Karagay State National Natural Park (Kazakhstan, East-Kazakhstan region) is given. It is proposed to organize SPNA in the Russian-Kazakh border area of the Western Altai – Altai Krai (Russia) and East-Kazakhstan Region (Kazakhstan). Analyzed and evaluated the natural and tourist potential and protected areas of the region for the organization of SPNA in Western Altai.

Advanced economic development of the Russian Arctic: sustainable nature management

The principle specific feature of the Arctic is high economic, social and ecological price of incorrect nature management/land use decisions. Mechanisms were proposed for implementation of the Russian Arctic zone economic development programs to provide sustainable nature management. Harsh climatic conditions stipulate specific character of energy and matter fluxes in local ecosystems which resilience to anthropogenic impact is very low. Special attention was drawn to ecological, social-cultural and environmental factors determining elaboration of sustainable nature management decisions. The planned development of industrial, transport, residential nature management inevitably will affect the already existing impact territories, regions of traditional nature use of indigenous population, nature conservation territories. Competing relations in such cases will emerge because of joint exploitation of territorial ecosystem services pools. This will affect primarily regulating ecosystem services controlling ecological assimilation potential as well as provisioning ecosystem services. Growth of nature management/land use areas accompanied by anthropogenic environmental load increase stipulates the necessity of ecological buffer territories development to provide ecosystem functions reproduction at local and regional levels Atlas information system use was suggested for processing of various data necessary for management practice providing statistical, reference and spatial information. Mapping examples of nature management conflicts violating sustainable development were demonstrated.

Geographies of conservation III: Nature’s spaces

There is a rich literature by geographers on the spatial imagination and ambition of conservation, and particularly the long-established strategy of creating protected areas such as national parks. This report highlights five ways in which the spatial ambitions, imaginations and practices of conservation are changing. First, appetite for the expansion of protected areas continues to grow, with proposals for marine reserves and up to half of the earth under protection. Second, substantial intensification of agriculture is proposed to free up land for such expansion, a policy of land sparing. Third, areas being protected are increasingly privately owned, and conservation is serving as a powerful form of legitimization of large-scale private landholding. Fourth, in many countries conservation management is being extended beyond formal protected areas in mosaics of public, private and community land. Fifth, the political and material technologies used to secure conservation territories, like the extension of these territories themselves, raise urgent political ecological questions. Conservation governance physically marks spaces for nature, but also constructs and polices ideas about both nature and society in profound ways, which often go unremarked by conservationists themselves.

Exploring vascular flora diversity of two protected sandy coastal areas in southern Italy

Coastal ecosystems are among the world’s most threatened environments, as they undergo diverse anthropogenic pressures, which trigger habitat alteration along with rarefaction and/or local extinction of native species. In this study, we performed a floristic investigation aimed at assessing the environmental status of two protected sandy areas located on the Tyrrhenian coast of southern Italy, the southern Garigliano estuary area and Castel Volturno Nature Reserve. These localities show similar geomorphological and climatic conditions, but different land uses and management practices. The sampling of the vascular plants was carried out through geo-location of species, to allow their availability to national and international floristic mapping projects. At whole territory and habitat types level, major trends for shared and exclusive species composition were identified through the analysis of life form, chorology percentage spectrum and similarity index. We detected that the total vascular flora is composed by 429 species, and found out that Garigliano is slightly richer in species (317) than Castel Volturno (311). It is important to note that Garigliano and Castel Volturno’s richness in plants was considerably significant in comparison with other coastal areas of central and southern Italy. Furthermore, although we pointed out that the studied areas showed a low degree of floristic similarity, the shrubland habitat encompassed the highest number of total species and plants of floristic interest (i.e., Italian endemic, rare in Campania, plants included in CITES convention, Habitat Directive, Regional Law of Campania 40/94, National and Regional Red List) in both areas. Finally, despite a severe alteration due to direct anthropogenic disturbance and large-scale alterations that occurred in the last 60 years, we showed that several species of phytogeographical interest are still found in the studied coastal sandy areas, confirming the great importance of this territory for plant diversity and conservation.

Assembling a Marine Extractive Reserve: The Case of the Cassurubá RESEX in Brazil

Conservation territories have expanded globally in recent decades with a more recent surge to protect coastal-marine spaces through comanagement regimes. In Brazil, the extractive reserve, known as RESEX, is a community-based, sustainable use conservation unit that has been increasingly established in coastal-marine environments. Using an assemblage approach, we demonstrate how RESEX establishment is a practice of assemblage and a means of reconfiguring territory, livelihoods, natural resources, identities, and labor. Specifically, the Cassurubá RESEX, in coastal Bahia state, was established as part of a territorial battle between politicians and environmentalists that enrolled resource users with the promise of secured access to natural resources, increased political influence, and benefits from economic incentives. RESEX authorities and other privileged actors dominate governance through discourses and practices that aim to uphold the RESEX model and constitute and reconstitute identities and resource user livelihoods. Attempts to coerce resource users to assert their rights are met with resistance, demonstrating the difficulty in governing this complex conservation territory

Assembling a Marine Extractive Reserve: The Case of the Cassurubá RESEX in Brazil

Conservation territories have expanded globally in recent decades with a more recent surge to protect coastal-marine spaces through comanagement regimes. In Brazil, the extractive reserve, known as RESEX, is a community-based, sustainable use conservation unit that has been increasingly established in coastal-marine environments. Using an assemblage approach, we demonstrate how RESEX establishment is a practice of assemblage and a means of reconfiguring territory, livelihoods, natural resources, identities, and labor. Specifically, the Cassurubá RESEX, in coastal Bahia state, was established as part of a territorial battle between politicians and environmentalists that enrolled resource users with the promise of secured access to natural resources, increased political influence, and benefits from economic incentives. RESEX authorities and other privileged actors dominate governance through discourses and practices that aim to uphold the RESEX model and constitute and reconstitute identities and resource user livelihoods. Attempts to coerce resource users to assert their rights are met with resistance, demonstrating the difficulty in governing this complex conservation territory.

Charted waters? Tracking the production of conservation territories on the high seas

AbstractMarine protected areas (MPAs), a common marine conservation tool, function as both objects of governance and as a form of territory. This article tracks the long‐term effort to produce conservation territories on the high seas, in areas beyond national jurisdiction. Drawing on data collected at five international environmental meetings, the paper demonstrates how an imaginative geography of the high seas is being simultaneously constituted by scientific and technological advances, particularly geospatial visualisations, as well as coordinated efforts to advocate for and develop a new international conservation instrument (an implementing agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). Conventional understandings of territory constrain this effort by equating territory with the state. At the same time, the case of high seas conservation contributes to critiques of this conceptualisation of territory, by showcasing the role of multiple actors in seeing and controlling ocean space. Overall, the production of territory on the high seas both reflects and informs a shift in the “frontier mentality” of the oceans, as conservation and science frontier as well as economic frontier. Diverse responses to representations of, and policies for, the high seas point to both possibilities and limits of territorial thinking in the oceans.

The landscape and biological diversity of salt-dome landscapes: specific features (Western Kazakhstan case study)

Salt tectonics as a type of tectonic genesis has an important feature—while breaching the suprasalt rocks, salt diapirs transform the terrain structure by activating interaction between the components through the involvement in the terrain genesis of both the salt and the whole complex of deep geologic rocks that ended up on the surface. Geological anomalies, which salt-dome elevations essentially are, initiate an entire complex of other anomalies that interact and reciprocate. We have summarized the results of the field (2012–2017) and desktop studies on the natural resource potential of salt-dome landscapes. This paper presents the results of hydrochemical studies of the water of lakes Inder, Aralsor, and Shalkar, which are characterized by high mineralization and a slightly alkaline environment. Recommendations are made in regard to the creation of special conservation territories in the salt-dome landscapes of Western Kazakhstan.

Community-based land sparing: Territorial land-use zoning and forest management in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico

Land sparing land-use practices have been proposed as a strategy for optimizing commodity production, whether food or timber, and biodiversity conservation. Land sparing approaches have been criticized for being unrealistic in developing countries, as sustainable land sharing is well documented, high commodity yields and biodiversity can co-exist, and the land-use pattern a particular landscape exhibits is heavily dependent on development history. As well, the kind of large-scale land use planning required is highly unlikely in developing countries and rare in developed ones. However, in situations where large-scale land sparing could be carried out with democratic participation supported by government policy, it is entirely likely that there could be benefits for commodity production, biodiversity conservation, and community well-being. We present a regional case study of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca. Resulting from historical phases of both passive and active land-use zoning, we found that 23 communities, with a total area of 201,093.94 hectares, and with forest management plans for ten to twenty years, have zoned 36% of the total territory for conservation, 37% for timber production, 5% for restoration, and 22% for agriculture and other uses, with 78% (156,550.63 ha) of the total area, forested. An average of 39% of the timber production areas was logged in the most recent ten-year period (2003–2013), leaving 61% of the forest production area in reserve, under medium-term conservation. Over a 20-year period, this highly forested landscape has produced nearly 3 million metric tons of timber. This suggests that community-based land sparing may be a viable option for commodity production and forest conservation.

ТРАНСКОРДОННЕ ПРИРОДООХОРОННЕ СПІВРОБІТНИЦТВО УКРАЇНИ ТА КРАЇН ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКОГО СОЮЗУ

The experience of international cooperation in the development of transboundary nature conservation territories of Ukraine and the EU countries on the example of the Eastern Carpathians biosphere reserve was analyised in article. The characteristic of the organization and functioning national nature parks of Uzhansky, Bieschadsky and Poloniny is given. The assessment of environmental activities within these objects was conducted and it was suggested to borrow some provisions of international experience for the development in Ukrainian part of the Eastern Carpathians biosphere reserve, as well as for other transboundary nature conservation territories. It is necessary to organize scientific research work, to initiate educational and volunteer programs on natureconservation, to exchange experience of international environmental work. Important in this case will be the opening and equipment of international tourist and nature trails, a dense network of which has long existed in Europe. Problems of scientific substantiation of the expansion of existing protected territories, as well as planning new, the organization of an independent transboundary monitoring of the state of ecosystems are particularly relevant to all transboundary regions of Ukraine. For the Carpathian region the problems of control over illegal felling in the Uzhansky National Park, the observance of the environmental regime of certain massifs of the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve, the proliferation of the reserve regime of the Svydovets massif for the whole Basin of the Chorna Tysa river are very important. More attention should be paid to the preservation of ethnographic features of the Carpathians, the development of ecological consciousness of local inhabitants and the population of Ukraine as a whole, their responsibility for the preservation of unique national natural conditions and resources. The solution of the above problems to a large extent depends on the geographers who should participate directly in the study and planning of the development of transboundary protected areas. Only through joint efforts of international cooperation Ukraine's naturally reserved fund will become a multifunctional part of the Pan-European ecological network.

Management of the nature conservation areas of Ukraine’s Polissya region based on the international experience

In ensuring sustainable development an important role belongs to natural preservation areas with different functions and modes of preservation, where an important place is occupied by natural conservation territories and natural conservation objects that form the natural reserve fund. A system of management of natural reserve fund of Ukraine is associated with many problems and shortcomings. The authors have studied the experience of efficient management of similar institutions in other countries, such as the national natural and regional landscape parks. They have outlined prospects for the development of natural reserves in Ukraine in accordance with international standards and requirements. They have also outlined innovative tools for the protection of biodiversity. They have offered a range of measures to improve the efficiency of the system of management of natural reserves based on the best international practices (establishing standard expenses of the state budgetary financing, insurance, the use of geoinformation technologies, grant projects and programs, adaptive management, restructuring of management, improvement of the organizational structure, effective system of paid services, etc.).

History and current status of reserve management and study in Russia

A brief history of reserve management and study in Russia is presented; the background of modern ideas of reserves that established various approaches to the formation of a network of specially protected natural territories is analyzed. The author holds to the classical ideas of reserves, which were formulated by domestic scientists V.V. Dokuchaev, I.P. Borodin, G.A. Kozhevnikov, and V.P. and A.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shanskii, and insists on the necessity to retain their status as “inviolable territories of virgin nature taken under protection for ever and ever.” This article is dedicated to the Year of Specially Protected Natural Territories of Russia (2017), announced by a decree of the Russian President. The author calls for a moratorium on the withdrawal of conservation territories for economic and recreational and tourist purposes.

<strong>Kintrishi State Nature Reserve — a hotspot for mayfly (Insecta: Ephemeroptera) diversity in Adjara (Georgia)</strong>

The mayfly fauna of Kintrishi State Nature Reserve and its vicinities were investigated. For the present moment the mayfly species-list for the reserve and its vicinities comprises 34 species. This territory is the type locality of three described species and a further five undescribed species. Species elevational distribution and ecological preferences within the territory are briefly discussed. The role of the investigated territory for the mayflies' conservation is highlighted.