Saving a Species Threatened by Trade: a Network Study of Bali Starling Leucopsar Rothschildi Conservation

Saving a species threatened by trade: a network study of Bali starling Leucopsar rothschildi conservation P AUL R. JEPSON Abstract Saving species from extinction is a central tenet of Introduction conservation, yet success in this endeavour remains unpredictable and elusive, especially where wildlife trade is in- aving species from extinction is a central tenet of conser- volved. Influential conservation policy actors operating Svation, yet despite transformations in conservation sci- internationally advocate strong regulatory and enforcement ence, policy, resources and public awareness, success in this approaches to governance of wildlife trade. However, a endeavour remains unpredictable and elusive. This seems to broad body of evidence suggests that in some situations be particularly so where wildlife trade is involved, as shown positive incentives for sustainable use may achieve better by high-profile policy and media campaigns in response to conservation outcomes. This analysis of efforts over the plight of several iconic taxa, notably elephants, rhi- decades to avoid the extinction of the Bali starling noceros, tigers and pangolins (e.g. United for Wildlife, Leucopsar rothschildi draws on network perspectives from ). Difficulties in saving threatened species may be environmental governance and geography, and shows how more systemic. For instance, in a review of bird species an international project adopting traditional enforcement categorized as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List approaches generated a ‘prestige of ownership’ dynamic (IUCN, ), Butchart et al. ( ) identified only for among local elites. This placed trade in Bali starlings which interventions had prevented their extinction. This above the enforcement competencies of the relevant govern- case study of conservation of the Bali starling Leucopsar – ment authority, leading to the demise of the species. rothschildi in Indonesia over decades ( ) aims Subsequently, two separate Indonesian initiatives created to develop earlier contributions that I and co-authors have spaces of regulatory flexibility and embraced traits of the made to the debate about the efficacy of strategies to govern starling’s phenotype to construct identities for the species wildlife trade, and to theory development in the conser- suited to the local context. This enrolled a wider range of vation of threatened species. stakeholders in the conservation of the species, including The London Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade bird-keeping elites, and led to significant successes in restor- brought attention to the pressures facing wildlife with a ing captive and free-flying populations. This case study market value. A focus of the conference was the alignment highlights the potential of conservation networks that in- of wildlife trade with security agendas and calls to class wild- ‘ ’ volve non-establishment personnel and, while recognizing life crime as a serious crime (London Conference the appeal of generic enforcement approaches to politicians, Declaration, ). However, the last significant review of funders and the urban public, it adds to an increasing body wildlife trade and regulation found that regulatory systems of evidence that suggests top-down prescriptive conser- frequently fail and the conceptual or empirical foundations vation frameworks may undermine the ability of situated of such strategies are often faulty or untested (Oldfield, conservationists to develop interventions appropriate to ). Cooney & Jepson ( ) questioned the efficacy of their political and cultural realities. generic trade bans and argued for more situated governance approaches that adopt either regulation or incentive-based Keywords Bali starling, conservation effectiveness, govern- approaches or a blend of the two, depending on the charac- ance, Indonesia, Leucopsar rothschildi, networks, species teristics of the species concerned and the context of their conservation, wildlife trade conservation. Challender & MacMillan (), writing from an economics perspective, similarly outlined the risks associated with reducing ‘the complex social, cultural and economic nature of wildlife trade into a simple law enforcement problem’. Such perspectives allude to transformations in political PAUL JEPSON School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, systems, in particular the gradual change from centralized, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK E-mail [email protected] hierarchically organized systems that govern by means of Received September . Revision requested November . law, rule and order, to more horizontally organized, frag- Accepted November . First published online May . mented and complex systems of governance that govern Oryx, 2016, 50(3), 480–488 © 2015 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605314001148 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.219, on 25 Sep 2021 at 18:37:37, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605314001148 Saving the Bali starling 481 through a combination of self-regulation, market and other This case study presents a history of conservation of the incentives interacting with law (Sørensen & Torfing, ). Bali starling and its iconic status, as the context for the fol- Network perspectives from within political science, policy lowing accounts of the participants and logics involved in studies and geography respond to this move towards net- the formation and performance of four conservation network governance. The first two disciplines tend to adopt in- works. I then consider insights from these accounts within stitutional perspectives and focus on the structure, spatial the framework of debates about governance of wildlife trade organization and impact of governance networks (e.g. and broader discussions about how best to save Critically Betsill & Bulkeley, ), the role of networks in transna- Endangered species. tional rule-making (e.g Duffy, ; Djelic & Sahlin- Andersson, ), their efficacy in natural resource man- agement (e.g. Gibbs, ), and the implications of network Methods governance for democratic theory (e.g. Sørensen & Torfing, ). This study is informed by four information sources: () re- Post-humanist perspectives in geography offer useful collections of my direct involvement in conservation activi- conceptual insights for the study of conservation networks ties for the Bali starling (whilst Head of the BirdLife (Jepson et al., a). Of particular relevance to this study are International–Indonesia Programme –) that were () understandings of agency (i.e. the capacity to produce a prompted and checked through review of project reports phenomenon or modify a state of affairs) as an emergent and the draft of an article I prepared in ,() a review property of relations rather than the property of particular of literature on the Bali starling, () an applied study human actors (individuals or organizations), () the logic (–) on the culture of bird-keeping in Java and that if agency is relational any entity in a network is conceiv- Bali (Jepson & Ladle, ;Jepsonetal.,b), and () key- ably an actor because the relations in which an entity is em- informant interviews conducted during June–November bedded can imbue it with the capacity to influence with people directly involved in the three conservation initia- unfolding events (act) and, () that actors (including spe- tives for the Bali starling. Respondents were identified from a cies) achieve their identity as a consequence of the relations combination of personal knowledge and so-called snowballing in which they reside (Latour, ; Blok, ). These in- (i.e. persons identified by respondents). Interviews were con- sights identify a potential weakness in the design of inter- ducted in person (Indonesia and UK) or by telephone (USA ventions for threatened species, namely the tendency of and Netherlands) in English or a mix of English and Bahasa lead conservation practitioners to prescribe an identity for Indonesia. Topics explored included the basis for the popu- a species that reflects and reinforces their world-views, agen- larity of the species in Indonesia, interviewees’ involvement das and/or technologies of conservation, and the risk that in the project(s), and their opinions on the world-views and this identity might be in tension with the identities of the techniques of various stakeholders. Interviews were recorded species in the cultural context of its conservation and with the permission of the interviewees, and transcribed. Data amongst local conservation networks (cf. Callon, ). analysis and writing commenced simultaneously and this in- From a perspective of developing theory about the con- formed the content of some interviews. Interviews were sup- servation of threatened species Ladle & Jepson ()sug- plemented with site visits and informal conversations at gested that contemporary practice is informed by the small breeding and release facilities in Bali Barat National Park population and declining population paradigms. These and Nusa Penida island during August . To ensure anon- posit that declining populations are increasingly subjected ymity, quotes are attributed to one of three categories of inter- to biotic and abiotic feedback loops that lead to an extinc- viewee, namely Government (G), Zoo (Z) and NGO (N), and tion vortex (Gilpin & Soulé, ), and that population de- identified by category and interview number. clines have

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