Noella J. Gray

A Decommodified Experience? Exploring Aesthetic, Economic and Ethical Values for Volunteer Ecotourism in Costa Rica

Volunteer ecotourism has been described as an ‘ideal’ form of decommodified ecotourism that overcomes problems associated with tourism in general, and ecotourism specifically. Using a case study of volunteer ecotourism and sea turtle conservation in Costa Rica, this paper interrogates this ideal. Perceptions of volunteer ecotourism were explored through in-depth interviews with 36 stakeholders, including hosts, NGO staff, government employees, local ‘cabineros’ (families who provide accommodation) and guests (volunteers). Results show that while all stakeholder groups share similarly positive views of volunteer ecotourism, subtle but important differences exist. We analyse these differences in terms of aesthetic, economic, and ethical values, and situate the results in existing theories about the moralisation and decommodification of ecotourism.

GATEKEEPERS AND KEYMASTERS: DYNAMIC RELATIONSHIPS OF ACCESS IN GEOGRAPHICAL FIELDWORK*

This article contributes to a recent and growing body of literature exploring the nature of fieldwork in human geography. Specifically, we critically examine the role of gatekeepers in providing access to “the field,” based on existing conceptualizations of gatekeepers in the literature and on our own experiences with gatekeepers. We argue that the concept of gatekeepers has been oversimplified, in that relationships between researchers and gatekeepers are often assumed to be unidirectional—with gatekeepers controlling or providing access by researchers—and predominantly static in form and time. Although we accept the necessity and advantages of working through gatekeepers, our experiences suggest that relationships with them are highly complex and evolve over time, with sometimes unexpected implications for research. In gathering and analyzing data, researchers become gatekeepers themselves, what we are calling “keymasters.” Reconceptualizing the gatekeeper‐researcher relationship will contribute to ongoing efforts to more fully understand field‐workers as undertaking a practice inherently political, personal, and linked to the production of knowledge.

Blue Economy and Competing Discourses in International Oceans Governance

In this article, we track a relatively new term in global environmental governance: “blue economy.” Analyzing preparatory documentation and data collected at the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (i.e., Rio + 20), we show how the term entered into use and how it was articulated within four competing discourses regarding human–ocean relations: (a) oceans as natural capital, (b) oceans as good business, (c) oceans as integral to Pacific Small Island Developing States, and (d) oceans as small-scale fisheries livelihoods. Blue economy was consistently invoked to connect oceans with Rio + 20’s “green economy” theme; however, different actors worked to further define the term in ways that prioritized particular oceans problems, solutions, and participants. It is not clear whether blue economy will eventually be understood singularly or as the domain of a particular actor or discourse. We explore possibilities as well as discuss discourse in global environmental governance as powerful and precarious.

Studying Global Environmental Meetings to Understand Global Environmental Governance: Collaborative Event Ethnography at the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity

This special issue introduces readers to collaborative event ethnography (CEE), a method developed to support the ethnographic study of large global environmental meetings. CEE was applied by a group of seventeen researchers at the Tenth Conference of the Parties (COP10) to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) to study the politics of biodiversity conservation. In this introduction, we describe our interests in global environmental meetings as sites where the politics of biodiversity conservation can be observed and as windows into broader governance networks. We specify the types of politics we attend to when observing such meetings and then describe the CBD, its COP, challenges meetings pose for ethnographic researchers, how CEE responds to these challenges generally, and the specifics of our research practices at COP10. Following a summary of the contributed papers, we conclude by reflecting on the evolution of CEE over time.

Science, Policy Advocacy, and Marine Protected Areas

Much has been written in recent years regarding whether and to what extent scientists should engage in the policy process, and the focus has been primarily on the issue of advocacy. Despite extensive theoretical discussions, little has been done to study attitudes toward and consequences of such advocacy in particular cases. We assessed attitudes toward science and policy advocacy in the case of marine protected areas (MPAs) on the basis of a survey of delegates at the First International Marine Protected Areas Congress. Delegates were all members of the international marine conservation community and represented academic, government, and nongovernmental organizations. A majority of respondents believed science is objective but only a minority believed that values can be eliminated from science. Respondents showed only partial support of positivist principles of science. Almost all respondents supported scientists being integrated into MPA policy making, whereas half of the respondents agreed that scientists should actively advocate for particular MPA policies. Scientists with a positivist view of science supported a minimal role for scientists in policy, whereas government staff with positivist beliefs supported an advocacy or decision-making role for scientists. Policy-making processes for MPAs need to account for these divergent attitudes toward science and advocacy if science-driven and participatory approaches are to be reconciled.

Half-Earth or Whole Earth? Radical ideas for conservation, and their implications

We question whether the increasingly popular, radical idea of turning half the Earth into a network of protected areas is either feasible or just. We argue that this Half-Earth plan would have widespread negative consequences for human populations and would not meet its conservation objectives. It offers no agenda for managing biodiversity within a human half of Earth. We call instead for alternative radical action that is both more effective and more equitable, focused directly on the main drivers of biodiversity loss by shifting the global economy from its current foundation in growth while simultaneously redressing inequality.

Everyone's Solution? Defining and Redefining Protected Areas at the Convention on Biological Diversity

For decades, conservationists have remained steadfastly committed to protected areas (PAs) as the best means to conserve biodiversity. Using Collaborative Event Ethnography of the 10 th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD/CoP), we examine how the PA concept remains hegemonic in conservation policy. We argue that, as a broadening base of actors frame their political objectives through PAs in order to further their agendas, they come together in a discourse coalition. In this coalition, actors do not necessarily have common interests or understandings; rather, it is through dynamic struggles over the meaning of the PA concept and the continual process of reshaping it that actors reproduce its hegemony. In this process, the CBD/CoP disciplines and aligns disparate actors who might otherwise associate with distinct discourse coalitions. As the concept accommodates a wider range of values, PAs are increasingly being asked to do more than conserve biodiversity. They must also sequester carbon, protect ecosystem services, and even promote human rights. These transformations reflect not only changes in how PAs are defined and framed, but also in the realignment of relationships of authority and power in conservation governance in ways that may marginalise traditional conservation actors.

Boundary Objects and Global Consensus: Scalar Narratives of Marine Conservation in the Convention on Biological Diversity

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) continues to promote marine protected areas (MPAs) as a preferred tool for marine biodiversity conservation, in spite of concerns over their effectiveness and equity. However, explanations for this consensus on the utility of MPAs focus primarily on their measurability and ignore the ways in which they are conceptualized through ongoing governance processes. Drawing on the results of collaborative event ethnography at the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the CBD, this paper adopts the concepts of boundary objects and scalar narratives to analyze the ways in which consensus on MPAs is produced, in spite of conflicting understandings of MPA forms and functions. Both a local narrative of participatory MPAs and a global narrative of science driven high seas conservation articulate a regional scale as ideal for MPA governance, although with different priorities. Ultimately, consensus at the CBD is enabled only by accommodating competing visions of MPAs.

Producing Targets for Conservation: Science and Politics at the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity

Biodiversity targets were prominent at the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Having failed to reach the CBDs 2010 target, delegates debated the nature of targets, details of specific targets, and how to avoid failure in 2020. As part of a group of seventeen researchers conducting a collaborative event ethnography at COP10, we draw on observations made during negotiations of the CBD Strategic Plan and at side events to analyze the production of the 2020 targets. Once adopted, targets become “naturalized,” detached from the negotiations that produced them. Drawing on insights from science and technology studies, we analyze the interaction of science and politics during negotiations and discuss what targets do within the CBD and the broader global conservation governance network.

Conceptualizing Social Outcomes of Large Marine Protected Areas

ABSTRACT There has been an assumption that because many large marine protected areas (LMPAs) are designated in areas with relatively few direct uses, they therefore have few stakeholders and negligible social outcomes. This article challenges this assumption with diverse examples of social outcomes that are distinctive in LMPAs. We define social outcomes as inclusive of both social change processes and social impacts, where “social” includes all perceptual or material human dimensions. We draw on five in-depth case studies to report social outcomes resulting from proposed or designated LMPAs in Bermuda, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Kiribati, Palau, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands & Guam. We conclude: (1) social outcomes arise even in remote LMPAs; (2) LMPA efforts generate social outcomes at all stages of development; (3) LMPAs have the potential to produce outcomes at a higher level of social organization, which can change the scope and type of affected populations and, in some cases, the nature and stakes of the outcomes themselves; (4) the potential for LMPAs to impart distinctive social outcomes results from their unique geographies and/or intersection with high-level politics and policy processes; and (5) social outcomes of LMPAs may emerge in the form of social change processes and/or social impacts.