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University of Oxford
School of Geography and the Environment

 School of Geography and the Environment

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Research: Biodiversity, Ecosystems and Conservation

Conservation Governance Laboratory

The Conservation Governance Lab is an interdisciplinary research group working to generate richer conceptualizations of how conservation actors build, extend and legitimate their influence. The lab's identity is founded on the belief that important insights lie at the interfaces of the natural and social science and of theory and practice. To this end, lab members collectively explore the efficacy of social science theory and analytics for generating novel and useful insights on questions relating to conservation governance.

The following themes and larger goals are currently exciting us:

  • The implications of the assembly of web-inspired technologies and practices, mobile computing, network databases and platforms for biodiversity science and policy.
  • Understanding the interplay of new network and market-based policy instruments (e.g. FSC, REDD+) with local socio-political institutions (e.g. quanxi, clientelism).
  • Conceptualising the policy and management implications of the transition from a focus on the species or habitat as the unit of intervention towards a focus on managing relations, specifically managing the relations within which a species resides such that species can coexist in human dominated landscapes.
  • The theoretical and practical debates surrounding dialogue-based science communication; democratic and transparent science-based policy; and the use of new technologies, games and the creative arts in enhancing the public understanding of the environment.
  • Whether conservation as an institution and movement is losing touch with transformations in culture and society and, if so, how to reconnect and reengage.

Our thinking on these topics is rooted in ecology and conservation biogeography but informed by frame analytics, governmentality, actor-network theory, animal geography and science and technology studies.

People

  • Dr Paul Jepson
    Lab Leader, Course Director, MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy
  • Maan Barua
    Graduate Research Student - The political ecology of human-elephant interactions in India.
  • Kathleen Buckingham
    Graduate Research Student - Managing green gold: reconfiguring bamboo management for sustainability and to what extent certification creates an arena for change.
  • Jon David
    Biodiversity Modeller, BioFresh Project.
  • Lucy Erickson
    Researcher, BioFresh Project: The role of new technologies and gaming in engaging with environmental issues.
  • Mari Mulyani
    Graduate Research Student - The interplay between the REDD+ mechanism and forest-related institutions in Indonesia
  • Gillian Petrokofsky
    Graduate Research Student - Plant Sciences, Oxford
  • Rob St.John
    Communications and Project Co-ordinator, BioFresh Project
  • Tom Turnbull
    Researcher, BioFresh Project: The sociology and politics of database enrolment.
Associates

Current and Recent Research Projects

  • Biodiversity of freshwater ecosystems: status, trends, pressures and conservation priorities (BioFresh) (2009-present)
    BioFresh is creating a data portal and federated network of interoperable freshwater databases to enable new forms of scientific analysis and a stronger evidence base for policy. We are leading on the communications and dissemination work-package and on the development of a climate vulnerability index for freshwater ecosystems. Our communication work is currently engaging with theoretical and practical debates surrounding dialogue-based science communication; democratic and transparent science-based policy; and the use of new technologies and the creative arts in enhancing the public understanding of the environment.
  • A market-led response to domestic bird trade in Indonesia (2005-2009)
    This Darwin Initiative project explored the practices and networks associated with the hugely popular pass-time of keeping and competing songbirds in Indonesia. It tested the efficacy of a certification-based approach to governing the negative conservation of bird-keeping and sought to amplify the 'wildlife trade' policy frame by adding ideational elements relating to social practices and livelihood impacts relating to the trade of wild birds.
  • The Political Ecology of Human-Elephant Relationships in India
    The Asian elephant is a cultural icon and an endangered species. Less than 40,000 elephants survive in the wild, and the creature is threatened by loss and fragmentation of its habitat. Competition between people and elephants for space and resources has escalated, and in India alone c.400 people are killed every year. Crops worth US$ 1 million are damaged annually, and nearly 500,000 families across the country are affected. Current research on human-wildlife conflict is largely informed by the ecological sciences, whilst governance of these landscapes is largely a socio-political issue. Strategies for conservation have failed to work on the ground, partly because community enrolment in the conservation assemblage is incomplete, and the agency, capacities and effects of elephants are given scant attention in conservation policy.

    This research project seeks to develop theoretical perspectives in animal geography and challenge and enhance conservation practice through three strands of engagement:
    • Examining how human-elephant encounters co-produce practices and mappings of elephant conservation
    • A closer look at how social orderings of space influence the politics of human and elephant co-inhabitation of landscapes
    • Rethinking elephant conservation policy and its impacts on the rural poor

    This research has been funded by the University of Oxford Clarendon Fund, Felix and Wingate Scholarships, with external support from the Elephant Family, UK.

Research Notes

Can computer games aid conservation?

Selected Recent Publications