People, Prospects and Rewilding the UK Flashcards
(17 cards)
Define commoning
Local people have legal right to use the land for specific purposes, such as grazing their livestock or collecting resources.
Multiple hers of unmanaged pasture held in common.
What are the issues with commoning?
With all equal numbers of sheep in herd all share benefit and cost equally
If one herder adds an extra sheep, they’re the only one that gets the benefit of that sheep, but the other herds/herders share the cost
Shared commons include oceans, rivers, fish, atmosphere
Allowed to share common in new forest if you have land there (overseen by verderers) but also have to follow rules of the local communing practices – worked well until some people using it didn’t actually live there lost the community aspect (e.g. removing weeds and taking care of the common) so whole thing started to break down law changed so managed it differently
Describe bottom up approachees of conservation
Community-based conservation – local, communal resource management; often aligned with traditional knowledge and social norms
Privatisation – ownership-based stewardship (e.g.18th-century enclosures); incentivises sustainable use through personal/institutional responsibility
Market-based incentives – payment for ecosystem services, conservation easements; aligns ecological outcomes with economic interests
Describe top-down approaches of conservation
Regulatory frameworks – national and international environmental laws, protected areas, species protection
Polluter pays principle – assigns responsibility for environmental harm to the source; supports environmental justice and internalised externalities – only in the rivers does this actually take place in the UK – water companies are the ones who are supposed to pay for all the spillages into the waters – way more spillages into rural areas because urban systems are better at dealing with issues from increased rainfall
Describe reasons for conserving biodiversity
Aesthetic/religious = fortress conservation; nature’s “land stand”; ecotourism
Utilitarian = “use it or lose it”; sustainable use; community/incentive market; ignores non-commercial species
Need = underpin ecosystem services
What is meant by active costs in conservation?
Buying land, managing park, enforcing rules
What is meant by passive costs in conservation?
Other land-uses, not hunting, wildlife conflict (biggest costs, often shouldered by the local poorest people, not the government)
What are the benefits?
Nature-based tourism – very sensitive to political events
Localised services – water supply, storm control, erosion control, nurseries for economic spp
Dispersed services – nutrient regulation, climate regulation, carbon storage (value likely to grow)
Biggest benefits always go to global communities rather than the local ones that are paying the most
Describe sustainability and use
Stop use altogether – welfarists; extractive use never sustainable
Sustainable use – any use of spp or ecosystems by anyone (not just local community) for anything not just as conservation tool; consumptive; cultural taboos; nature-based tourism has impacts
Incentive-driven use – conservation as a competitive form of land-use; a biodiversity-friendly land-use mosaic driven by livelihoods that depend on sustainable use of wildlife
Describe markets in conservation
Commercial exploitation
Successful in ranching crocodiles (were taken off CITES list so people could trade them as long as they were ranched) and domestication of spring bulbs (manipulating bred resource)
All things have a price and can be monetized. Whale quota allocated to whalers is put out to tender – conservationists can buy it so whales are not killed
Current $25m spent annually in anti-whaling efforts – most scientifically comrephensive of any natural research but things are still too unpredictable to do sustainable – what hope do we have for managing other species?
Descrube political ecology in community-based sustainable use
Rights of local people to manage their own affairs over the rich and powerful (including international conservation NGOs)
Are rural communities ‘in harmony’ with their environment? Will they naturally adopt sustainable practices? What incentives will help?
Describe general lessons about local involvement
Conservation behaviour must have suitable substantial economic benefits.
Provide incentives for conservation behaviours that outweigh any opportunity costs.
Must have devolved local control over natural resources: have to trust them!
Conservation education (but no evidence has any effect).
Describe the Vera hypothesis
Natural succession is park > scrub > grove > Break up
Park = largely open landscape with a thin scatter of trees left from the previous grove; vegetation mainly grassland or heath species
Scrub = spread of thorny shrubs excludes herbivores; young trees grow up with shrubs and eventually overtop them
Grove = tree-dominated phase of cycle; canopy shades out the shrubs; herbivores return, preventing regeneration
Break-up = period during which the canopy opens out as trees die; vegetation shifts from woodland to grassland species
Landscape is mosaic of open and closed spaces, with herbivores playing a key role in diversity of habitats fuelling diversity of animals and plants
Describe rewilding as a strategy
2010 Lawton report sets it out but only now getting to a point where the long term report is being picked up by the government.
Must not ignore small patches – small isolated habitat patches often have high conservation value (Wintle et al 2019)
Wildlife and countryside act 1981, EU habitats directive 1992 and EU birds directive 2009 have huge impact and real protection in law, including post-brexit agreement
Reserves are not well enough connected
What were Lawton’s (2010) solutions?
Improve patch quality i.e. by enlarging area
Establish buffer zone around patch
Establish stone stepping or continuous corridors
Create an ‘ecotone’ – habitat intermediate between wider environment and the habitat of the Enhance wider environment via a sustainable use area
Establish new sites by restoration
Why is the current network of reserves inadequate?
Not coherent
Not resilient
Many are too small, insufficiently protected and under-managed
Connectivity degraded or lost
Describe mainstreaming biodiversity in conservation triage
International level – biodiversity and ecosystem conservation built in to framework of all international organisations and agreements
National level – biodiversity and ecosystem conservation built in to economic and legal framework, all national and local planning, work of all ministries
Local level – PA management; community-based approaches integration conservation and development progs
