Travel Plans

A Travel Plan

While traveling has always been something that I enjoy, I began to feel like it would be an empty venture if there wasn’t something greater I could contribute.  Over the last month or so, I have really re-defined my goals for my next major trip; I would like to participate in some sort of project.  I want this project to be meaningful and provide some sort of important information that will be beneficial to the world.  I want to make it count. 

My tentative plan is to start building a conservation database of conflicts at the human/nonhuman animal interface (think humans developing land and the difficulty in sharing this space) and trying to explore pertinent culture and conservation related issues for each country.  I will also strive to explore the political and historical context for these issues and examine the ways each country is moving to resolve these conflicts.  This way, I hope to create a more holistic, dynamic picture of these types of issues.

The reasoning behind this topic is that there are many issues that fly under the radar of the international community that deserve consideration, especially for smaller countries that are generally not as well-represented in the media.  Information regarding these types of human/wildlife conflicts generally are even less represented in the media because much of the world’s media seems to cater towards a more sensationalist view.  Therefore, unless the story is particularly moving, it is generally omitted in main stream media outlets.  

Another issue behind information dissemination is language barriers, so the project will seek to make these issues accessible to a larger audience through publication.  Ultimately, the project will hopefully end (funding permitted) with a series of books that will be printed in the major languages of the world:  Chinese, English, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Hindi.  The goal will be to make this survey of human/wildlife clashes available world-wide so that awareness is spread about the nature of these classes as well as how individual countries are trying to resolve these issues.

The ultimate goal is to bring all of this information together in one place so that laypeople, politicians, and scholars can examine these topics from across the world, hopefully helping to improve our relationships with wildlife in ways that are appropriate for the individual region and for the wildlife as a result.  I would like to use a multi-disciplinary approach to this project, utilizing my MA in Anthropology to identify locally important issues, as well as my specialization in Anthrozoology to explore non-human animal behavior and the interactions between these groups.

I am at the beginning of developing this project, so the details are still pretty fuzzy for the moment, but hopefully I’ll be able to get some background research done in the next few months so I can start formulating a plan!  At the moment it seems like it is likely to be a survey of sorts that will provide a general overview of these issues, but will likely not be able to delve into too much detail (time restrictions and funding will likely be the major issues).  Even so, I’m really excited at the prospect of being able to create something that will be beneficial!  I’ll post updates on here as this project takes shape!