SPECIES OF PASSIONATE INTEREST: Practicing Biocultural Conservation and Eco-social Transformation Together

Chase Alexander Niesner , Alejandra Echeverri

Species of Passionate Interest expands on the concept of the "cultural keystone species," reviewing its intellectual history and proposing future applications in the field of biodiversity conservation. The paper critiques the classic view of the "keystone" species in Western conservation science, emphasizing the need to consider the dynamic cultural context and the diversity of emotional connections humans weave with the wider ecological world. Through relating biodiversity loss to human consciousness and the possibility of social transformation by way of "ecosophy," the paper emphasizes the importance of future-oriented approaches that go beyond preservation towards creating new eco-social cultural formations altogether. “Species of passionate interest,” whether the result of sustenance, ritual, sport, admiration, conflict or economic promise, are found across all cultures and are exceedingly consequential for the ways we hope to understand how different cultural contexts might more ethically relate to one another. As such, the lens offered to conservation praxis by species of passionate interest might just provide the inspiration for developing more flexible and creative conservation practices, ones which combine biocultural conservation and eco-social transformation together.