Beyond Bears: Conservation, Community, and the Complexity of Coexistence

BY KACIE HENSON

21 JANUARY 2025

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR

This article was produced as part of the Global Diversity Foundation’s Darwin Initiative-funded project “Mentoring GEN Fellows to incubate Global South biodiversity-livelihoods initiatives”. Through the project, we coordinate a programme to support grassroots conservation organisations in the Global South in welcoming and overseeing Masters’ students from UK research institutions as organisational interns. This offers the organisation support through the production of relevant research and communications outputs and supports the Master’s students by offering them the opportunity to discover grassroots conservation realities in the Global South and conduct research for their MSc theses. 

The following article is by Kacie Henson, an MSc Ethnobotany student at the University of Kent, United Kingdom. She interned at Programa Jucumari in Bolivia. The Programa Jucumari Coordinator Andrea Fuentes is a member of the Global Environments Network who participated in our Conservation & Communities Fellowship in 2024. 

Disclaimer: This article reflects the voice and opinions of the author and does not represent the Global Diversity Foundation. The views expressed herein are solely those of the author mentioned and should be interpreted as such.

I would like to extend my gratitude to the Global Diversity Foundation for enabling me to have one of the most incredible experiences. I chose to reach out to the Global Diversity Foundation to develop a project with a local grassroots conservation organisation, Programa Jucumari, in Bolivia. I was excited to co-develop a project of conducting semi-structured interviews with community members on Andean bear coexistence to inform conflict mitigation strategies. Despite this research being the focus of my trip, I was able to get so much more out of this project than a thesis!

During my MSc at the University of Kent, I was incredibly fortunate to be taught by leading experts in community development. Learning in a classroom is incredibly valuable, but working directly with communities gave me a deeper understanding of how the knowledge I had gained could be observed and applied in real-world situations. One insight I gained was the importance of viewing the community members as individual actors instead of a homogeneous group; interviewing people of different demographics and positions within the community emphasised how individual experiences lead to different perspectives. By being in the community, I built rapport and relationships with participants to better understand these perspectives. Andrea and I, the programme leader of Programa Jucumari, later discussed really being able to feel people’s frustrations during the interviews. I had previously worked in the Global South; however, I had not stayed with the communities I was engaging with. From my experience in Bolivia, staying with the communities allowed me to appreciate the situational context to a degree that I hadn’t been able to before.

Although I do not want to reduce my experience solely to the research, my research was incredibly interesting and more complex than expected. During the interviews, participants would discuss the difficulties they faced, which extended beyond the scope of coexistence with bears. A topic that came up was the discrimination community members received. A community leader stated that people in the city treat him like a dog. In addition, through implementing a protected area, the municipal government had previously tried to restrict access to the resources that prevent these community members from destitution merely to reduce flooding in the city, highlighting the conflict of interest between urban elites and community members. There had also been protests against the communities for undertaking retaliatory killings of Andean bears. Urban residents viewed the Andean bear as a charismatic, harmless vegetarian, and conflict complaints were merely considered a ruse to justify killing bears. In contrast, community members perceive the Andean bear as a vindictive predator, a supernatural trickster and a woman-stealer. It became clear that a disconnect exists between the expectation of people within the city who value the Andean bear as a charismatic species, and local marginalised community members who are expected to bear the cost of coexistence and conservation. The research we undertook highlighted the complexity of human-wildlife conflict that, whilst is primarily based on the loss of cows, is also partially manifested from human-human conflict and folklore.

Beyond the disparities at the regional level, my experience clarified the responsibility the Global North has to the Global South. Whilst in the communities, it became apparent that the people here are situated within a poverty trap. The Bolivian Altiplano is amongst the areas most affected by climate change, which is largely driven by the lifestyles of those in the Global North. Climate change is exacerbating the difficulties of farming, which is the primary means of subsistence for these small communities who are heavily reliant on natural resources. The increase in cow ownership seen here brings in income to pay for children to attend schools. However, during my time here, I learnt that the community leader’s son decided to leave school, having stated that he has no hope of becoming anything other than a farmer. In reflecting on this, I considered the multidimensional poverty index in which access to education is regarded as a means of alleviating poverty. However, in this region, local discrimination and minimal opportunities mean that access to education is insufficient to alleviate poverty. Therefore, a more comprehensive coverage of dimensions of poverty and structural barriers may be appropriate for considering pathways out of poverty. Overall, I reflected on the unfairness of the situation; those who are most marginalised in society are bearing the costs of overproduction in the lifestyles in the Global North, with minimal- no means of overcoming this.

One of the most rewarding aspects was to be part of a team of extremely dedicated women, particularly programme leader Andrea Fuentes, who was transforming a vision she had for over a decade into a reality. Her passion for conservation and community development was an inspiration. Undoubtedly, the research I undertook was only possible because of the years she spent building these relationships in the communities. Whilst I was there, it was clear that many community members viewed Andrea as a friend. I also had the opportunity to participate in discussions and meetings for the women’s textile initiative. The textile business was set up to reintegrate traditional weaving into the communities to empower women. The local teacher also showed me some posters made by the children from her classes against women’s violence, and it was explained that women could now be present at local meetings. Seeing the support for women was extremely positive and served as a reminder that when working with communities that are constantly evolving, it is essential to adapt alongside them.

On the last night, Andrea and I discussed how the Global Diversity Foundation had completely hit the nail on the head with this collaboration; I was able to gain research skills and perspectives essential for working in the Global South, which will now be invaluable in my future career, and we were able to produce strong research that will hopefully aid Programa Jucumaris mission. Working with some amazing local people in this experience, along with some excellent teaching from lecturers at the University of Kent, has really catalysed my understanding of conservation and community development, motivating me to focus my future research on the poverty-environment nexus. Thank you for everything Global Diversity Foundation!