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Changing the Paradigm for Better Conservation: Conceptual Proposals from the Environmental Humanities

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Socio-ecological Studies in Natural Protected Areas

Abstract

The current conservation paradigm emerged at the 1992 Rio Summit at the same time as the institutionalization of global environmental policy. Consequently, national institutions appeared that promoted conservation through various instruments, especially in the signatory countries of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Generally, these processes have been top-down with little or no participation by the population that lives in or uses the ecosystems that the institutions claim to conserve. This occurs in a context of contradictions between governmental institutions and policies, which on the one hand promote extractivism and on the other wish to conserve the environment and end poverty. The results have protected neither biodiversity nor social well-being. It is time for a transformative change that begins with a different paradigm to overcome the obstacles of the current paradigm and that has as its basis the restoration of sustainable relationships between societies and the ecosystems on which all living beings depend. Based on the environmental humanities, this chapter hopes to contribute to this urgent transformation by proposing several concepts, values, and practices for a new paradigm.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.ipbes.net/sites/default/files/downloads/spm_unedited_advance_for_posting_htn.pdf

  2. 2.

    “A fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values.”

  3. 3.

    https://www.unenvironment.org/es/news-and-stories/comunicado-de-prensa/la-naturaleza-esta-en-un-declive-peligroso-y-sin-precedentes

  4. 4.

    https://www.iucn.org/about/iucn-a-brief-history

  5. 5.

    The first Convention on the Continental Shelf was adopted in 1958 and ratified as a United Nations instrument in 1971. In 1961, the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources was signed (taking effect in 1982), and the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas was signed in 1966 (coming into effect in 1969).

  6. 6.

    https://www.clubofrome.org/

  7. 7.

    https://www.un.org/es/ga/president/65/issues/sustdev.shtml

  8. 8.

    Gudynas, E. (2011a, b), Escobar, A (2007), Pierri, N (2005), and Reichmann, J. (1995), among others

  9. 9.

    Currently regulated by the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity which is an international agreement adopted at the 10th COP held in 2010 and entered into force on October 12, 2014 https://www.cbd.int/abs/about/

  10. 10.

    In a thorough study, María Dolores Mirón (2005) explains that the concept has been normally translated as “house,” “estate,” or “family.” Very limited terms, which barely define parts of the Greek concept, without reaching the general meaning of the word. The difficulty increases if we consider that the term oikos was already quite broad and ambiguous in Greek. In this way, it could be used to refer to this basic cell of Greek society as a whole, but also separately, depending on the context, in the different meanings that, as we have indicated above, are translatable into English. That is, that oikos can also designate only the physical space of the house on one occasion; in another, to the properties; and in others, to the family.

  11. 11.

    Biophilia understood as love of life was taken up by Erich Fromm to define the essence of his humanist ethics in contrast to necrophilia, or love of death. Edward O. Wilson uses the concept to describe the innate affinity for all the living, the connection with nature, with other living beings, with the habitat, and with the environment (Hernández Rosas 2016:8).

  12. 12.

    See Sub-Antarctic Biocultural Conservation Program: http://www.chile.unt.edu/.

  13. 13.

    Among those who we must cite are A. Ararwal, M. Altieri, E. Berlin, F. Berkes, J. Colding, C. Folke, P. Descola, M. Gadgil, and V. Shiva.

  14. 14.

    Understood as the set of relationships of societies with their environment and between their human and beyond-human members

  15. 15.

    For Berque, the concept of (human) means is the relationship of a human group with a certain terrestrial extension, this is with a space and with nature (Berque 2000:13).

  16. 16.

    http://www.umag.cl/facultades/williams/?page_id=855

  17. 17.

    www.kaxilkiuic.org

  18. 18.

    www.panamanglar.org

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Cariño-Olvera, M., Moreno-Terrazas-Troyo, R., Monteforte-Cariño, A. (2020). Changing the Paradigm for Better Conservation: Conceptual Proposals from the Environmental Humanities. In: Ortega-Rubio, A. (eds) Socio-ecological Studies in Natural Protected Areas. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47264-1_5

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