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

驾驶舱之乡是牙买加中西部高地上的一片茂密的丘陵雨林。它的地形如此难以进入，以至于几个世纪以来，它保护马龙人在跨大西洋奴隶贸易期间不被英国人(重新)俘虏。绿色盔甲还保护着牙买加本土的许多稀有鸟类、两栖动物和蝙蝠物种，其中许多物种只有在驾驶舱国家才能找到。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；由于覆盖着厚厚的树冠，卫星图像变得多余。密集、不平坦、无法通航的地形也使现代保护所依赖的其他技术毫无用处。无人机几乎没有可用的飞行路线，没有可用于远程上传的互联网，GPS追踪器很难安装，因为巢穴和繁殖地在很大程度上是未知的，往往在繁殖季节之间被遗弃，相机陷阱收效甚微，因为物种较小和/或难以检测到。为数不多的被吸引到该地区寻找珍稀鸟类或青蛙的西方研究人员，通常会进行独立的项目，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，不再回来。这种研究没有利用秘密传统村庄掌握的当地知识，他们的专业知识为这些物种在原本难以穿透的地形上的分布提供了关键线索。它还省略了当地非政府组织之前进行的调查，能够提供表明人口趋势、新出现的威胁和环境变化的拼凑线索。它也不涉及继承这些全球评估任务的国家部门，并呼吁将更多的物种保护纳入国家政策，因为它们在这方面资金不足，因此不受信任。我的博士研究重新构建了传统知识--现在在主流保护中很受欢迎--不是作为普遍或社区的知识，而是作为排他性的、分等级的、按性别划分的活动的结果。弄脏衣服、沾满泥巴的靴子和僵硬的双手的行为本身也造成了文化分歧。来自较富裕或较大家庭、拥有更多累积资源的男性在家庭分工中几乎没有责任，使他们有时间和手段从事传统做法；那些来自依靠受薪劳动的较小/较贫穷家庭的男性较少能够参加文化活动。具有讽刺意味的是，资助机构经常要求的社区参与进一步垂直于社区，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。首先是在学术界传播我的博士研究成果，在学术界，人们对地方参与保护研究的重要性越来越达成共识，而对其社会、政治和经济后果关注较少。这包括提议编写一本专著，详细说明整个驾驶舱国家森林中最后一个栗色村庄不到1%的人口所保持的岌岌可危和脆弱的传统--该地区占牙买加陆地面积的10%以上，支持着该国90%以上的特有陆地物种。第二是继续在与马龙社区共同制作的专用网站上提供开放获取的数据(地图、环境数据、物种种群数据)和传统知识的记录(使用博客、照片、视频)(www.Countermappingockbit.com)。第三是研究不同的(低技术和高科技)方法，使利益相关者群体能够更大、更合乎道德地参与对现已濒危的黑嘴鹦鹉的监测，并将发现在整个保护网络中付诸实施。

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.