Predation paper given at MAC4

Today I presented my paper "The semiotics of predation and the Umwelten of large predators" in the session "Considering wildlife I" at the 4th international Minding Animals Conference, held in Mexico City. Some 12 people were present.

UiS.no dissemination article: "Researchers: facts alone are not enough in the debate about wolves"

The dissemination article "Researchers: facts alone are not enough in the debate about wolves" by Benedicte Pentz was published on the English version webpage of University of Stavanger on December 7th. This is another version of the dissemination article published in English on phys.org and in Norwegian on Uis.no and forskning.no.

Updated presenter page at The wolf symposium 2016

The page presenting me as a presenter (sic) at Vargsymposiet [The wolf symposium] 2016 has been updated with abstract for my talk and a few more links.

Aberdeen conference on conservation conflicts

The conference Conservation Conflicts: Strategies for coping with a changing world (ACES 2011) will take place in Aberdeen, Scotland, August 22-24 2010. Looks really interesting. A call for papers is due January 16th. The design of the conference, which is organized by the Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability, is interdisciplinary and spans over both natural and social sciences.

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Five themes are included:

1. Understanding conflicts

2. Case studies in species conflicts

3. Case studies in protected area conflicts

4. Case studies in land use/ecosystem services conflicts

5. Approaches to managing conflicts

"Is a wolf..." revised and ready for publication

I have just revised my article now entitled "Is a wolf wild as long as it does not know that it is being thoroughly handled?", not least by adding a 2pp "Closing note: On Arne Næss' philosophy of wolf policies". The article now refers to his 1974 and 1987 articles on the topic.

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Humanimalia has confirmed that they will publish my article. I am adding the part on Næss in response to a suggestion from their external reviewer - who liked the questions the article poses. He hopes it will spur debate.

Chronicles in Norwegian media - wolf politics

October 2nd my chronicle "Den kinesiske miljøbevegelsen" [The Chinese Environmental Movement] appeared in Adresseavisen, the major regional newspaper in mid-Norway (cf. previous report).

Yesterday I wrote a chronicle entitled "Ulven som syndebukk" [The Wolf as a Scapegoat], that I now submit to Dagbladet, Norway's third biggest national daily.

The political platform of the re-elected coalition government is said to be ready for announcement in one and a half hour. According to preliminary news reports, Senterpartiet (which has around 6 % of the vote) has not succeeded in its efforts to reach an agreement with the two other governing parties according to which all remaining wolves would be shot, and no wolves would be tolerated on Norwegian land.

Annotated bibliography, 3rd quarter

As part of a 4-times-a-year report I am conducting as a researcher in one of the research projects I am partaking in, I write a Selected Annotated Bibliography. Here's my annotated bibliography for the last three months.

Douglas W. MacCLEERY: American forests: A history of resilience and recovery. Forest History Society, 1992. This publication offers a lot of interesting statistics and facts not only since 1930 or so, when the proportion of US land that is forested has generally been stable, after 300 years of deforestation, but also concerning times as far back as to year 1600 (even native indigenous forestry practices are briefly described). The last century several wildlife species have recovered, not least due to the gradual introduction of conservation measures. In conclusion, this work is a helpful source of references and thoroughly examines the full implications of different attitudes to forests and utilization of forest products. Though the situation of Norwegian forests is not identical with the American situation, this book nevertheless provides useful knowledge about the interconnections of conservation efforts and forestry practices/land use.

The Norwegian daily Nationen [The nation], Mon 31^st of August – Wed 9^th of September. The latest national election in Norway took place September 14^th. For 10 days close to the conclusion of the election, I followed Nationen, Norway’s only national daily devoted to matters of agriculture and rural policies. Every day in this period there were articles etc. about carnivore policy; about half of the editions one of them featured on the front page. In many rural areas, wolf and carnivore policy turned out to become one of the defining topics of the electoral campaign, though only 3 parties (Senterpartiet, Fremskrittspartiet and Sosialistisk Venstreparti) talked much about it. For the first time the populist right-wing party Fremskrittspartiet competed seriously for the anti-wolf votes – though Senterpartiet, traditionally the farmers’ party, still dominated the discourse. The carnivore policy for 2009-2013 is now up for negotiations within the re-elected coalition government, which consists of Arbeiderpartiet (the social democrats), Senterpartiet and Sosialistisk Venstreparti (a left-wing party which supports wolf conservation).

Paolo VIRNO: Natural-historical diagrams: The ‘new global’ movement and the biological invariant. Pp. 131-147 in The Italian difference: Between nihilism and biopolitics (eds. Lorenzo Chiesa and Alberto Toscano), Melbourne 2009: re.press. Translated from Italian by Alberto Toscano. Virno’s notion of the natural-historical diagrams of human nature refers to “concrete phenomena, socio-political states of affairs, historical events.” He thus offers an empirical (or emergent) notion of human nature – which can be of interest in the context of my depicting of a natural history of the phenomenal world. Crucial in Virno’s observations is that ‘human nature’ as we know it places us as an “indefinite animal”, an animal without any definitive natural environment. This, he claims, explains our ‘instability’ as a species, and our constant urge for further modifications of the environment. It would be interesting to integrate and try to develop some of his main points in my own work.

Wendy WHEELER: The Whole Creature: Complexity, Biosemiotics and the Evolution of Culture. London 2006: Lawrence & Wishart. In this valuable book, Wheeler outlines some connections between biosemiotics and other complexity science on the one hand and politics and cultural theory on the other. In the context of my work Wheeler’s book represents an important step toward a proper understanding of the cultural implications of competing scientific outlooks and worldviews. While Wheeler on some points simplifies the connections between ‘capitalism’ and mainstream science, her portrayal of the cultural and ethical (and political) implications of a world view of biosemiotic relationism rather than one of capitalist atomism/individualism is in the main informative and telling. The main message – which I do subscribe to – is that human beings are social (and ecological) creatures which can not thrive – or correctly be described on a theoretical level – as isolated individuals. Her stress of the social and ecological aspects of cultural life bears implications not least for economic thought.