Endangered Ecologies, Entangling Epistemologies: Interrogating epistemic justice and participatory engagement in biodiversity conservation 

Urgent global challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, rapid biodiversity loss, and social inequities, urge scholars to produce knowledge collaboratively, embracing diversity and equity. In science communication, debates about inclusion are coming to the fore. Since the emergence of the modern landscape of the field, scholarly works have focused on various analogous ideas, such as public engagement and participatory science communication. Nevertheless, these debates often exhibit loose ends, highlighting the need for their consolidation and critical examination. Convening these imaginaries of inclusion in the field can widen our understanding of its notions, unpack tensions, and stimulate actions for catalysing the societal, institutional, and systemic transformations.

Looking into inclusive conservation, this research seeks to extend current framings of inclusion in science communication by interrogating epistemic inclusion. The concept of inclusive conservation has emerged to both theorise and implement diversity and equity concerns in the scholarship for biodiversity. As part of this pursuit, efforts to recognise diverse indigenous and knowledge systems are being mobilised. For instance, the Inter-governmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Values Assessment and Nature’s Future Framework and Natures Futures Framework and the recent Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity framework implore epistemic integration. Nonetheless, questions remain about practical implications of "inclusion." Is it merely a rhetorical gesture, or does it drive meaningful change? In this research, I will investigate the claims of inclusion at the interface of biodiversity conservation policy and practice in the Philippines. This study aims to address the following questions: What epistemic commitments underlie policies and practices within the Philippine biodiversity landscape? How do various actors and institutioes negotiate epistemic tensions in their actions? Does engagement with other actors influence and reshape these epistemic commitments, if so, how?

To learn more about Christer: https://cpas.anu.edu.au/people/christer-de-silva