Conservation in tropical forests: too fast, too furious? Improving legacy, collaboration, and ethical local participation in parrot species monitoring

驾驶舱国家是牙买加中西部高地的一个密集的丘陵雨林。它的地形如此难以接近，以至于几个世纪以来，它保护了马龙人在跨大西洋奴隶贸易中免受英国人的（重新）捕获。"绿色盔甲"还保护许多牙买加本土的珍稀鸟类、两栖动物和蝙蝠物种，其中许多只能在驾驶舱国家找到。交通不便严重影响了牙买加森林保护的兴起。大片的森林仍然没有被绘制出来;卫星图像被厚厚的林冠覆盖物所覆盖。密集、不平坦、无法航行的地形也使现代保护所依赖的其他技术变得无用。无人机几乎没有可用的飞行路径，没有互联网可用于远程上传，GPS跟踪器很难安装，因为巢穴和繁殖地在很大程度上是未知的，并且经常在繁殖季节之间-甚至在繁殖季节期间-被遗弃，相机陷阱几乎没有收获，因为物种很小和/或难以检测。吸引到该地区寻找稀有鸟类或青蛙的少数西方研究人员通常进行独立的项目，这些项目必然是手工的，因此很困难;许多人宣布物种受到威胁，不再返回。这种研究没有利用秘密传统村庄所掌握的当地知识，而这些村庄的专业知识为这些物种在一个原本无法穿越的景观中的分布提供了关键线索。它还忽略了当地非政府组织先前进行的调查，这些调查能够提供指示人口趋势、新出现的威胁和环境变化的线索。它也没有涉及那些继承了综合这些全球评估的任务并呼吁将增加物种保护纳入国家政策的国家部门，因为他们资金不足，因此他们不受信任。我的博士研究重新定义了传统知识-现在在主流保护中受到追捧-而不是广泛或社区，而是排他性，等级制，性别活动的结果。弄脏衣服、弄脏靴子和变硬的手的行为也会造成文化分裂。来自较富裕或较大家庭的男子，由于积累了较多的资源，在家庭分工中几乎没有责任，这使他们有时间和手段从事传统习俗;来自较小/较贫穷家庭的男子，由于依赖雇佣劳动，参加文化活动的能力较低。具有讽刺意味的是，资助机构经常要求社区参与，进一步垂直化社区，因为传统从业者成为当地专家，研究助理和项目顾问，而保护成果限制了其他人未经批准的访问。这个奖学金的目的有三个方面。首先是在学术界传播我的博士研究成果，在学术界，人们越来越多地对地方参与保护研究的重要性达成共识，很少关注其社会，政治和经济后果。这包括一个专着的建议，详细介绍了整个Cockpit Country森林中最后一个Maroon村庄不到1%的人口所保持的不稳定和脆弱的传统-该地区涵盖了牙买加10%以上的陆地面积，并支持超过90%的地方性陆地物种。第二，继续在与栗色社区共同制作的专门网站（www.example.com）上提供开放获取的数据（地图、环境数据、物种数量数据）和传统知识文献（利用博客、照片、视频）。第三是研究不同的（低技术和高技术）方法，使利益相关者群体能够更多地、更道德地参与到对现已濒危的黑嘴鹦鹉的监测中，并在整个保护网络中实施调查结果。

Cockpit Country is a dense, hilly rainforest in the uplands of west-central Jamaica. So inaccessible is its terrain that for centuries it protected the Maroons from (re)capture by the British during the Transatlantic slave trade. The "green armour" also protects the many rare bird, amphibian, and bat species native to Jamaica, many of which can only be found in Cockpit Country. The inaccessibility has heavily impacted the emergence of forest conservation in Jamaica. Large swathes of the forest remain uncharted; satellite imagery is made redundant by the heavy blanket of canopy cover. The dense, uneven, unnavigable terrain also renders useless other technologies upon which modern conservation relies. There is little flight path available for drones, there is no internet available for remote uploads, GPS trackers are difficult to install because nests and breeding grounds are largely unknown and often abandoned between - even during - breeding seasons, and camera traps yield little because the species are small and/or poorly detectable. The few Western researchers drawn to the region in search of rare birds or frogs typically undertake standalone projects that are necessarily manual and, consequently, difficult; many declare species as threatened and do not return. Such research makes no use of local knowledge held by clandestine traditional villages, whose expertise provides critical clues for the distribution of these species across an otherwise impenetrable landscape. It also omits prior investigations undertaken by local NGOs, able to make available a patchwork of clues indicating population trends, emerging threats, and environmental shifts. It also does not involve the state departments who inherit the task of synthesising these global assessments and calls for increased species protection into national policy, for which they are underfunded and because of which they are untrusted. My doctoral research reframed traditional knowledge - now sought-after in mainstream conservation - not as widespread or communal, but as the result of exclusive, hierarchical, gendered activities. The very actions that soil clothes, muddy boots, and harden hands also create cultural divisions. Males from wealthier or larger households, with greater accumulated resources, have little responsibility within household division of labour, affording them the time and means to engage in traditional practices; those from smaller/poorer households reliant on wage labour are less able to access cultural activities. Ironically, the community participation often demanded by funding bodies, further verticalizes communities, as traditional practitioners become local experts, research assistants, and project consultants, while conservation outcomes restrict unsanctioned access by everyone else. The aims of this fellowship are threefold. The first is to disseminate the findings of my PhD across academic circles, where there is a growing consensus on the importance of local participation in conservation research, with scant attention paid to its social, political, and economic consequences. This includes the proposal of a monograph that details the precarious and fragile traditions maintained by fewer than 1% of the population of the last remaining Maroon village in the entire Cockpit Country forest - a region encompassing more than 10% of Jamaica's landmass and supporting over 90% of its endemic terrestrial species. The second is to continue to provide open-access data (maps, environmental data, species population data) and documentation of traditional knowledge (using blogs, photographs, video) on a dedicated website co-produced with the Maroon community (www.countermappingcockpit.com). The third is to research different (low and high tech) methodologies that enable greater, more ethical participation by stakeholder groups into the monitoring of the now-Endangered black-billed parrot and operationalise findings across conservation networks.