Dealing with Biodiversity Dilemmas in Ordinary Places
The Case of Invasive and Introduced Species
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Abstract
The battle against invasive alien species (IAS) rages on, and is being driven by recently articulated global biodiversity agendas. While the current United Nations Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) seeks to ensure pristine, protected areas comprise 30 percent of the world's total surface area by 2030, there remains much to be done for the remaining 70 percent, areas dominated by human habitat and industrial activities. Many non-native species have partly or wholly naturalized in these mixed ecosystems, becoming entangled in people's livelihoods. We therefore argue that initiatives to not only aggressively eradicate such IAS but also to enroll the help of citizens in doing so will likely meet with resistance. Biodiversity dilemmas may arise where the cure may be worse than the disease; animal welfare standards may have to be sacrificed; and socioeconomic utility may have to be set aside. We therefore advocate the need for an alternative perspective on biodiversity justice and the proper place of IAS.
Contributor Notes
Erica von Essen is an Associate Professor at Stockholm Resilience Center with a background in environmental communication. Her research focuses on wild, feral, escaped, hybrid, pest, or otherwise problematic wildlife in society. Several of her projects have examined human attempts to discipline wildlife mobility and behavior, including culling wildlife in cities. She has also focused on wildlife tourism, invasive species management, and the surveillance of wildlife—for both entertainment and scientific purposes. She regularly speaks in media on wildlife controversies, including wolf poaching, hunting, and growing digital engagement with wild animals. Email: erica.von.essen@su.se
Karin Ahlberg is a Researcher at the Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Bremen. She is interested in oceans, species mobility, shipping, and imperial afterlives. Her current research explores the origins and effects of an unprecedented marine-species transformation in the Mediterranean Sea propelled by the opening and successive dredging of the Suez Canal. Email: karin.ahlberg@socant.su.se
Tomas Cole is a Postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, and a Visiting Scholar at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich. He has focused on indigenous conservation and environmental peacebuilding in Southeast Myanmar. This work examines indigenous modes of possessing landscapes and the ways these are translated and rescaled into struggles to protect environments and to gain greater autonomy. His current project explores divergent attempts to make peace with “pests”—specifically with diseases bearing mosquitoes in both Singapore and Myanmar. Email: tomas.cole@socant.su.se
Bengt G. Karlsson is Professor of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University. He mainly works on issues relating to indigenous peoples and the society–environment interface with a particular focus on the politics of ethnicity and nature in India. Karlsson has published on topics like indigeneity, forests, conservation, mining, subaltern movements, ethnicity, development, and political ecology. He is presently working on two projects concerning plant–people entanglements, one on food crops in the Eastern Himalayas, and another on tea plantations across the Indian Ocean. Karlsson is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. Email: bengt.karlsson@socant.su.se
Ivana Maček is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University. She has been working on war and massive political violence, intergenerational transmission of experiences of war among Bosnians in Sweden, and developing conceptual tools for understanding ethnographic methods beyond words and symbols. She is the author of Sarajevo under Siege: Anthropology in Wartime (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009) and editor of Engaging Violence: Trauma, Memory and Representation (Routledge, 2014). Her current research is in the field of more-than-human and multispecies anthropology, taking the appearance of Pacific oysters on the west coast of Sweden as a starting point for exploring human—nonhuman relationships in the midst of climate change. Email: ivana.macek@socant.su.se