Luis A. Vivanco, assistant professor of anthropology and director of the Latin American Studies Program at the
University of Vermont, published an interesting chapter in
Reconstructing Conservation: Finding Common Ground (
Island Press, 2003).
In "Conservation and Culture, Genuine and Spurious," Vivanco argues that while most of us would now agree that successful conservation depends on attention to social relations and cultural context, we often fail to realize that culture is not a mere tool to change anti-environmental behaviors. According to Vivanco, conservationists often portray others--be they natives of third world countries, rural residents, or modern urban dwellers--as having a culture which is "spurious" in the sense that it is unauthentic and disconnected to nature. Conservationists then try to change this culture or, viewing these others as obstacles, try to remove them from their conservation area.
However, locals are people to be negotiated with, not obstacles to be removed from the landscape.
Vivanco claims that in order for conservation to work, "we need a conservationist culture based on dialogue--not domination--that is not about simply facilitating an exchange of wisdom in order to convert people to some predetermined expectations of what conservation "should be." This dialogue should also involve a process of mutual enrichment in which the means and ends of conservation themselves are open to new contingencies and intercultural negotiations." (72)
These arguments apply not only conservationists working in Latin America (Vivanco examines projects in Monte Verde, Costa Rica and Oaxaca, Mexico), but for those of us trying to protect birds in urban areas of North America. We all have to realize that there are multiple issues and concerns that need to be addressed, and that we can't impose our ideas upon local neighborhoods or residential communities. As others have argued, Vivanco states that we need to "join claims for nature to ongoing struggles over the social and political realities of rural and urban communities" (60) and "conservation must be defined in terms that strengthen community structures and relationships" (70).
To conduct urban bird conservation, we need to tie the needs of birds to the needs of urban residents of all socioeconomic, educational, racial, and other backgrounds. We need to work with other people and organizations to pursue shared interests, and explore the connections between poverty, joblessness, homelessness, environmental justice, crime, education, and other urban social issues.
In addition, since our work seeks to change urban culure, we need to ask a series of questions posed by Vivanco:
- What new social orders does conservation seek to validate and implement?
- What is the vision of acceptable cultural relationships, institutions, and attitudes?
- Who defines these new realities, and for whom do they apply?
- What are the hierarchies of relevant knowledge in specific conservation initiatives?
In a democratic society, bird conservation has to be addressed through community-building. Efforts to impose state or federal regulations will fail without community support. Even if immediate policy goals are met, the backlash from imposing new institutions and relationships will make future work harder and undermine the ability of agencies enforce their regulations on the community. The Endangered Species Act, while a powerful tool to protect rare species, is often perceived as a political weapon and resented by local communities.
As long as bird conservation seeks to create a new social order, this new order should be negotiated and harmonized with the interests of the community. Negotiation, community-building, listening to the concerns of others, lots of meetings with food...all make for better conservation work than angry public meetings where local residents feel defensive about being imposed upon by additional regulations.
Vivanco gives us cause to pause in our conservation work, and ask ourselves the hard questions about how we see those other individuals and groups we are working with, and what kind of social vision we are seeking to impose or (more hopefully) create. The ends do not justify the means. In this case we need to see that the means, community-building, is also the end--healthy urban communities that sustain people and birds.