Ecological grief, nonhuman loss and environmental change - exploring human reactions to species decline through African Wild Dogs

随着环境的持续变化，人类与环境的关系和反应方式也在不断变化。人为原因加速了从砍伐森林到荒漠化、水源污染、极地冰川融化等变化。然而，尽管学者们努力记录、调查和分析这些物理变化的细节，但人们对正在消失或改变的环境的了解往往比居住或居住在环境附近的人更多。安娜的项目关注人类在环境变化背景下对非人类死亡的反应，关注物种灭绝和撒哈拉以南非洲东部的非洲野狗。在调查气候变化的情感影响时，一些著名学者已经开辟了这一地理研究领域，阿尔布雷希特(2006)关于日晒痛的工作，坎索洛-威洛克斯(2012)关于生态悲伤和哀悼的工作，以及洛里默(2007)关于非人类魅力的工作都是著名的例子。尽管如此，这些主题中的许多都没有得到充分的研究，还需要做更多的工作来加强对环境变化的文化和情感上的理解，把对健康的担忧放在受影响人群决策的首位，并首先理解人们对某些环境和物种产生依恋的原因。通过这个博士学位收集的数据旨在让尽可能多的参与者参与进来，从研究人员到游客，那些住在狗附近的人，科学家，护林员和自然资源保护者，调查这些不同的角色和身份如何影响人与狗的关系，以及对狗的衰落的反应。这一案例研究之所以被选中，是因为它邀请我们将研究失落的情感反应与其他有关保护、发展和后殖民主义的问题结合起来。

As the environment continues to change, so do the ways in which humans relate and react to it. Anthropogenic causes accelerate such changes from deforestation to desertification, pollution of water sources, polar ice melt and so on. Yet whilst academics have endeavoured to record, investigate and analyse these physical changes in detail, often more is known about the environments that are being lost or altered than the people that inhabit or live nearby them. Anna's project focuses on human reactions to nonhuman-loss in the context of changing environments, looking at species extinction and African Wild Dogs in eastern sub-Saharan Africa.On investigating the emotional impacts of climate change, some notable scholars have already opened up this field of geographical enquiry, with Albrecht's (2006) work on solastalgia, Cunsolo-Willox's (2012) work on ecological grief and mourning and Lorimer's (2007) work on nonhuman charisma all being notable examples. Still, many of these topics are under-researched and more needs to be done to strengthen cultural and emotional understandings of environmental change, put concerns of wellbeing at the forefront of decision-making surrounding affected populations and understand the reasons why people become attached to certain environments and species in the first place.The data collected through this PhD aims to involve as many groups of participants as possible from researchers to tourists, those living near the dogs, scientists, rangers and conservationists, investigating how these different roles and identities affect the person's relationship to the dogs and reaction to their decline. This case study was chosen in particular for its invitation to intersect investigating emotional responses to loss with other questions regarding conservation, development and post-colonialism.