“Working Together to Save African Elephants”€¦ · “Working Together to Save African Elephants ... Goal: promote successful international cooperation in saving the African

“Working Together to Save African Elephants”

An immature reflection from a Youth Ambassador

GAO Yufang

Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

4 December 2013, African Elephant Summit, Botswana

Overview

• About me: who I am & why I am here

• My reflection on the summit:

– Premise for working together: finding common ground

– Obstacle for working together: bounded rationality

– Strategy for working together: upgrade whole decision process

• Progress that I have seen

• Move forward

About me | Premise | Obstacle | Strategy | Progress | Move Forward

Who I am: Fujian – Beijing – Tibet


Who I am: Yale University, MESc

Master of Environmental Sciences, 2014 Focus on Wildlife Conservation & Policy Sciences

About me | Premise | Obstacle | Strategy | Progress | Move forward

Chinese government disagreed with the allegations

China has made great efforts to crack down on ivory smuggling and related criminal activity has decreased remarkably in recent years… We expect these people to take an objective view of China, rather than look through tinted glasses…

--- HONG Lei, Foreign Ministry spokesman (Xinhua, 2012)


What is going on indeed?

Study on Social Process of Ivory Trade

Who are the participants?

With what perspectives?

In which situations?

Using which resources (values)?

Manipulating them in which strategies?

With what outcomes?

With what longer effects?

Identity Demand Expectation

Who they are What they want What is to happen

Goal: promote successful international cooperation in saving the African elephants for common interests. Role: Independent observer and participant


Tasks of problem solving 1. Goals? (values & indices)

2. What happened? (trends)

3. Why? (conditions)

4. Future? (projections)

5. What to do? (solutions)

Fieldwork in Kenya, Hong Kong, mainland China (May – September, 2013)


• My reflection on “working together”

– Premise: common ground

– Obstacle: bounded rationality

– Strategy: decision process

Well-being Respect Enlightenment Affection Rectitude Power Wealth Skill

Working Together to

Save African Elephants

for

Individuals Groups Institutions States

Open and Hidden agendas

Pluralist interests

Well-being Respect Enlightenment Affection Rectitude Power Wealth Skill

Working Together

Save African Elephants

for

- African Elephants - future generation - Economic benefit - Cultural Heritage - …

Ensure Sustainable African elephants populations in the wild

Premise for Working Together: Common Ground

to


Rationality of individuals is limited by their perspectives (identity, demand and expectation) and the information they have.

Obstacle - Bounded Rationality

公说公有理，婆说婆有理。 Husband and wife both say they are right.

The world outside and the pictures in our heads can be different.

Claims (& Counterclaims)

• Claims about China in Kenya and the US

– Ivory is extremely popular in China.

– Chinese middle class are eager to buy ivory because they consider ivory as a symbol of social status.

– Illegal ivory trade in China is rampant.

– Most Chinese do not know that ivory comes from dead elephants.

– ……

• Claims about Africa in China

– There are still many elephants in Africa.

– Habitat loss is a more significant threat posed on African elephants.

– Africans hunt elephants because of human-elephant conflicts, not solely for ivory.

– ……


Possible outcomes & what to aim for?

Lose - Lose Outcome: Shifting responsibility & blaming game continues; the elephants suffer

Assumption: both care, although possibly for different reasons

Win - Lose Outcome: Who is more powerful? Who dominates? - short term success

Win - Win Outcome: integrate different perspectives – long term solution

1. Recognize the differences 2. See the full picture 3. Information increases &

perspectives changed 4. Achieve compromises in the

common interests

Work together


Upgrade the whole decision process

Intelligence

Obtaining, processing, and distributing of information

Promotion

Mobilizing public support for a policy

Setting rules, regulations laws or policies

Prescription

Invocation

Allocating human, financial, and logistical resources etc

Application

Policy enforcement and judiciary to resolve disputes

Evaluation

Assessment of success and decision process


Working Collectively

Governments

IGO

Civil Society

Research Institution

Enterprise

……


• Attend to every decision function; • Identify the weakness; • Upgrading the whole process.


Progress that I have seen

• More consensus on problem definition (goal, trend, condition, projection, and solution);

• More participation from civil societies in both demand and supply sides;

• More high-level political commitments: agenda setting and decision making;

• More information exchange and sharing, and more willingness to understand different perspectives.

• More comprehensive actions taken: from intelligence, campaigns, to legislation, enforcement and judiciary.


Move forward

• Given the uncertainties and boundaries, we must:

– Integrate reliable knowledge and diverse perspectives, find consensus on problem definition, and establish decision processes which clarify and secure common interests.

• Recommendations:

– Focus on problem to find solutions in saving the elephants: contextual, comprehensive understanding of the problem based on multi-method interdisciplinary efforts; address the conditions that cause the undesired trends.

– Adjust current social process to be more effective: examine assumptions about self and others; involve non-participants that may have important role to play; build arena for respectful dialogue.

– Upgrade entire decision process: evaluate each function, identify the weakness; strategies for improving should be adaptive and contextual.

– Leadership: knowledge, network, and diplomatic and practical skills to work across the differences – find and support potential leaders.

Thank You!

If you are interested to learn more about my research on ivory trade, please contact me at [email protected].

I would like to extend my gratitude to many individuals and organizations in Africa and Asia who shared their insights with me. In particular, I appreciate the hospitality and support from Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton. I am grateful to my Yale advisers, Prof. Susan Clark, Prof. Michael Dove, and Prof. Helen Siu for guiding me through the project. My summer fieldwork was entirely funded by Yale University. I thank Dr. Holly Dublin for inviting me to this Summit. I cannot have come to Botswana without the support of many individuals around the world who donated to my crowd-funding project. In particular I would like to thank Margaret Mccarthy and Andrew Sabin for their generousness.

Acknowledgement


mailto:[email protected]

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“Working Together to Save African Elephants”€¦ · “Working Together to Save African Elephants ... Goal: promote successful international cooperation in saving the African