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Influence of aesthetic appreciation of wildlife species on attitudes towards their conservation in Kenyan agropastoralist communities.

ABSTRACT: The influence of human aesthetic appreciation of animal species on public attitudes towards their conservation and related decision-making has been studied in industrialized countries but remains underexplored in developing countries. Working in three agropastoralist communities around Amboseli National Park, southern Kenya, we investigated the relative strength of human aesthetic appreciation on local attitudes towards the conservation of wildlife species. Using semi-structured interviewing and free listing (n?=?191) as part of a mixed methods approach, we first characterized local aesthetic judgments of wildlife species. With a Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMM) approach, we then determined the influence of perceiving four species as beautiful on local support for their protection ("rescuing them"), and of perceiving four other species as ugly on support for their removal from the area, while controlling for informant personal and household socioeconomic attributes. Perceiving giraffe, gazelles and eland as beautiful is the strongest variable explaining support for rescuing them. Ugliness is the strongest variable influencing support for the removal of buffalo, hyena, and elephant (but not lion). Both our qualitative and quantitative results suggest that perceptions of ugly species could become more positive through direct exposure to those species. We propose that protected areas in developing countries facilitate visitation by local residents to increase their familiarity with species they rarely see or most frequently see in conflict with human interests. Since valuing a species for its beauty requires seeing it, protected areas in developing countries should connect the people who live around them with the animals they protect. Our results also show that aesthetic appreciation of biodiversity is not restricted to the industrialized world.

SUBMITTER: de Pinho JR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3925186 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Influence of aesthetic appreciation of wildlife species on attitudes towards their conservation in Kenyan agropastoralist communities.

de Pinho Joana Roque JR Grilo Clara C Boone Randall B RB Galvin Kathleen A KA Snodgrass Jeffrey G JG

PloS one 20140214 2

The influence of human aesthetic appreciation of animal species on public attitudes towards their conservation and related decision-making has been studied in industrialized countries but remains underexplored in developing countries. Working in three agropastoralist communities around Amboseli National Park, southern Kenya, we investigated the relative strength of human aesthetic appreciation on local attitudes towards the conservation of wildlife species. Using semi-structured interviewing and ...[more]

PMID: 24551176

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Project description:Various species of wild, adaptable, medium-sized carnivores occur outside of protected areas, often coming into contact with people and their domestic animals. Negative human-carnivore interactions can lead to antagonistic attitudes and behavior directed at such species. In the South African Karoo, a semi-arid rangeland, the predation of small-livestock by mesopredators is common and farmers typically use a combination of non-lethal and lethal methods to try and prevent livestock losses. We used ethnographic field observations and semi-structured interviews as part of a mixed methods approach, including the quantitative and qualitative analysis of farmers' narratives to illustrate the nuanced ways in which sheep farmers relate to the two mesopredators that consume the most livestock on their farms; black-backed jackal and caracal. Overall, farmers attributed negative characteristics to jackal and caracal but farmers' narratives provided evidence of complex perceptions in that the animals were admired as well as disliked. Both species were seen as charismatic due to traits such as their physical appearance, their "cunning" nature and their remarkable adaptability to human activities, including lethal control. Aesthetic appreciation was an important predictor of tolerance towards both species whereas negative attitudes were associated with the perception that mesopredators should only occur within protected areas. Attitudes towards jackals also appeared to have been affected by cultural representations of them as "thieves". We showed that perceiving mesopredators as beautiful increased the average marginal probability of a farmer tolerating them, and that this strong relationship held when controlling for other covariates such as livestock predation. We advocate the importance of understanding the cultural and aesthetic aspects of predators and considering existing positive dimensions of human-wildlife relationships that may encourage increased farmers' tolerance, which might promote coexistence.

Project description:BackgroundHuman-wildlife conflict (HWC) is forecasted to increase globally in the vicinity of protected areas and covers various dimensions. It occurs in several different contexts and involves a range of animal taxonomic groups where the needs and requirements intersect with humans' needs and development. More often, human-monkey conflict occurs in developing countries and is amongst the main threats to biodiversity conservation in these regions. Grivet monkeys are slender agile monkeys of the genus Cercopithecus. This study was conducted to investigate the status of human grivet monkey conflict and the attitude of local communities towards grivet monkey conservation in and around Wof-Washa Natural State Forest (WWNSF), Ethiopia from September 2017 to May 2018. A questionnaire survey (143 respondents) was used to study the human-grivet monkey conflict and its conservation status.ResultsThe majority of respondents (male = 67.1%; female = 74.1%) were not supporting grivet monkey conservation due to the troublesome crop-damaging effect of the animal. Respondents having settlements/farmland nearer to the forest have significantly negative perceptions towards grivet monkey conservation than those far from it. The majority of respondents opined that eradication/relocation of grivet monkeys and financial compensation are the options to mitigate human-grivet monkey conflict. Based on the questionnaire result, 42.5 ± SD 8.68 of respondents in all villages elucidated that the main cause of crop damage by grivet monkeys was habitat degradation.ConclusionIn the study area, Human-Grivet Monkey Conflict (HGMC) is exacerbated by the encroachment of local communities into the forest area, exploitation of resources that would be used by grivet monkeys, and enhanced crop damage by grivet monkeys. As a result grivet monkeys have been persecuted as a consequence of crop damage. This was due to the negative attitude developed from human perspective. Thus, awareness creation education programs and feasible crop damage prevention techniques need to be implemented.

Dataset Information

Influence of aesthetic appreciation of wildlife species on attitudes towards their conservation in Kenyan agropastoralist communities.

Publications

Influence of aesthetic appreciation of wildlife species on attitudes towards their conservation in Kenyan agropastoralist communities.

Similar Datasets

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