scholarly journals The political ecology of wildlife conservation and trophy hunting in human-dominated landscapes of southern Africa: a review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Never Muboko
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Continuous Monitoring ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Conservation Policies ◽  
Trophy Hunting ◽  
Source Materials

Drawing from a historical conservation perspective and political ecology, this review mediates the growing debate on wildlife conservation and hunting, especially inhuman-dominated landscapes of Africa. The focus is to 1) trace how socio-political changes during and after colonization transformed the hunting and wildlife conservation discourse in southern Africa, and 2) to address how previous conservation injustices were addressed through benefit-based approaches like CAMPFIRE, adopted in Zimbabwe after colonization. Some 144 published journal articles, books and other source materials were consulted. The review indicates that political changes in southern Africa profoundly transformed the conservation and trophy hunting narrative. This narrative had varied impacts and outcomes for different groups of people. Although a number of benefit-based approaches, like CAMPFIRE reflected a complete departure from past conservation policies, they continue to attract praise and criticisms since opinions differ among stakeholders, especially over extractive activities like trophy hunting and its associated benefits. I conclude that political developments impacted on conservation and trophy hunting in a profound way and that although post-colonial, pro-community conservation programs have inherent weaknesses, to a greater extent they addressed past conservation-based injustices. Continuous monitoring and area-specific adaptive management of wildlife and its sustainable management is recommended for long-term conservation benefits and community livelihoods.

scholarly journals From colonial fortresses to neoliberal landscapes in Northern Tanzania: a biopolitical ecology of wildlife conservation

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jevgeniy Bluwstein
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Spatial Separation ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Landscape Conservation ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Northern Tanzania ◽  
Political Economies ◽  
Nonhuman Species

Drawing on critical debates in political ecology and biopolitics, the article develops a "biopolitical ecology of conservation" to study historical shifts in how human and nonhuman lives come to be valued in an asymmetric way. Tanzania and the so-called Tarangire-Manyara Ecosystem illustrate how these biopolitical shifts became entangled with conservation interventions and broader visions of development throughout colonial and post-colonial history. Colonial efforts to balance seemingly competing domains of human and nonhuman species through spatial separation gave way to the development of the post-colonial nation through the nurturing of its wildlife population. This shift from human-nonhuman incompatibility towards human dependency on wildlife and biodiversity conservation culminated in the contemporary biopolitical ecology and geography of landscape conservation. Landscape conservation seeks to entangle human and nonhuman species. Through conservation, human populations are rearranged and fixed in time and space to allow wildlife to roam free across unbounded spaces. This conservation governmentality is tied to global environmentalist concerns and political economies of neoliberal conservation, as well as to a domestic agenda of tourism-based economic growth. It secures land tenure for some, while imposing a biopolitical sacrifice on the rural population as a whole. This forecloses alternative rural futures for a land-dependent and increasingly land-deprived population.

scholarly journals Sympathy for Cecil: using political ecology, ecofeminism, and animal ethics to understand western attitudes toward trophy hunting

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 759-774
Author(s):  
Eric S Godoy
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Animal Ethics ◽  
Moral Community ◽  
North Americans ◽  
Trophy Hunting ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Big Game Hunting

This article draws from political ecology, animal ethics, and ecofeminism to examine sympathy, expressed by record-breaking donation from North Americans, for the death of Cecil the Lion. Sympathy is disclosive insofar as it reveals, relies upon, and reinforces different forms of sexual, racial, and neocolonial domination; especially when western sympathy remains ignorant of the politics and histories of the power relations that shape attitudes toward non-human animals and their status as members in a moral community. When does nature appear as something to take care of rather than take care against?Keywords: sympathy, animal ethics, ecofeminism, big-game hunting, wildlife conservation, Cecil the Lion

scholarly journals Domain randomization-enhanced deep learning models for bird detection

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Mao ◽  
Jun Kang Chow ◽  
Pin Siang Tan ◽  
Kuan-fu Liu ◽  
Jimmy Wu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Deep Learning ◽  
Continuous Monitoring ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Training Data ◽  
Learning Models ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Bird Detection ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractAutomatic bird detection in ornithological analyses is limited by the accuracy of existing models, due to the lack of training data and the difficulties in extracting the fine-grained features required to distinguish bird species. Here we apply the domain randomization strategy to enhance the accuracy of the deep learning models in bird detection. Trained with virtual birds of sufficient variations in different environments, the model tends to focus on the fine-grained features of birds and achieves higher accuracies. Based on the 100 terabytes of 2-month continuous monitoring data of egrets, our results cover the findings using conventional manual observations, e.g., vertical stratification of egrets according to body size, and also open up opportunities of long-term bird surveys requiring intensive monitoring that is impractical using conventional methods, e.g., the weather influences on egrets, and the relationship of the migration schedules between the great egrets and little egrets.

Long-term trajectories of decline in cognition and daily functioning before and after stroke

2021 ◽  
pp. jnnp-2021-326043
Author(s):  
Alis Heshmatollah ◽  
Lisanne J. Dommershuijsen ◽  
Lana Fani ◽  
Peter J. Koudstaal ◽  
M. Arfan Ikram ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Monitoring ◽  
Mini Mental State Examination ◽  
Functional Decline ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Daily Functioning ◽  
Linear Mixed Effects ◽  
Before And After ◽  
State Examination

ObjectiveAlthough knowledge on poststroke cognitive and functional decline is increasing, little is known about the possible decline of these functions before stroke. We determined the long-term trajectories of cognition and daily functioning before and after stroke.MethodsBetween 1990 and 2016, we repeatedly assessed cognition (Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), 15-Word Learning, Letter–Digit Substitution, Stroop, Verbal Fluency, Purdue Pegboard) and basic and instrumental activities of daily living (BADL and IADL) in 14 712 participants within the population-based Rotterdam Study. Incident stroke was assessed through continuous monitoring of medical records until 2018. We matched participants with incident stroke to stroke-free participants (1:3) based on sex and birth year. Trajectories of cognition and daily functioning of patients who had a stroke 10 years before and 10 years after stroke and the corresponding trajectories of stroke-free individuals were constructed using adjusted linear mixed effects models.ResultsDuring a mean follow-up of 12.5±6.8 years, a total of 1662 participants suffered a first-ever stroke. Patients who had a stroke deviated from stroke-free controls up to 10 years before stroke diagnosis in cognition and daily functioning. Significant deviations before stroke were seen in scores of MMSE (6.4 years), Stroop (5.7 years), Purdue Pegboard (3.8 years) and BADL and IADL (2.2 and 3.0 years, respectively).ConclusionPatients who had a stroke have steeper declines in cognition and daily functioning up to 10 years before their first-ever stroke compared with stroke-free individuals. Our findings suggest that accumulating intracerebral pathology already has a clinical impact before stroke.

scholarly journals Trophy Hunting, Conservation, and Rural Development in Zimbabwe: Issues, Options, and Implications

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor K. Muposhi ◽  
Edson Gandiwa ◽  
Paul Bartels ◽  
Stanley M. Makuza
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Rural Development ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Illegal Hunting ◽  
Fiscal Constraints ◽  
Trophy Hunting ◽  
Wildlife Use ◽  
Emerging Issues

Trophy hunting has potential to support conservation financing and contribute towards rural development. We conducted a systematic review of the Zimbabwean trophy hunting perspective spanning from pre-1890 to 2015, by examining the following: (1) evolution of legal instruments, administration, and governance of trophy hunting, (2) significance of trophy hunting in conservation financing and rural development, and (3) key challenges, emerging issues in trophy hunting industry, and future interventions. Our review shows that (i) there has been a constant evolution in the policies related to trophy hunting and conservation in Zimbabwe as driven by local and international needs; (ii) trophy hunting providing incentives for wildlife conservation (e.g., law enforcement and habitat protection) and rural communities’ development. Emerging issues that may affect trophy hunting include illegal hunting, inadequate monitoring systems, and hunting bans. We conclude that trophy hunting is still relevant in wildlife conservation and rural communities’ development especially in developing economies where conservation financing is inadequate due to fiscal constraints. We recommend the promotion of net conservation benefits for positive conservation efforts and use of wildlife conservation credits for the opportunity costs associated with reducing trophy hunting off-take levels and promoting nonconsumptive wildlife use options.

Anti, Alternative, and Post: A Review of Post-Growth A Review of Post-Growth Approaches to Radical Transformation in the Global South

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Hollender
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Global South ◽  
System Reform ◽  
Limits To Growth ◽  
Prefigurative Politics ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Global Systems ◽  
Systems Of Domination

A diverse set of post-growth theories, proposals, and practices are emerging out of dramatically different contexts across the Global South in response to the recognition that the negative impacts of economic growth are rooted in dominant global systems including development, capitalism, and coloniality.  The emergence of post-growth comes after decades of failed attempts by reform-based approaches, such as sustainable development, limits to growth, and alter-globalization, to meet environmental and social objectives.  While reform-based approaches provide important tools for calculating appropriate limits for growth and promoting sustainability agendas, they do not address growth’s embeddedness in dominant systems.  Also, reform measures often neglect the historical and spatial complexities of poverty, inequality, and environmental problems in Southern societies, rendering these approaches inappropriate and/or infeasible.  As a result, a number of radical post-growth theories, including political ecology, post-development, anti-globalization, anti-capitalism, capitalist crisis critique, decolonial theory, and post-ideological anarchism reject system reform and call for the creation of alternatives that address the unique circumstances of the Global South.  Despite having disparate conceptualizations of the global systems of domination, radical post-growth theories largely converge around the politics and processes of change, espousing the construction of ‘alternatives to’ via a series of radical democratic practices including open-endedness, pluriversality, and prefigurative politics.  Through an examination of the academic approaches that engage with post-growth in the Global South, this review will contribute to understanding and potentiating Southern efforts at anti-systemic transformation.  It will reveal how different radical post-growth theories (1) identify and understand the systems of domination responsible for upholding the primacy of economic growth; (2) contemplate Southern contexts and concerns; and (3) foment long-term processes of building anti-systemic alternatives.  It will identify some practical impediments to moving beyond post-growth theories to implementable proposals, policies, and practices, many of which are exemplified by post-extractivist efforts in Peru.

scholarly journals An Ancient Baboon Genome Demonstrates Long-Term Population Continuity in Southern Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Mathieson ◽  
Federico Abascal ◽  
Lasse Vinner ◽  
Pontus Skoglund ◽  
Cristina Pomilla ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Demographic History ◽  
Structured Populations ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Papio Ursinus ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
Population Continuity ◽  
High Degree

Abstract Baboons are one of the most abundant large nonhuman primates and are widely studied in biomedical, behavioral, and anthropological research. Despite this, our knowledge of their evolutionary and demographic history remains incomplete. Here, we report a 0.9-fold coverage genome sequence from a 5800-year-old baboon from the site of Ha Makotoko in Lesotho. The ancient baboon is closely related to present-day Papio ursinus individuals from southern Africa—indicating a high degree of continuity in the southern African baboon population. This level of population continuity is rare in recent human populations but may provide a good model for the evolution of Homo and other large primates over similar timespans in structured populations throughout Africa.

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