Kyudai News No27 page 14/28

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Kyudai News No27

13 aving had a close bond with pets and naturesince my early childhood, I decided at a youngage to pursue a career in wildlife conservationand wanted to study ecology at university. However, at thetime, I had only a simplistic view of wildlife conservation,believing that it meant protecting precious wildlife fromhuman threats. The turning point came at a universitylecture at which I encountered a professor of environmentalsociology and environmental ethics who made mefundamentally consider what wildlife conservation reallyis. Thereafter, I studied wildlife conservation from theperspective of the social sciences and began conductingfieldwork in Africa, realizing my long-held dream ofcarrying out research overseas. My research ended uplooking at the taking of the lives of wildlife, which wouldseem to be antithetical to the protection of wildlife.I set myself the objective of exploring the formation ofcoexistent relationships between humans and wildlife,focusing on hunting, particularly sport hunting (hunting forthe purpose of tourism or recreation, with the aim ofacquiring horns or other hunting trophies). Accordingly, Ihave undertaken environmental sociology andenvironmental ethics research via fieldwork and socialresearch in the following two areas.The first is empirical research concerning sustainability intourism, local communities, and wildlife conservation. Inrecent years, sport hunting has generated vast sums inincome from tourism in developing countries such as thosein Africa and has been praised as having a positive impacton both wildlife conservation activities and localeconomies. Within Japan too, the possibilities of sporthunting as a means of combating escalating crop damagecaused by wild animals are being explored. The logicbehind this is that sport hunting is both ecologically andeconomically sustainable. Through fieldwork in Cameroonand Hokkaido, I have closely examined the impact on localcommunities of using wildlife for tourism purposes andconservation activities. Although the sustainability of sporthunting is praised, my research has confirmed that sporthunting does have an adverse social impact, in the form ofconflicts between global and local stakeholders overwildlife resources. Accordingly, I have pointed out the needWhat is “killing to protect”? HHighlight of Recent ResearchThe kob (Kobus kob), an antelope found across sub-Saharan Africa