A unique project from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) at the University of Kent is aiming to improve Sumatran biodiversity conservation by raising awareness of Islamic teachings about conservation.
The project, led by Stuart Harrop, Professor of Wildlife Management Law at DICE and Deputy Head of Kent’s Department of Anthropology, and Matthew Linkie, a researcher at DICE, also aims to improve local livelihoods through sustainable natural resource use in forest-edge communities and to develop an innovative model for Indonesian community-based conservation.
The Indonesian archipelago contains about 10% of the world’s tropical rainforest, which plays a critical role in regional watershed protection, as well as in global efforts to conserve biodiversity and to sequester carbon. However, Indonesia currently experiences one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world and the multiple threats that biodiversity faces in Indonesia show little sign of waning.
Indonesia, with its diversity of traditional culture, also supports the world’s largest population of Muslims whose religion has a strong influence on their daily life. Islamic philosophies underpin biodiversity conservation in a number of ways principally through the doctrine of Khalifa (stewardship). Furthermore other traditional belief systems similarly hold a wealth of practices and beliefs that further conservation strategies. Taken together there is much scope for enhancing positive community attitudes for effective natural resource conservation.
Professor Harrop said: ‘This project presents a unique opportunity to work with Indonesian Islamic leaders in national Islamic religious institutes and their subsidiary colleges in rural areas, who have been prominent in promoting Islamic ideas and teachings. Working with communities in this capacity provides an ideal opportunity to increase their support for biodiversity conservation through integrating key religious concepts and traditional conservation approaches into conventional management plans and conservation strategies.’
Matthew Linkie said: ‘The project will take place around Sumatra’s Kerinci Seblat National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is vital to biodiversity conservation. Kerinci Seblat is surrounded by farming communities who live in close proximity to wildlife, and suffer losses from human-wildlife conflicts, such as crop-raiding or livestock depredation incidents. These conflicts reduce local tolerance towards wildlife and local support for biodiversity conservation. So the Department of Forestry, in partnership with local and international NGOs, has implemented a human-wildlife conflict management strategy for Kerinci, but no formal project, as of yet, has attempted to forge strong links with the local communities. So there is an urgent need to work more closely with the forest-edge communities to improve both local livelihoods and biodiversity conservation prospects.’
Their local partners include GreenLaw Indonesia, an NGO that has run community conservation and development projects in Sumatra and elsewhere in Indonesia since 2003. The project is funded by a Darwin Initiative and a Rufford Small Grant for Nature Conservation.
Notes
(1)
DICE (located within the University’s Department of Anthropology) is dedicated to building capacity and undertaking research necessary to conserve biodiversity and the functioning ecosystems upon which people depend. In support of its mission, DICE has now trained postgraduates from over 70 different countries, and many occupy increasingly influential positions in conservation.
The Institute’s MSc in International Wildlife Trade and Conservation provides students with the knowledge base to address trade regulation and management at both the national and international levels. The programme provides information on the workings of CITES and how this complements other multi-lateral environment agreements.
It also provides students with the knowledge to: minimise the negative effects of trade on species; increase the effectiveness of regulatory and market measures to promote conservation of species in trade and use; ensure that local communities dependent on wildlife products are respected and have their interests taken into account when managing species for use and conservation; and to integrate the planning and management of international trade and biodiversity conservation.
The programme is relevant to the work of national management and scientific authorities, international and national NGOs, consultancy firms and contractors, international agencies and donors.
Website: www.kent.ac.uk/anthropology/dice/dice.html
(2)
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ Darwin Initiative was announced by the UK Government at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. Its key objective is to provide grants for projects that draw on British expertise relevant to biodiversity to assist local partners in countries rich in biodiversity and poor in financial resources. The Darwin Initiative has supported over 400 projects in 100 countries since its inception, and has a current budget of £7 million per year. The Committee is made up of leaders in scientific fields including zoology, plant science and environmental policy and advises the Secretary of State on which projects the Darwin Initiative should support each year. The Darwin Initiative has supported several projects run by DICE since 1992, which include projects that seek to: reduce conflicts between people and wildlife around the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya; conserve the legendary axolotl in Mexico; and co-ordinate transboundary planning across the Maputaland centre of endemism, which straddles South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland.
Website: www.darwin.gov.uk
(3)
The Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation is a private grant-making trust based in the UK. The Rufford Small Grants for Nature Conservation (RSGs) are aimed at small conservation programmes and pilot projects.
Website: www.rufford.org
(4)
The University of Kent is one of the UK’s most dynamic universities. The first institution within the county to be granted a university charter, it now has over 16,000 students studying at Canterbury, Medway and Tonbridge and is a major educational, economic and cultural force throughout Kent.
In the 2007 National Student Survey, the University was ranked not just top in the region for course satisfaction, it was among the top ten nationwide. It also has a strong international presence and, according to the 2007 Sunday Times University Guide, it ‘can claim to be Britain’s only international university’ as a result of recent developments including the University’s expanding Brussels campus and its ‘involvement as one of five partners (and the only non-French one) in the bilingual University of the Transmanche’. The Guide ranked Kent 42 out of 123 participating higher education institutions in the UK, an increase of four places from the 2006 printed edition.
More than 80% of research staff work in departments which contain research of national or international levels of excellence and the University’s commitment to its research activities was recognised by the shortlisting of one of its academics for Young Researcher of the Year in the 2007 Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) Awards.
The University’s Law Clinic was also shortlisted in the Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community category. Last year, Kent was one of only five UK universities shortlisted for the THES Institution of the Year award.
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