Robert A. Lambert

Understanding and managing conservation conflicts.

Conservation conflicts are increasing and need to be managed to minimise negative impacts on biodiversity, human livelihoods, and human well-being. Here, we explore strategies and case studies that highlight the long-term, dynamic nature of conflicts and the challenges to their management. Conflict management requires parties to recognise problems as shared ones, and engage with clear goals, a transparent evidence base, and an awareness of trade-offs. We hypothesise that conservation outcomes will be less durable when conservationists assert their interests to the detriment of others. Effective conflict management and long-term conservation benefit will be enhanced by better integration of the underpinning social context with the material impacts and evaluation of the efficacy of alternative conflict management approaches.

Researching counterterrorism: a personal perspective from a former undercover police officer

Written by an academic and former undercover police officer, this article consists of an initial response to Basia Spalek and Mary O’Rawe’s article “Researching Counter-terrorism: A Critical Perspective from the Field in Light of Allegations and Findings of Covert Activities by Undercover Police Officers”. It acknowledges the importance of concerns raised by Spalek and O’Rawe in regard to undercover policing and seeks to identify areas for constructive debate both in the immediate future and in the long term. Mike German’s book Thinking Like a Terrorist is referenced to illustrate a potential model of best practice when police officers are tasked to infiltrate groups or cells carrying out acts of terrorism and political violence. Likewise, Rachel Monaghan’s article “Terrorism in the Name of Animal Rights” is referenced to suggest that German’s model might apply in respect of acts of terrorism and political violence committed in support of animal rights no less than when committed in support of far right politics. German’s book also serves to illustrate an argument that prior employment as an undercover police officer might not necessarily undermine trust in that officers subsequent work of a different nature. Crucial here, is the author’s claim that his subsequent police partnership work with Muslim groups in London was based on reciprocal trust and did not employ deception, axiomatic to undercover policing, in any respect. Although the author is presently restricted by ongoing investigations and legal proceedings, the article outlines a basis on which he might contribute his experience of undercover policing to future discussions.

‘Therapy of the Green Leaf’: Public Responses to the Provision of Forest and Woodland Recreation in Twentieth Century Britain

This paper examines the largely unexplored formative years in the development of forest and woodland recreation in Britain during the twentieth century, with a particular focus from 1940 to 1970, when many of the institutional and infrastructural developments were made by both public and private sectors, laying the foundations for modern mass recreation. The paper is founded on archival research in public and private archival holdings. It makes a plea for greater recognition of the value of understanding the past, as contemporary policy makers plan for a sustainable future for British woods and forests. The paper reveals how the current balance required between the demands of people and nature is nothing new; it has a rich and complex history. The paper notes that after decades of public interest in forest and woodland recreation, public values and preferences are now being pushed to the fore in woodland management issues. How much public opinion will shape the sustainable future of our forests remains a controversial question.

Jihad in the West: the rise of militant Salafism, by Frazer Egerton

Frazer Egerton’s Jihad in the West: The Rise of Militant Salafism is one of the most intelligent and articulate contributions to the study of terrorism and political violence in recent years. It stands out as an original conceptual contribution to a burgeoning literature on an aspect of political violence most frequently characterised by high-profile terrorist attacks carried out in New York and Washington (9/11), Madrid (3/11) and London (7/7). Commonly described elsewhere as attacks directed or inspired by al-Qaeda, Egerton scrupulously avoids referencing al-Qaeda (even referring to al-Qaeda’s long-term figurehead Osama bin Laden as ‘the most (in)famous of militant Salafists’) and thereby focuses his readers’ attention on his own particular analysis of what he calls ‘militant Salafism’ instead. Written with precision and clarity, it is one of those rare books that sheds fresh light on a familiar topic. Egerton’s originality does not lie in his focus on militant Salafism per se but rather in the rigorous conceptual analysis he brings to bear on his research material. As a result, he succeeds in his aim ‘to offer a clear and informed exploration of militant Salafism, one framed by a relevant and revealing theoretical approach and supported by an appropriate level of empirical evidence’ (p. 3). Sensibly, the analysis is confined to militant Salafism in the West and great care has gone into adopting the best criteria for collecting and analysing relevant data. At the heart of the analysis is a sharp focus on political grievances and religious interpretation. In the first chapter, Egerton outlines what he calls the ‘the particular militant identification, the metanarrative according to which militant Salafists act’ (p. 3). Drawing on and developing work by Jason Burke and Quintan Wictorowicz, he steers a middle course between those who ‘either dismiss the claims made by militant Salafists or uncritically regurgitate them’ (p. 8). Shrewd and insightful observation of cases including Richard Reid (the shoe bomber), Mohammed Siddique Khan (7/7 bomber), Shehzad Tanweer (7/7 bomber) and Mohammed Bouyeri (Theo van Gogh’s murderer) succeeds in establishing the central importance of ‘Politics and its politicisation’ (p. 8). Succinctly and clearly, militant Salafism is described as representing an ‘accommodation of facts into an existing [political] discourse’ (p. 17). ‘For its exponents’, Egerton argues, ‘conflicts in Srebrenica, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia are given meaning through the discourse of the West attacking Muslims, conceived of as a global community’ (p. 17). Acknowledging that ‘this represents only one way of viewing these various series of events’, Egerton succeeds in bringing us ‘closer to an appreciation of the particular worldview’ – what he usefully calls, ‘the discursive construction that forms the foundation of militant Salafism’ (p. 17).