Doctoral Dissertation Research: Expanding the Boundaries of Conservation Science: Community Based Wildlife Protection in the Maasai Ecosystem, Tanzania

以社区为基础的保护（CBC）项目正在启动，以保护野生动物走廊，并将整个景观的生态过程联系起来。坦桑尼亚北部马赛生态系统的野生动物保护依赖于这种方法来保护国家公园外主要由马赛牧民占据的土地上的迁徙物种。本研究项目的目的是探索当地马赛居民的地理知识如何有助于该地区基于保护生物学和地理信息系统（GIS）制图的CBC倡议的科学对话。因此，该项目涉及到当地马赛地理知识和西方保护科学的关键参与，为马赛生态系统提出其他野生动物保护措施。该项目在政治生态学研究方法的背景下，探讨了有关土著知识在科学和资源管理政治中的价值和地位的理论问题。该项目首先将通过探索马赛人关于当地生态的历史和当代模式、野生动物资源利用模式、马赛人资源利用模式、马赛人与野生动物的相互作用以及马赛人的领土观念的知识主张，来了解该地区的马赛人地理是什么样子的。然后，该项目将根据深入的民族志实地工作、生态分析和参与式地理信息系统制图，通过创建谈判的最终“文本”，研究如何在马赛知识和保护科学之间建立谈判和翻译的对话。自然科学和社会科学技术将包括综合使用深度访谈、关键信息者引导的样带、小组会议、参与者观察、生态样带、航空照片判读。通过这种方式，通过社会科学方法获得的信息将不断得到加强，并通过地理和生态方法进行交叉核对。对马赛关键线人的“旅行”采访将提供最基本和最具创新性的方法。通过在马赛人的日常和季节性土地利用活动中与他们一起旅行，民族植物生态采样将与参与性观察和深入访谈相结合，以了解马赛人的资源利用模式和当地生态知识。生态实地调查将在被认为对野生动物保护有价值的特定地点进行（由保护机构和当地马赛人提议），以描绘这些地点的野生动物存在、野生动物与牲畜的相互作用和植被覆盖率。参与式地理信息系统制图将用于绘制通过这些综合方法获得的信息。翻译的挑战和竞争知识主张之间谈判的政治，是项目的一个重要组成部分，将通过自我反思的民族志，参与者观察和额外的访谈问题在整个项目中直接解决。通过调查将当地知识要求纳入保护规划和GIS制图的过程，该项目将直接解决在人类景观中建立新的“参与式”保护地理学所涉及的社会和生态复杂性。通过利用参与式地理信息系统，该项目将有助于更好地理解地理信息系统作为不同知识要求之间的翻译和协商技术的能力。整个发展中国家都在紧迫地推行CBC和参与式地理信息系统制图项目，这使得这个研究问题对决策者和学者来说都是一个及时的问题。该项目提供了政治生态学、科学研究、地理信息系统和批判性地图学理论以及保护生物学的理论框架。对地方知识的研究经常与科学的批判性评论分开，而批判性科学研究在理论上也经常从科学成果中分离出来。通过将科学研究的见解与对当地知识的政治敏感调查和对当地土地利用的生态分析相结合，本研究将超越这些学科界限，为调查人类与环境的关系打开新的大门。因此，这个项目将有助于更好地理解我们在保护与发展、人与自然、西方科学和当地知识之间调解的各种方式。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

Community-based-conservation (CBC) projects are being initiated to protect wildlife corridors and connect ecological processes across landscapes. The conservation of wildlife in the Maasai Ecosystem of northern Tanzania relies on this approach for protection of migratory species outside of national parks on lands predominately occupied by Maasai pastoralists. The objective of this research project is to explore how the geographical knowledge of local Maasai residents contributes to scientific dialogues regarding CBC initiatives in the region that are based in both conservation biology and GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping. The project, therefore, involves a critical engagement with both local Maasai geographical knowledge and Western conservation science, to propose alternative wildlife conservation measures for the Maasai Ecosystem. The project explores theoretical questions regarding the value and place of indigenous knowledge within science and the politics of resource management, within the context of a political ecology research approach. The project first will ask what a Maasai geography of the region looks like, by exploring Maasai knowledge claims concerning historical as well as contemporary patterns of local ecology, wildlife resource use patterns, Maasai resource use patterns, Maasai-wildlife interactions, and Maasai notions of territoriality. The project will then investigate how dialogues of negotiation and translation can be built between Maasai knowledge and Conservation science by creating a final "text" of negotiation, based on in-depth ethnographic field work, ecological analysis, and participatory GIS mapping. Natural and social science techniques will include integrated use of in-depth interviews, key-informant led transects, group meetings, participant observations, ecological transects, air photo interpretation. In this manner, information obtained through social science methods will be continually reinforced and cross-checked, both geographically and with ecological methods. "Traveling" interviews with Maasai key informants will provide the most essential and innovative method used. By traveling with Maasai during their daily and seasonal land-use activities, ethno-botanical ecological sampling will be coupled with participatory observation and in-depth interviews to gain an understanding of Maasai resource use patterns and knowledge of local ecology. Ecological fieldwork will be conducted at specific sites deemed valuable for wildlife conservation purposes (as proposed by both conservation agencies and local Maasai) to delineate wildlife presence, wildlife-livestock interactions, and vegetation coverage at these sites. Participatory GIS mapping will be utilized to map information obtained through these combined methods. The challenges of translation and the politics of negotiating between competing knowledge claims, an essential component of the project, will be directly addressed throughout the project through self-reflective ethnography, participant observations, and additional interview questions. By investigating the process of incorporating/integrating local knowledge claims into conservation planning and GIS mapping, this project will directly address the social and ecological complexities involved in building new 'participatory' conservation geographies in human landscapes. By utilizing participatory GIS, the project will contribute to a better understanding of the capabilities of GIS as a technique for the translation and negotiation between different knowledge claims. The urgency with which CBC and participatory GIS mapping projects are being pursued throughout the developing world makes this research question a timely one for policy makers and academics alike. The project informs the theoretical frameworks of political ecology, science studies, GIS and critical cartographic theory, and conservation biology. Studies of local knowledge are often separated from critical reviews of science, and critical science studies is often theoretically removed from scientific productions. By combining the insights of science studies with a politically sensitive investigation of local knowledge and an ecological analysis of local land use, this study will transcend such disciplinary boundaries and open new doors for investigation into human-environment relations. As such, this project will contribute to a better understanding of the various ways in which we mediate the middle ground between conservation and development, people and nature, Western Scientific and local knowledge claims. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.