Security And Conservation

An exploration of the scale, practical reality, and future implications of the growing integration of biodiversity conservation with global security concerns “There are few keener observers of international biodiversity conservation than Rosaleen Duffy. With a ferocity of purpose, she investigates the tenuous connection and nuances among illegal wildlife trade, terrorism threats, and national security.”—Steven R. Brechin, Rutgers University, New Brunswick Debates regarding environmental security risks have generally focused on climate change and geopolitical water conflicts. Biodiversity conservation, however, is increasingly identified as a critical contributor to national and global security. The illegal wildlife trade is often articulated as a driver of biodiversity losses, and as a source of finance for organized crime networks, armed groups, and even terrorist networks. Conservationists, international organizations, and national governments have raised concerns about “convergence” of wildlife trafficking with other serious offenses, including theft, fraud, corruption, drugs and human trafficking, counterfeiting, firearms smuggling, and money laundering. In Security and Conservation, Rosaleen Duffy examines the scale, practical reality, and future implications of the growing integration of biodiversity conservation with global security concerns. Duffy takes a political ecology approach to develop a deeper understanding of how and why wildlife conservation turned toward security‑oriented approaches to tackle the illegal wildlife trade.

An exploration of the scale, practical reality, and future implications of the growing integration of biodiversity conservation with global security concerns "There are few keener observers of international biodiversity conservation than Rosaleen Duffy. With a ferocity of purpose, she investigates the tenuous connection and nuances among illegal wildlife trade, terrorism threats, and national security."--Steven R. Brechin, Rutgers University, New Brunswick Debates regarding environmental security risks have generally focused on climate change and geopolitical water conflicts. Biodiversity conservation, however, is increasingly identified as a critical contributor to national and global security. The illegal wildlife trade is often articulated as a driver of biodiversity losses, and as a source of finance for organized crime networks, armed groups, and even terrorist networks. Conservationists, international organizations, and national governments have raised concerns about "convergence" of wildlife trafficking with other serious offenses, including theft, fraud, corruption, drugs and human trafficking, counterfeiting, firearms smuggling, and money laundering. In Security and Conservation, Rosaleen Duffy examines the scale, practical reality, and future implications of the growing integration of biodiversity conservation with global security concerns. Duffy takes a political ecology approach to develop a deeper understanding of how and why wildlife conservation turned toward security-oriented approaches to tackle the illegal wildlife trade.

In the context of sustainable development, recent land debates tend to construct two porous camps. On the one side, norms of land justice and their advocates dictate that people’s rights to tenure security are tantamount and even sometimes key to successful conservation practice. On the other hand, biodiversity protection and conservation advocates, supported by global environmental organizations and states, remain committed to conservation strategies, steeped in genetics and biological sciences, working on behalf of a "global" mandate for biodiversity and climate change mitigation. Land Rights, Biodiversity Conservation and Justice seeks to illuminate struggles for land and territory in the context of biodiversity conservation. This edited volume explores the particular ideologies, narratives and practices that are mobilized when the agendas of biodiversity conservation practice meet, clash, and blend with the demands for land and access and control of resources from people living in, and in close proximity, to parks. The book maintains that while biodiversity conservation is an important goal in a time where climate change is a real threat to human existence, the successful and just future of biodiversity conservation is contingent upon land tenure security for local people. The original research gathered together in this volume will be of considerable interest to researchers of development studies, political ecology, land rights, and conservation.

Feeding the increasing global population, which is projected to reach ~10 billion by 2050, there has been increasing demands for more improved/sustainable agricultural management practices that can be followed by farmers to improve productivity without jeopardizing the environment and ecosystem. Indeed, about 95% of our food directly or indirectly comes from soil. It is a precious resource, and sustainable soil management is a critical socio–economic and environmental issue. Maintaining the environmental sustainability while the world is facing resource degradation, increasing climate change and population explosion is the current challenge of every food production sectors. Thus, there is an urgent need to evolve a holistic approach such as conservation agriculture to sustain higher crop productivity in the country without deteriorating soil health. Conservation Agriculture (CA), is a sustainable approach to manage agro–ecosystems in order to improve productivity, increase farm profitabilty and food security and also enhance the resource base and environment. Worldwide, it has been reported various benefits and prospects in adopting CA technologies in different agro-climatic conditions. Yet, CA in arid and semi-arid regions of India and parts of south Asia raises uncertainities due to its extreme climates, large scale residue burning, soil erosion and other constraints such as low water holding capacity, high potential evapotranspiration, etc . Thus, the proposed book has 30 chapters addressing all issues relevant to conservation agriculture/no-till farming system. The book also gives further strengthening existing knowledge in relation to soil physical, chemical and biological processes and health within close proximity of CA as well as machinery requirements. Moreover, the information on carbon (C) sequestration, C credits, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, mitigation of climate change effects and socio-economic view on CA under diverse ecologies namely rainfed, irrigated and hill eco-region is also deliberated. For large scale adoption of CA practices in South Asian region especially in India and other countries need dissemination of best-bet CA technologies for dominant soil types/cropping systems through participatory mode, strong linkages and institutional mechanism and public-private-policy support. We hope this book gives a comprehensive and clear picture about conservation agriculture/no-till farming and its associated problem, challenges, prospects and benefits. This book shall be highly useful reference material to researchers, scientists, students, farmers and land managers for efficient and sustainable management of natural resources.

Current international thinking in this area is reflected in this collection of essays by park managers, biologists, scholars, scientists, and researchers. From Waterton-Glacier International Park to the European Alps, and Lake Titicaca in Peru and Bolivia, the essays provide illustrative examples of the challenges and new solutions that are emerging around the world."--