Conservation Culturomics: Potential Applications in South Asia

Abstract

Unsustainable human behavior has significantly contributed to the contemporary global biodiversity crisis. In order to mitigate this, it is crucial to study the underlying factors that have resulted in such behavior. Conservation culturomics is an emerging research method that uses digitally available data to gain insights on human-nature relationships at relevant spatial and temporal scales. This method also provides a cost-effective mechanism to inform people-centric conservation policy. Depending on the research question, the data collection and analysis can be tailored, taking advantage of recent advances in information technology. While it is most often applied to global studies, conservation culturomics can also be applied at a regional scale to gather vast volumes of data that represent context-specific human values towards nature. Examination of case studies from South Asia demonstrate the range of potential subjects that culturomics studies can examine, including marine megafauna (whales), avifauna (vultures), and habitats (wetlands). Conservation outcomes of culturomics research are broad, and can include: ecosystem services valuation to motivate habitat restoration, spatial and temporal variation in whale sightings to inform ecotourism guidelines and management, and public perceptions of vultures to inform awareness and outreach initiatives. The major impediments to conservation culturomics in regions such as South Asia are socio-economic biases among internet users and the need for sophisticated technological knowledge; however, with the increasing accessibility of the internet, this is set to change in the future.