Social, Cultural and Political Perceptions of Biodiversity in Los Angeles

The Challenge

Both the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County are engaged in various scientific projects to better understand, measure and preserve biodiversity in the region. However, missing from these approaches is any attempt to capture or measure the social, cultural and political perception of these critical resources across neighborhoods and different demographic groups. Biodiversity is both affected and perceived differently by different groups of people in urban environments, and there are many controversies associated with biodiversity management (e.g. coyote culling and pet safety, secondary poisoning from rat control, environmental contamination, flood control, habitat restoration, etc.).  

 City and County managers have only sparse and anecdotal data on how individuals respond to or engage with these issues and how their values relate to the goals and practices of biodiversity conservation. This project attempts to address this gap by eliciting responses directly from residents and collectives in the Los Angeles region to shape a more complete narrative of public understanding of and engagement on biodiversity issues. 

The Solution

To identify, map, and observe the controversies that engage residents and collectives around issues of urban biodiversity, this project combined ethnographic observations with social, cultural and historical analysis and comparative case study. Researchers conducted interviews of City of Los Angeles residents, activists, government officials, and organizations such as animal services and other professionals engaged in biodiversity and sustainability issues. The goal was to document their stories, concerns and experiences to create a series of ethnographic reports (working papers) related to biodiversity and sustainability in Los Angeles.  

The reports created cover distinctive areas of concern ranging from the dangers of secondary poisoning of wildlife to the indigenous politics around habitat conservation.  Each report reveals a set of legal, economic, historical, and cultural values that underlie how issues of urban biodiversity are perceived and addressed. 

Results

• The project led to the development of a “Labyrinth Project” research team and website, a collaborative inquiry into nature in Los Angeles. Team members include faculty from The Institute for Society and Genetics along with graduate students from Anthropology, Environmental Science and Public Health. A group of undergraduate students majoring in Human Biology and Society are also a part of the team. 
• Using a mix of structured interviews, collaborative urban anthropology and analysis of social media content – the team has explored an unusual “tropical cascade” of topics central to the lives of humans and non-humans in Los Angeles. The cascade includes interactions and surprising connections among wetlands, oil drilling, lawns, property, home-owners' associations, rats, poison, cats, cat-feeding humans, birds, bird lovers, unhoused humans, coyotes, cemeteries and golf courses, pets and pet-owners, city-council members and mountain lions to name a few. The papers trace how these interactions have developed and propose theories about how and why these controversies have taken shape in urban Los Angeles, and the lessons they hold for other cities. 

Additional Outcomes to Date

The project led to a successful University of California Humanities Research Institute’s Multicampus Faculty Working Group grant, which will continue this research in collaboration with other scholars in the UC system. 

Additionally, two separate presentations were given: 

• “The Ecology of the Bait Station, or Anthropocene-in-a-Box” on the panel Environmental Repair: Temporalities of Mitigation, Remediation, And Restoration organized by Valerie Olson (UC Irvine) and Ashley Carse (Vanderbilt University). American Anthropological Association Meetings, Vancouver, BC, November 2019 
• "Coyotes, Peacocks, Parrots, and Rats: Resilience and Biodiversity in Los Angeles Urban Animals" on the panel Assembling Resilience – II organized by Stephen Collier, Andrew Lakoff and Christopher Kelty. The Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S), New Orleans, August 2019. 

Publications and Reports

Five working papers will be published (October 2020) on the project website and UCLA eScholarship.