Biodiversity & the Rights of Nature
Interview: Mika Peck
By Susan Thomson
Mika Peck’s work is dedicated to conservation through scientific research and grassroots conservation action. His scientific work focuses on the development of new tools to monitor the state of the environment, from the tropical rainforest and reefs to UK kelp forests. Science is integrated within community-based approaches to explore opportunities for sustainable livelihoods in biodiversity hotspots in South America, South East Asia, and the UK. In 2022 he founded the not-for-profit Ecoforensic CIC to support communities, protected areas, and indigenous territories in collecting ecological information to protect ecosystems under emerging rights of nature legislation.
With a firm belief that conservation biologists should be measured by their impact in conserving biodiversity in addition to scholarship, he established the Tesoro Escondido Reserve in NW Ecuador. The reserve was established to bring one of the top twenty most endangered primates, the brown-headed spider monkey, back from the brink of extinction. Using an approach that engages local communities in science, known as the paraecologist model, the reserve now protects the last healthy population of the species. This approach has also been applied to a community-based reserve in the Ecuadorian Mountains generating a sustainable income for the community of the Santa Lucia Cloud Forest Reserve through research and education. In Papua New Guinea he works with the Wanang Community and the Bintang Research Centre to explore alternative livelihoods to logging and interactions between human health and conservation activities. The paraecologist model is currently under exploration as a tool to enable local communities to sustainably manage coral reefs in West Papua, Indonesia. Closer to his home base in the UK he is leading the biological monitoring for the Sussex Kelp Restoration Project that aims to restore the coastal marine environment following the seminal trawler ban in 2021.
Mika was interviewed as part of Susan Thomson’s artist residency with the MESA Institute in 2022, which was supported internationally by the British Council ‘s Plural Program. During the residency, Susan made the short film Tybyra and the Harlequin. Excerpts from Mika’s interview appear in her film and it is here published in full especially for Revista Mesa. The rich interview covers topics such as the rights of nature, para-ecology, eco-forensics, and the story of the harlequin frog that stopped a mining operation in Ecuador.
We are immensely grateful to Mika Peck and Susan Thomson. Special thanks to Rodolfo Rizzo of macaverde films for editing and the British Council for their fundamental support.
Interview Link
Para saber mais sobre Mika Peck e acessar os links de seus projetos:
https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p76093-mika-peck
