The Andean bear is the model of ursine cuteness; a mostly vegetarian bear (wild avocados are their favourite) that plods through the foggy forests of South America with a countenance so adorable, it was apparently the inspiration for that marmalade-loving émigré Paddington.
They’re also in danger of extinction. The dry forests that the bears depend on are being cut down to make way for agricultural land, or new oilfields and roads. With their arboreal homes shrinking fast, they’ve started venturing into local farmland for food. They’re often met by disgruntled local cattle farmers with shotguns, who have little choice but to kill them, fearing for their families’ safety and that more of their crops or livestock could be destroyed.
Since 2016, Chester Zoo has worked on a project in Tarija, Bolivia, helping to foster better human-bear coexistence. Alongside conducting ecological surveys, the project works with local communities, encouraging them to take up alternative careers to cattle farming such as beekeeping, which doesn’t require razing acres of bear-dwelling forests.
“If you want to get local communities on board, you need to understand what motivates them and the barriers they’re facing,” says Greg Counsell, a conservation scientist at Chester Zoo who specialises in social science and worked on the project. “For the cattle farmers, bears aren’t their priority – you have to win them over, and to do that you need to treat them with respect.”
All too often, people have been an afterthought for conservationists, who are unsurprisingly more focused on protecting animals and plants, leading to a dynamic that has verged on adversarial at times. Yet, in recent years, there’s been something of a paradigm shift, with a growing belief that sociology and human behaviour can also play an intrinsic role. Now, many conservationists have begun to take the view that engaging with local communities from the outset ought to be the first step in any project rather than a secondary concern, or worse – an unwanted problem.
Chester Zoo – the UK’s most popular conservation zoo – is seen as a pioneer in this field. In Madagascar, for example, the zoo is supporting the Youth for Lemurs programme, which trains youngsters as “lemur conservation ambassadors”. In local villages, they promote poultry husbandry as a more lucrative career option to lemur-hunting, while raising awareness of farming methods that could destroy their habitats. As conservation strategies go, such community-led approaches could be a gamechanger.
“In the history of conservation, many mistakes have been made, with environmentalists diving in with an interventionist culture, rather than spending time [trying to understand locals],” says Counsell. “Conservationists usually get into this field because they’re interested in plants and animals, rather than people. Being biologists, they come up with a biological solution and maybe they don’t have the tools to tackle the human dimension.”
It’s a complicated issue, he adds: “In many parts of the developing world, people are at the mercy of nature: droughts and floods destroying crops, schools blown down by cyclones, animals transmitting diseases and parasites. If you tell these people nature needs their help, they’ll probably say no because it causes so many problems. In Europe and North America, we’ve been separated from nature for centuries, and view it more as a leisure pursuit.”
Acknowledging the religious beliefs of local cultures is also an integral part of contemporary conservation. Counsell recently worked in Mauritius, where the human-introduced macaque monkeys are destroying many of the endemic species. Yet, Mauritian Hindus view the macaque monkey as sacred, preventing efforts to manage the primate population. “If you’re designing a conservation programme, you need to consider different belief systems, as many religions and beliefs such as Hinduism, Buddhism and animism don’t see humans as being separate from nature as Christianity does.”
There’s also much to learn from indigenous peoples, who have managed their land for generations but are rarely consulted by conservationists. In Madagascar, Chester Zoo is learning from locals about plant life cycles to help save rare flowers from the island’s disappearing forests.
The work of Chester Zoo in getting people engaged in conservation isn’t just something that happens in Malagasy rainforests or Andean mountains. In the last few years, the zoo has helped Cheshire businesses such as restaurants, art venues and food producers review and adapt their supply chains in a bid to eliminate all products containing unsustainable palm oil (which is linked to deforestation in south-east Asia). The result? Chester was declared the world’s first sustainable palm oil city in 2019.
Such collaboration could be the solution if conservation is to help the estimated 1m plant and animal species that are threatened with extinction across the globe.
“There’s something about conservation that isn’t working,” says Counsell. “It’s been around for hundreds of years but we’re still moving through species at a remarkable rate. We should maybe stop dealing with it as if it’s a biological problem, and treat it as a human one instead.”
Win a once in a lifetime trip to Borneo to experience Chester Zoo’s conservation work first hand! To enter, visit chesterzoo.org/expeditionborneo
