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A BRIDGE TOO FAR THE KNOWLEDGE PROBLEM IN THE MILLENNIUM ECOSYSTEM ASSESSMENT Colin Filer

A BRIDGE TOO FAR THE KNOWLEDGE PROBLEM IN THE MILLENNIUM ECOSYSTEM ASSESSMENT Colin Filer. THE MILLENNIUM ASSESSMENT. Similar to the IPCC, but with multiple drivers and multiple scales a global policy process linked to a number of global policy regimes

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A BRIDGE TOO FAR THE KNOWLEDGE PROBLEM IN THE MILLENNIUM ECOSYSTEM ASSESSMENT Colin Filer

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  1. A BRIDGE TOO FAR THE KNOWLEDGE PROBLEM IN THEMILLENNIUM ECOSYSTEM ASSESSMENT Colin Filer

  2. THE MILLENNIUM ASSESSMENT • Similar to the IPCC, but with multiple drivers and multiple scales • a global policy process linked to a number of global policy regimes • a transient epistemic community with four basic divisions (the four working groups) • But not an organization like UNEP or WWF • See www.maweb.org for more details and piles of outputs

  3. ‘MILLENNIUM ECOSYSTEM ASSESSMENT CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK’

  4. ‘LINKAGES BETWEEN ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND HUMAN WELL-BEING’

  5. THE INDIGENOUS VOICE A bridge between epistemologies is not possible or not desirable because it produces invasion and domination. We can only – consciously – sit down at a table of dialogue, in a world where many worlds (or epistemologies) are welcome, where we can talk between us, and also talk with modern science. But at this table we need to leave behind arrogance and the wish or attitude to dominate. We have to come with humbleness, with eagerness to learn, with openness and respect. In this neutral space of encounter, what can everyone contribute, what is our gift? What is the gift of the scientist? Is the scientist prepared for a dialogue? Is he or she able to support us? Do they have the means to talk with us? Can they enter an alliance and commitment overcoming the limitations of their worldviews? (IKAP Network on Capacity Building in MMSEA 2004).

  6. A DISSONANT VOICE Once upon a time in the not too distant past an international NGO decided to do nature conservation in the Wasi river basin. This was [an] understandable idea. The place was the environmentalist’s dream. Lots and lots of bush filled with a multitude of flying and biting things. A diverse bunch of unwashed and scabrous savages leading traditional lives that they punctuated with stories and wars to give it some meaning. No industry, no logging or mining, just a virginal tract of scrub… One must ask why the Wasis have not stuffed the place up themselves? Are they, as some of our NGO friends suspected, the possessors of native wisdom that has allowed them to live in harmony with nature for an interminably long time? Unfortunately not… The distressing fact is the Wasis would have destroyed the place were it not for the malaria and other parasites that kill most of their kids, sap their energy and make them mad. In essence, their population has not been able to get to the level where it can push the resources to the point of scarcity… The best thing the international NGO … could do would be to simply leave the Wasis alone while doing what they could to deter the nastier industries from entering the region… IF they could bring health, education and awareness to the villages, only then would there be a need to talk conservation (People Against Foreign NGO Neocolonialism 2003).

  7. ‘ADAPTING THE MA CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR LOCAL NEEDS’

  8. THE HALF-BUILT BRIDGE Once the indigenous voice had spoken out against its own ‘incorporation’, the producers of this alternative conceptual framework played no further part in the writing of the sub-global knowledge chapter, nor could their assessment be interrogated through the knowledge market to reveal a world of social practice underneath this virtual reality. Their picture spoke for itself, as if it somehow represented all indigenous epistemologies on the other side of a half-built bridge, its meaning both transparent and opaque because the bridge was incomplete. Alternatively, this one picture was the bridge between the global forms of scientific and indigenous environmental knowledge.

  9. ‘CHANGING AVAILABILITY OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES UNDER FOUR SCENARIOS’

  10. A VIRTUAL REALITY? The MA represents the world as a hierarchy of more or less (dis)connected social-ecological systems, then populates it with exactly the same kinds of people as are recognised to exist within its own organizational structure. It discovers a set of relationships between people, ecosystems and knowledge systems that seems in many ways to be preconceived in the design of its own utilitarian conceptual framework. It cultivates an air of intellectual and emotional detachment in the name of technical rationality; conceals its value judgements in the form of scenarios based on the emotions of decision-makers who seem to have no politics at all; and then adopts the language of civil engineering in order to represent an ideal world in which they will be free to exercise their powers of proactive environmental management.

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