Collaborative Research: Producing Wildlife: Biodiversity Conservation in Dynamic Commodity Landscapes

该项目考虑了生物多样性保护和以农业为基础的生计如何能够以一种对双方都有利的方式共存。人们越来越清楚地认识到，封闭的公园(或“堡垒”)保护方法本身可能不足以解决当前的全球生物多样性危机，而且这种方法有时被证明对当地生计和人民具有破坏性。通过确定当地的农业和经济活动在哪里也有利于生物多样性，这项研究试图找到保护野生动物和维持生计的双赢方法。因此，这项研究试图确定：1)印度中部的种植园景观(如咖啡、茶叶、橡胶)在多大程度上促进了当地生物多样性；2)生产者的做法和决定支持这种多样性；以及3)什么社会经济条件鼓励或阻碍生物多样性友好型生产。研究人员假设，种植面积的范围、投入物的使用和生产强度等特定条件会鼓励适合野生动物的栖息地。这将使用包括密集生态观测和测量在内的组合方法进行测试。这项工作还强调了当地的农业选择如何与保护或阻挠具有保护意义的鸟类和哺乳动物种群有关。因此，这项工作涉及与当地农业生产者进行访谈，以确定他们采用什么土地管理策略(例如肥料选择)、什么条件有利于或不鼓励这种做法(例如属于生产者合作社)，以及野生动物对生产的阻碍程度(例如通过掠夺作物)。这项研究还涉及重建导致今天存在的作物和生产选择的历史条件，包括对不断变化的商品价格和土地覆盖情况的调查。结果可能会揭示有利于特定野生动物物种的农业配置和决定。这项研究还将评估这些系统对大宗商品价格变动的反复无常以及当地制度变化的敏感程度。这些发现有助于确定哪些野生动物物种在远离受控制的保护工作地点的地区得到保护。结果可以为未来的政策提供参考，这些政策鼓励和奖励当地人维护对生物多样性有价值的特定作物和种植方法。这项研究还将开启未来关于当地人在保护中的作用的更广泛的对话，摆脱通常与社区-野生动物互动有关的对抗性情况。最后，该研究强调，将保护的注意力和资源的方向扩大到世界上人性化程度较高的地方，这是一个紧迫的问题，因为人类正在对地球表面进行全球变化。该项目将培训两个美国机构的许多研究生，以及印度研究地区的志愿公民科学参与者。由此产生的生态和经济数据、地图和调查结果将被加载到公共可用网站上，并将在学术和其他渠道上发表。

This project considers the ways in which biodiversity conservation and agriculturally-based livelihoods can exist together in a way that is beneficial to both. It is increasingly well understood that closed park (or 'fortress') approaches to conservation may be insufficient to address the current global biodiversity crisis on its own and that such approaches have sometimes proven destructive to local livelihoods and people. By determining where local agricultural and economic activities also benefit biodiversity, the research seeks to find win-win approaches to preserving wildlife and maintaining livelihoods. This research therefore seeks to determine: 1) the degree to which plantation landscapes (e.g. coffee, tea, rubber) in central India foster native biodiversity; 2) what producer practices and decisions support such diversity; and 3) what socio-economic conditions encourage or discourage biodiversity-friendly production. The investigators hypothesize that specific conditions such as range of plantation area, use of inputs, and the intensity of production encourage habitat appropriate for wildlife. This will be tested using a combination of methods including intensive ecological observation and measurement. The work also stresses how local agricultural choices bear on preserving or thwarting bird and mammal populations of conservation interest. As such, the work involves interviews with local agrarian producers to determine what land management strategies they employ (e.g. fertilizer choice), what conditions favor or discourage such practices (e.g. belonging to a producer cooperative), and the degree to which wildlife is a hindrance to production (e.g. through crop raiding). The research further involves the reconstruction of historical conditions that have led to crop and production choices that exist today, including a survey of changing commodity prices and land cover. The results will likely reveal agricultural configurations and decisions that favor specific wildlife species. The research will also assess the degree to which such systems are sensitive to the vagaries of commodity price shifts as well as local institutional change. These findings can help determine which wildlife species are being maintained in areas distant from sites of controlled conservation effort. Results can inform future policies which encourage and reward local people for maintaining specific crops and cropping approaches of value to biodiversity. The research also stands to open future dialogues on the role of local people in conservation more generally, moving away from confrontational situations more typically associated with community-wildlife interactions. Finally, the study stresses the broadening of conservation attention and direction of resources to heavily humanized places in the world, an urgent question in light of the ongoing global transformation of the earth's surface by people. The project will train numerous graduate students at two United States institutions, as well volunteer citizen science participants in the study region in India. Resulting ecological and economic data, maps, and survey findings will be loaded into publically available websites and findings will be published in academic as well as other outlets.