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CONSERVATION EDUCATION: CAPACITY BUILDING THROUGH INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS IN GRADUATE EDUCATION

It may be debatable to say that present-day conservation philosophy has its roots in the western "outdoor" culture. However, the biodiversity-rich developing countries of the southern hemisphere definitely have gained from northern expertise. Northern governmental agencies and nongovernmental organizations have been providing considerable financial and technological support to conservation capacity building in the south. Assistance has ranged from, for example, the critical support of the United Nations / Food and Agriculture Organization (UN/FAO) to southeast Asian nations, to long-standing U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) aid to Indian wildlife research, to the Smithsonian Institution's research contributions in Nepal, Conservation International's enterprising work in South America, Wildlife Conservation Society's explorations in Myanmar, and World Wildlife Fund's support of conservation efforts in Indonesia.

My institution, Wildlife Institute of India, has been a beneficiary of such international partnerships. Wildlife Institute of India was founded by the Government of India, with the support of UN/FAO, in the early 1980s. Several of the institute's notable research projects have been funded by USFWS. USFWS not only provided funding to support project expenses but also provided research expertise by facilitating collaboration between wildlife biologists in India and the United States. The project that I worked on for my Ph.D. research, sloth bear ecology in Panna National Park, centra India, was among the latter group. Cliff Rice of the state of Washington's Department of Fish and Wildlife was our primary U.S. collaborator and he in fact developed the original proposal. The project metamorphosed from Rice's pet project to a multi-institutional collaboration, in the process broadening considerably in intensity and scope.

As our study on sloth bear behavioral ecology progressed in Panna, USFWS brought in further international expertise in order to conduct a mid-term review of the project. This led to additional partnerships and created opportunities for enhanced capacity building. Among the reviewers was John Seidensticker, an expert carnivore biologist and a senior scientist with the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoological Park. Seidensticker was part of a Smithsonian team in the 1970s that pioneered wildlife research in Nepal. Seidensticker also has a long association with Indian wildlife biology. My own Ph.D. supervisor and an authority on wildlife biology in India, A.J.T. Johnsingh, conducted his postdoctoral research with Seidensticker in the early 1980s.

Seidensticker spent a few days with me at the field site, appreciating and reviewing my research. He then added a new perspective to the study by suggesting alternative ways of looking at my data in terms of behavioral energetics. This framework transformed the way I interpret behavioral patterns and helped me gain better insights into animal behavior. After completing my fieldwork, I was supported by the National Zoo to write my dissertation. I continue to be supported by the Zoo while I write papers and plan further conservation science work on the sloth bear, a species that lives in a fragmented landscape close to so many millions of people.

This partnership has helped expand the scope of my research from a site-specific study on animal behavior to a countrywide program for the conservation of the species. It is helping me in my effort to base sloth bear conservation in India on sound science. For the next few years, I will be conducting a field assessment of the distribution, threats, and conservation requirements of the sloth bear and developing a comprehensive action plan. The international partnership will be at work in the background encouraging me and facilitating partnerships with local experts where it is much needed. The essential point is that we could not have done this independent of each other. It will take all of us working together and in support of one another to make such programs work. This kind of partnership is essential for conservation science to progress.

A great deal of wildlife management in India has thus far been ad hoc and not based on sound science. Conservation successes too, mainly have been attributable to the authority of the state, sometimes even at the cost of grossly violating people's fundamental rights, rather than products of scientific management. However, this cannot continue for long. There is an urgent need to base conservation on good science to the benefit of one and all. International partnerships in graduate education have an important role here. These partnerships would primarily help in local capacity building but ultimately might help replace arbitrary and authoritarian conservation to conservation based on sound science.

K. Yoganand
Wildlife Institute of India
P.O. Box 18
Dehradun, 248001, India
Slothbear_research@yahoo.com

Back to 2003 ANNUAL MEETING: A GREAT GATHERING ON A GREAT LAKE

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Ahead to 2004 ANNUAL MEETING--NEW YORK CITY, 30 JULY - 2 AUGUST - CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR SYMPOSIA, WORKSHOPS, AND ORGANIZED DISCUSSIONS