Dear Ethno-orners,

Just a quick(?) note as promised. I note the following short items
before I'll get into my trip report:

1 - We had two recent "spam" postings - I have removed the postings
and also removed the address from where the postings came;

2 - My long promised ERSG Newsletter is in preparation - I'll include
all of the various news and items of interest sent to me over the last
few months.

3 - Please send a message via the ERSG group if you have any queries
or if I can be of assistance.

After many hours and miles spent in airplanes over the last six weeks
I am glad to be home and want to post a brief report on my trip. I'll
post more specific items in the near future.

I began by travelling from Australia to Pennsylvania, USA in early
March to attend and present a paper at the 29th annual Society of
Ethnobiology (SoE) conference held between March 8 - 11 at the
Pennsylvania State University. If you are not familiar with the work
of the Society please see it's homepage at
http://www.ethnobiology.org/. The Interinstitutional Consortium for
Indigenous Knowledge is also based at Penn State U - see
http://www.ed.psu.edu/icik/

While in Pennsylvania I was fortunate enough to do several early
morning birdwalks with Eugene Hunn, Eugene Anderson and Cedric Brown
(three eminence grise of American ethnobiology). On the first morning
walk Eugene Hunn introduced me to the Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus
pileatus)- a massive and beautiful bird. We also had majestic views of
two large flocks (approx. 150 individuals) of Tundra Geese flying
overhead on the last morning. You can see a (small but interesting)
part of Eugene Anderson's world at his Krazy Kiotri site at
http://www.krazykioti.com/

The conference went well, the highlights for me being the sessions on
Ethnoecology and Preserving Traditional Knowledge and Ethnoecology and
Conservation. The Saturday Field Trip to the MacNeal's Orchards, where
we were shown Maple Syrup production - from extraction from the tree
through distillation and the final product - was another highlight.

Each of the three conferences I attended on this trip presented great
opportunities for me to discuss my work with some of the leading
practitioners in the Ethnobiology and Anthropology and to hear of new
developments and approaches in these areas from both academics and
field practitioners.
Several of the delegates to the SoE conference (and others) have
published on ethno-ornithological research in the past and it was
invaluable to be able to meet face-to-face with them to discuss these
issues in context. I'll post a compilation of my papers presented at
the conferences attended on this trip in the next week or so.

From Pennsylvania I travelled to Europe for a couple of weeks. Due to
changed travel arrangements I had some free time in London so I was
able to put this to good use with research and meetings. I travelled
to Bilbao for a few days in the Basque country and stayed with friends
in the small town of Durango from where we went on several trips along
the beautiful coastline and mountains that make up this part of
northern Spain. I missed out on a seminar to be held in late March on
the "Jardunaldiak: Urkiolako Hegazti Harraparien Ekologia" -
translated roughly from the Basque to English - "Meeting on the
Raptors of the Urkiola National Park" in central Euskal. There is a
growing interest in ecological protection in the Basque country, and,
while the area has long been the industrialised hearland of Spain and
the landscape is heavily modified, there is a strong movement to
preserve Basque knowledge and culture of the environment. While at the
Urkiolako Natur Parkeko Fauna headquarters I watched an webcam of 5
Egyptian vulture (Neophron pernocterus) nests in the hills above the
headquarters and there is a good display outlining the mythology (much
of it based on birds) of the area. I will make some effort to find
more information on Basque bird-related mythology and knowledge when
time permits. Some information on Basque mythology and traditions can
be found at http://www.buber.net/Basque/Folklore/

After my too short a stay in the Basque country I returned to London
and after a day or two shopping (mainly for books and Chelsea Football
Club regalia) I travelled to Cambridge, north of London, to meet with
Martin Walsh, a Cambridge University anthropologist, and John Fanshawe
of Birdlife International (BI), an NGO that is responsible for the
initiation and on-going support for the many Important Bird Areas
(IBAs) worldwide. John and Martin have many years of experience
working in east Africa and are very interested in how
ethno-ornithology might be better incorporated in the implementation
of bird conservation and how ethno-ornithology might contribute to a
better understanding of bird populations, particularly threatened
species and families, across the world. Martin has recently joined
this group and posted two articles on his work in east Africa. I'm
very much looking forward to working with John and Martin in the
future. If you are not familiar with the important work of BI go to
the web page at http://www.birdlife.org/index.html.

I then took a train down to the University of Kent at Canterbury where
I met with Roy Ellen and (all too briefly) Raj Puri of the
Ethnobiology Research Group and the Durrell Institute of Conservation
and Ecology (DICE) at the Department of Anthropology where important
research is being undertaken on important areas of ethnobiological
research. See ERF's website at
http://www.kent.ac.uk/anthropology/ethnobiol/researchgroup.html.

From Canterbury I travelled to Durham up near the border of Scotland
to visit with Paul Sillitoe and Robert Layton of the Anthropology in
Development group - see the website at
http://www.dur.ac.uk/anthropology/research/aid/. I had a long meeting
with Paul and Robert and over lunch with Paul, Aneesa Kasaam and
Mariella Marzano we discussed the AID group's research. Aneesa
conducted ethno-ornithological research some years ago in Kenya and is
looking forward to updating and presenting that research in the near
future.

After returning to London I left for Vancouver to attend and present
at the 66th annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology.
This was an very large conference (the conference program and
abstracts ran to 204 pages) and there were just as many interesting
presentations that I missed as I attended! I was part of the
"Relational Conservation: Visions and Practices of Collaborative
Engagements with Lands and Animals" group led by Harvey Feit and Susan
Preston. I attended at a number of sessions and made many new
acquaintances during the conference - I've yet to look at my notes to
see who and what I have to catch up with. Alongside the conference was
a book publishers display and there I found a copy of Graham Harvey's
recently published book "Animism: Respecting the Living World".
Graham's book takes a new look at animism and reveals the diverse ways
of being animist and living respectfully within natural communities. I
am planning to write a review of this interesting material in the near
future.

After Vancouver I went to San Francisco for a few days - unfortunately
the city of sun had been the city of rain for a few weeks and
continued to be so for the time I was there. Notwithstanding the
weather I had a great time exploring the many bookshops and hidden
treasures in this hilly city - good food and coffee also helped!.

From San Francisco I travelled east via Charlotte, NC to Gainesville
in Florida to attend and present at the inaugural meeting of the
International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture
(ISSRNC) at the University of Florida. The University campus is huge -
there is no other way of describing it - 45,000 students and 20,000
faculty and staff spread across an expansive campus. The ISSRNC
conference had many interesting sessions and provided a good
opportunity to meet with people involved in this emerging area.

My presentation to the Animal - Human Relationships session was well
received and I enjoyed the sessions I attended. Of particular note was
the presentation by Mark Bekoff of the Jane Goodall Institute and the
University of Colorado at Boulder. Mark discussed his work in animal
behaviour (particularly with canines)and his ideas about how the
relationship between (traditional) scientific research and animal
behavioural studies can be improved - I particularly liked his quote
from Erwin Schrodinger, Nobel Prize winner for Physics in 1933: "The
vision of the world around us that science provides is highly
deficient. It supplies lots of factual information and puts all of our
experience in magnificently coherent order, but keeps terribly silent
about how everything else close to our hearts, everything that really
counts."
Mark will be in Australia later in 2006 and I hope to be able to
arrange an extension of his visit so that he can come to Canberra to
talk at the Australian National University. You can find more about
Mark's work at: http://literati.net.Bekoff

Gainesville was my final stop on this trip and I flew home to Sydney
and arrived yesterday morning ... I'm writing this after a good
night's sleep and looking forward to going through the stack of books,
papers and material I collected (some are still en route) and catching
up with all the new and renewed contacts I have made during the last
six weeks.

As noted above I'll post a compilation of my presentations in the near
future. Please send a message if there is any more information or
contacts you might want.


Cheers.


Robert Gosford
ERSG Moderator