Chapter 1

Introduction

• The native peoples of the plains historically prepared for migrations of wildlife and how scale matters for survival and livelihoods: East Africa plains with large ungulates; the Lakota and other Plains peoples in North America capitalized on bison migrations (Bos bison). These examples illustrate that wildlife management has always involved spatial scales beyond a single community.

• Scale is critically important in conservation and management; Aldo Leopold advocated macroscale management in 1933 as a foundational idea for managing wildlife across larger landscapes and jurisdictions.

• The management of waterfowl flyways began after recognitions of substantial declines in abundance caused by overharvesting and habitat conversion through the late 1800s and into the 1900s; this led to large-scale protective measures.

• The US Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 protected game and nongame migratory birds on a broad scale, illustrating a large-scale approach to conservation and management (Nichols et al. 1995).

• Similar legislation exists on other continents, recognizing biodiversity conservation requires protecting species that do not persist within a single nation but rely on resources found across multiple nations.

• The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), or the Bonn Convention, is a United Nations Environment Programme treaty that formalizes international collaboration in wildlife conservation and management. It emphasizes concerted action by all states within the national jurisdictions where migratory species spend part of their life cycle.

• Introduction to the challenges in global biodiversity management: populations are growing, temperatures are rising, habitats are fragmenting and transforming, biological invasions occur, and species face extinctions. Conservation requires professionals trained in the technical aspects of science and skilled at coordinating actions among diverse stakeholders (Lovejoy and Hannah 2006; Mawdsley et al. 2009).

• Wildlife conservation and management strategies are predicated on sustainable use and preservation of biodiversity; humans recognize that understanding wildlife means understanding scale; indigenous peoples across the globe have long learned that livelihoods depend on wildlife that extend beyond local populations.

• Examples of indigenous coastal and inland practices demonstrating cross-border ecological awareness:

  • Aboriginal people of northern Australia capitalized on seasonal migrations of sea turtles (Kennett et al. 2004).

  • Tohono O’odham people of the US Southwest and northwest Mexico recognized the return of pollinating hummingbirds and lesser long-nosed bats to their homelands (Pater and Siqueiros 2000).

  • The Inuit followed the movements of caribou (Rangifer tarandus), polar bears (Ursus maritimus), pinnipeds, and other marine mammals in their annual harvests (Gilchrist et al. 2005).

• These examples underscore that understanding and managing wildlife requires cross-border perspectives and international collaboration where resources and livelihoods cross political boundaries.

The Global Perspective and International Collaboration

• One purpose of this book is to provide an overview of similar challenges faced worldwide and to highlight the diversity of solutions focused on international wildlife management.

• Science has become more collaborative over time, driven by scale and technology that enables incorporation of scale across geopolitical boundaries to address global challenges (Chester 2012).

• The effect of international collaboration has been studied since the 1970s; multinational authors now account for about 25% of scientific publications (Wagner et al. 2015).

• Patterns that facilitate international collaboration in wildlife management and conservation include:

  • Applied research is less likely to include international collaboration than basic research.

  • Large national projects are less likely to be collaborative than projects coordinated by smaller research groups.

  • Language, geography, and politics influence interactions in science (Davidson-Frame and Carpenter 1979).

• Barriers of distance have decreased with time due to electronic and digital media; however, the financial costs of international research must be offset by substantial benefits to explain the growth of collaboration (Barjak and Robinson 2008).

• Benefits of cross-national collaboration include:

  • Increased national involvement and coauthorship (Gazni et al. 2012).

  • Larger team sizes (Wuchty et al. 2007).

  • Enhanced citation rates (Glänzel and Schubert 2001; He 2009).

  • Increased international mobility (Halevi et al. 2016).

• Increased mobility facilitates network formation through face-to-face, in-person contact (Laudel 2002).

• International collaboration has led to the creation of collaborations among signatory nations; the CMS includes more than 40 signatory nations that first signed in 1979. The CMS states that signatory nations are convinced that conservation and effective management of migratory species require concerted action within the national jurisdictions in which such species spend any part of their life cycle (CMS text).

• The CMS represents a formal recognition of the importance of international collaboration in wildlife conservation and management. It followed historical precedents such as the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (1971) and CITES (1973).

• Effective collaboration requires engagement from local and national politicians, agency personnel, scientists, and the general public; however, such interaction does not occur as often as desired (López-Hoffman et al. 2010; Dallimer and Strange 2015).

• Cross-border movements and the management of migratory species highlight that wildlife rarely recognize geopolitical borders; borders matter most where natural barriers exist or where human-made barriers (cities, fences) impede movement.

• The grand challenges in ecology—climate change, large-scale biodiversity conservation, habitat restoration, and pollution—require expertise from multiple fields and countries and promote international scientific collaboration (Huang 2015). This motivates preparing wildlife conservation students for global professional opportunities.

• International collaboration in science continues to grow, especially in the life sciences; international authorship in life sciences rose from about 50% in 2012 to 71% in 2015 (Nature 2016). The trend across sciences shows exponential growth since 2000, underscoring the importance of network formation and the internationalization of science (Ribeiro et al. 2018).

• Collaboration tends to occur between countries with trade relationships, similar socioeconomic status, similar scientific effect profiles, and geographic proximity.

• Figure 1.1 caption: Chinese, Iranian, and US biologists, including two authors of this chapter (J. Koprowski, D. Wang), collaborate on biodiversity surveys in a montane meadow at 3,000 m near Kangding, Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China.

The Value of International Experience

• Diversity needs to be enhanced in wildlife and fisheries conservation and management (Scott 2000; Black 2001; Allison and Hibbler 2004; Millenbah and Wolter 2009).

• Gender influences perception, and gender diversity yields a greater diversity of perspectives; women have been underrepresented but influential in wildlife management and conservation (Nicholson et al. 2008).

• Developing significant cultural intelligence in students is a key means of increasing diversity in the workplace; international experience enhances the ability to recruit and manage diverse work teams (Ledwith and Seymour 2001).

• Internationalization of organizations promotes multiculturalism, diversity, and inclusivity (Fitch and Desai 2012).

• Calls to internationalize wildlife management curricula and experiences to improve the preparation of future professionals (Kessler et al. 1998); Millenbah and Wolter (2008, 2009) emphasize a global perspective in professional development.

• Colleges and universities can lead in fostering important international relationships that enable early career engagement and boost employability (Leask 2007).

• Studies show that students who participate in study abroad or similar international programs demonstrate higher intercultural sensitivity, respect, flexibility, tolerance, openness, sociability, critical analytical skills, and creativity than those who do not (Hodges and Burchell 2003; Quek 2005; Herfst et al. 2007). Potts (2015) suggests international experiences may have broader effects than previously estimated.

• International experiences develop communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and self-management skills; these are among the most desired competencies by employers of wildlife managers, conservation biologists, and natural resource professionals (Kessler 1995; Millenbah and Wolter 2009; Blickley et al. 2013; Lucas et al. 2017).

• International experience increases employability; employers link it to networking, experiential learning, language skills, and cross-cultural understanding; early international experience correlates with higher career success in terms of salary and job satisfaction (Biemand and Braakmann 2013).

• Therefore, international experience can have lasting effects on the life quality of professionals and our capacity to succeed in wildlife conservation and sustainable management of wildlands.

The Literature Cited

• Allison, M. T., and D. K. Hibbler. 2004. Organizational barriers to inclusion: Perspectives from the recreation professional. Leisure Sciences 26:261–280.

• Barjak, F., and S. Robinson. 2008. International collaboration, mobility and team diversity in the life sciences: Impact on research performance. Social Geography 3:23–36.

• Biemann, T., and N. Braakmann. 2013. The impact of international experience on objective and subjective career success in early careers. International Journal of Human Resource Management 24:3438–3456.

• Black, P. D. R. 2001. Women in natural resource management: Finding a more balanced perspective. Society and Natural Resources 14:645–656.

• Blickley, J. L. et al. 2013. Graduate student’s guide to necessary skills for nonacademic conservation careers. Conservation Biology 27:24–34.

• Chester, C. C. 2012. Conservation across borders: Biodiversity in an interdependent world. Island Press, Washington, DC, USA.

• Cox, G. W. 2010. Bird migration and global change. Island Press, Washington, DC, USA.

• Crossman, J. E., and M. Clarke. 2010. International experience and graduate employability: Stakeholder perceptions on the connection. Higher Education 59:599–613.

• Dallimer, M., and N. Strange. 2015. Why socio-political borders and boundaries matter in conservation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 30:132–139.

• Davidson-Frame, J., and M. P. Carpenter. 1979. International research collaboration. Social Studies of Science 9:481–497.

• Davidson-Frame, J., F. Narin, and M. P. Carpenter. 1977. The distribution of world science. Social Studies of Science 7:501–516.

• Fitch, K., and R. Desai. 2012. Developing global practitioners. Journal of International Communication 18:63–78.

• Franzoni, C., G. Scellato, and P. Stephan. 2012. Foreign-born scientists: Mobility patterns for 16 countries. Nature Biotechnology 30:1250–1253.

• Frenken, K., J. Hoekman, S. Kok, R. Ponds, F. van Oort, and J. van Vliet. 2009. Death of distance in science? A gravity approach to research collaboration. Pages 43–57 in A. Pyka and A. Scharnhorst, editors. Innovation networks. Springer, Berlin, Germany.

• (Further references omitted for brevity)

Summary

• The scale of biodiversity challenges across the landscape requires large-scale networks that enable professionals to engage across international boundaries; the book argues for continued internationalization of wildlife management and conservation to maximize the ability to address contemporary challenges and prepare students and professionals for collaborative futures.

• The book starts by examining how wildlife is viewed and regulated globally, then covers challenges and opportunities in management including invasive species, private lands, habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, energy development, disease, ecotourism, predators, reintroduction, illegal trade, and migration across borders.

• It concludes with a review of international organizations and programs, local and community-based approaches, and international careers that provide opportunities to engage in international wildlife management and conservation.

• The overarching aim is to inspire enhanced international collaboration to improve our capacity to conserve and manage wildlife populations worldwide.

• Figure 1.1 depicts a cross-national collaboration among Chinese, Iranian, and US biologists (including two authors of this chapter) conducting biodiversity surveys in a montane meadow at 3,000 m near Kangding, Sichuan Province, China.