This Month in Convivial Conservation

January updates

Jan 21, 2025

As we step into a new year, we're excited to bring you fresh insights, inspiring stories, and innovative strategies for fostering conviviality between humans and nature. This month's newsletter is packed with updates that showcase the transformative potential of convivial conservation.

What’s new in Convivial Conservation

Convivial Podcast 🎙️

The 3rd episode of Convivial Conservation Around the Globe is now available on our YouTube channel!

This month, our host Eliana sits down with Martin Simonneau and Isabel Felandro from Cool Earth Organisation to explore their innovative Conservation Basic Income Pilot Project in the Amazon Rainforest.

Previously featured in the first issue of our newsletter, this project embodies core principles of Convivial Conservation, with a particular focus on the concept of Conservation Basic Income. This innovative approach, developed by Bram Büscher and Robert Fletcher, explores transformative ways to foster harmony between humans and nature. In this episode, we explore how the project promotes convivial human-nature relationships, share the latest updates and progress from the pilot initiative, and provide practical insights into implementing effective convivial conservation strategies.

Listen now to discover how to build meaningful connections between people and the natural world.

Episode 3

Let’s talk Convivial!

Today, we feature two thought-provoking articles that explore the transformative potential of convivial conservation in addressing the challenges of environmental management.

“Rethinking conservation: Social injustices and the case for convivial conservation in Ghana’s Kyabobo National Park”

Written by Christian Emmanuel Bruku, this article examines the social injustices arising from traditional conservation practices in Kyabobo National Park, Ghana, and highlights the potential of convivial conservation as a transformative approach to fostering equitable and inclusive human-nature relationships.

As someone who upholds ecological sustainability and social justice principles high in my work, the convivial conservation trope resonated very quickly. I decided to revisit my work on the Kyabobo National Park in Ghana through this lens. In my work on the Kyabobo National Park, I used convivial conservation as an analytical framework to highlight the challenges with many top-down protected area(s) management approaches. Particularly, how those top-down models create social injustices for fringe communities, thereby fueling counter-conducts from local people who seek to break power asymmetries and unhealthy hegemonic governance regimes.
I argued strongly that the convivial conservation management approach produces a win-win situation where livelihoods and ecological risks are both mitigated.
— Christian Emmanuel Bruku

Read the Article Here

“Conservation and Conviviality in the American West”

Written by Jeff Vance Martin, this article explains how convivial conservation can address tensions rooted in capitalist political economy and settler colonial histories, offering a path toward a more inclusive and balanced environmental politics.

I first came across Büscher and Fletcher 2019 while conducting dissertation fieldwork on wolf-livestock conflict and coexistence efforts in central Idaho. Their arguments resonated with my own critical engagements with on-the-ground conservation. This piece builds from earlier efforts to revitalize political ecology work on the American West (Martin, et al. 2019), proposing a dialogue between convivial conservation, commoning, and the pragmatic efforts of the “radical center.”
— Jeff Vance Martin

Read the Article Here

Join Us in Shaping a Convivial Future

We are seeking visionary partners who share our commitment to convivial conservation and are eager to co-invest in pioneering approaches to halt biodiversity loss while fostering an equitable and socially just economic transition. Contact us to join Wageningen University, Oak Foundation, TBA21 and others, to fund, initiate and set up programmes through the Convivial Conservation Centre. Together, we can drive meaningful change.

Download our Partnership Proposal here!

That is all for this month! We hope you enjoyed the reading. Keep tuned for the next CC Newsletter issue next month!

To stay connected for updates on news, events, and more, visit our website.

We are always looking for people and organisations to build solid relationships and collaborations with. Know someone who might align with our goals? Please feel free to reach out.

Want to know more? Check out these links

The socioeconomics of biodiversity. The value of nature for a sustainable economy and a just society by Reinhard Loske

CBI