Climates of Change: A Tuatara’s-Eye View
Climates of Change: A Tuatara’s-Eye View
复制标题
气候变化：大蜥蜴的视角
作者：
A. Boswell
大蜥蜴或新西兰“刺背蜥蜴”（Sphenodon punctatus）是早于恐龙的爬行动物目中唯一幸存的成员。蜥蜴的特征和特点是，它以呼吸缓慢和寿命长而闻名。它的头骨顶部有第三只眼睛，用于感知紫外线；其后代的性别由土壤温度决定。本文阐述了大蜥蜴对气候变化的看法，考虑了这种生物在各个地质时代的生存、其本土血统及其对人类世快速变化条件的敏感性。本文探讨了大蜥蜴作为生物多样性受到威胁的象征的不断变化的角色，以及动物园和保护区作为气候变化的解释者、灭绝的预防者和生殖干预措施的实施者的不断变化的作用，这些干预措施越来越需要确保气候脆弱物种的未来。它还对大蜥蜴感兴趣，因为它见证了快速且持续的人类造成的气候变化，这种变化确保了生活世界的重建，这是新西兰定居者殖民事业的基础。本文将此与怀唐伊法庭的 Wai 262 报告（Ko Aotearoa Tēnei，2011）联系起来，探讨了大蜥蜴关于 kaitiakitanga（监护权）和气候变化的教导。
The tuatara or New Zealand “spiny-backed lizard” (Sphenodon punctatus) is the sole surviving member of an order of reptiles that pre-dates the dinosaurs. Among its characteristics and peculiarities, the tuatara is renowned for being slow-breathing and long-lived; it possesses a third eye on the top of its skull for sensing ultraviolet light; and the sex of its progeny is determined by soil temperatures. This article unravels a tuatara’s-eye view of climate change, considering this creature’s survival across geological epochs, its indigenous lineage and its sensitivities to the fast-shifting conditions of the Anthropocene. This article examines the tuatara’s evolving role as an icon of biodiversity-under-threat and the evolving role of zoos and sanctuaries as explicators of climate change, forestallers of extinction, and implementers of the reproductive interventions that are increasingly required to secure the future of climate-vulnerable species. It is also interested in the tuatara as a witness to the rapid and ongoing human-wrought climate change which has secured the lifeworld reconstruction that is foundational to the settler colonial enterprise in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Linking this to the Waitangi Tribunal’s Wai 262 report (Ko Aotearoa Tēnei, 2011), the article considers what the tuatara teaches about kaitiakitanga (guardianship) and climates of change.