Knowledge Exchange Student uses ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ in Laikipia County, Kenya to collaboratively create realistic and actionable improvements to conservation efforts.

Fleur Nash, PhD student at the University of Cambridge and the very first Knowledge Exchange Student, has recently returned from a unique research project in Kenya. Her work addresses threatening disconnects between  research and practice in conservation and aims to create opportunities for more positive engagement between them – principles that lie at the heart of the CCI ethos.

Fleur’s research is an urgently needed response to the body of social science scholarship that has developed in recent years which is broadly critical of biodiversity conservation activities. By focusing on the social and political dimensions of conservation practice, those involved in the movement have found that conservation can sometimes have ‘negative impacts on local people’, that actions can be ‘based on flawed assumptions about local realities’, and that conservation is ‘increasingly linked to the prevailing neoliberal political economy’.

Conversely, conservationists are often highly critical of this research, accusing these social science researchers of treating conservation like a single entity and of failing to conduct research within conservation organisations themselves, not just on them. Fleur’s work aims to work with conservation practitioners to understand the everyday realities that they face in practice and work together to create change that is realistic and actionable on the ground.

To address this, Fleur has conducted her research together with Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and Ol Pejeta Conservancy (OPC), the later of which is based in Laikipia County Kenya. Laikipia is a meeting point between farmers, ranchers and pastoralists as well as a region renowned for significant wildlife populations. FFI has worked there since 2006, when it supported the establishment of OPC, a 37,000ha not-for-profit land holding managed for a mix of wildlife, cattle and agriculture. OPC is also home to the largest population of black rhino in East Africa.

During her time in Kenya, Fleur conducted interviews, workshops and participant observation with FFI staff, OPC staff as well as local actors such as farmers and pastoralists. Fleur’s work focuses on three social political spaces in conservation, how OPC works with farmers and pastoralists, how FFI and OPC work together, and, how researchers and practitioner work together. Her research explored ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ as an approach to gaining a broader understanding of conservation practices on the ground.

Appreciative Inquiry focuses on the strengths of an organisation, project and/or person and how to build on them. This differs to the traditional approach which focuses on problematic issues and how to solve them. Enlisting a continuous reflective process of how she and those within FFI and OPC are working together was a critical part of the process, to make sure the work benefited everyone involved and that research is being translated into practice.

Fleur is now in the analysis and writing stage of her research. She will then utilise the CCI network to disseminate her findings with the conservation community and look at how they can be used in practice. She is working with Dr. Chris Sandbrook (University of Cambridge) and Dr. Rob Small (FFI) as the supervisors.

Fostering action-orientated research for conservation

Fleur’s Studentship is part of the Fostering action-orientated research for conservation programme supported by the Evolution Education Trust. The programme is designed to catalyse close working between academics and practitioners. It brings together academics from the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute with practitioners from CCI’s conservation organisation partners to supervise ‘knowledge-exchange’ doctoral studentships.

The Knowledge-Exchange Studentship grant has enabled FFI’s involvement in the project which has been a vital component of Fleur’s research.

CCI is grateful to the Evolution Education Trust for establishing the Fostering action-orientated research for conservation programme.

Fleur’s PhD project is further supported by the UK Economies and Social Research Council, and fieldwork grants from the Department of Geography and Downing College at the University.

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