As a scientist there is no greater joy than having your work impact on-the-ground change and thinking. In 2012, I decided to design and implement a social science project to help save endangered tigers. The logistics, location, and know-how would all have to come later. Thankfully it worked and I finished a five year study of the human dimensions of rewilding Sariska Tiger Reserve in May 2018. This project reached the ultimate goal barely four months after I submitted my dissertation and had the first chapter published. Not a publication, or grant, or award, but so much more! My work actually influenced a tiger reintroduction practitioner’s thinking, research design, and reintroduction plans. Thomas NE Gray, Director of Science and Global Development of Wildlife Alliance, has worked in Cambodia for more than ten years and is leading research on tiger reintroduction in two Cambodian landscapes. Thomas reached out last week for my expertise in research design and to talk about adding a more substantial study element focused on the human dimensions of reintroduction, with a focus on hidden costs, in Cambodia. He and I are in early talks of collaboration with a focus on funding student(s) interested in building off my method and theoretical approach to studying the human dimensions of tiger reintroduction. While the future is unknown, what matters now, is that my work has influenced the thinking of a biologist working on tiger reintroduction in Cambodia! It. Does. Not. Get. Better. While India and Cambodia have vastly different cultural landscapes with nearly reversed human-wildlife relations there are still generalizable take-away from my work in Sariska that apply to any and all apex predator reintroduction programs and studies. The unattainable goal of contributing to tiger conservation has come to fruition with these early conversations and I look forward to continuing this work to save one of the world’s greatest treasures. Other signs of this work’s influence in under 4 months of publication are citations in PLoS One in a paper addressing drivers of human-leopard conflict, a dissertation on African wild dogs, and a forthcoming publication on increasing legitimacy of conservation NGO’s in the eyes of local stakeholders. My research can be read in full [with a heavy dose of context] currently via my dissertation: Rewilding Expectations: Human-Environmental Relations in Context of Apex Predator Reintroduction in Rajasthan, India. Two chapters are currently under review and I will post links when those publications become available for more succinct reading. Please reach out with any questions or collaboration ideas! #consocsci #humandimensions #hwc #tigerconservation Comments are closed.
|