Indigenized conservation and biodiversity maintenance on Orchid Island

Since the middle of the twentieth century, the natural objects on Orchid Island have become the busy intersections of local cosmology, national projects, and scientific management. Through participant observation, narrative analysis, and ecological survey, this study examines the appropriation of indigenized conservation, as well as the key mechanisms that maintain diversity under local agroforestry. The Yami people have been attracted by technological manipulations of conservation projects, appropriated as a cultural accommodations with their cosmology. This complicated articulation rejects the over-simplification of indigenous knowledge, and offers richer context regarding how local communities appropriate global ideas for their spiritual, economic, and environmental purposes. My work on the endangered owls and their arthropod prey clearly suggests the need for a community-based conservation approach, allowing conservationists to turn to feasible strategies in human-dominated landscapes. In addition, many facets of biodiversity maintenance in a regional context and local mechanism are largely forgotten by the recovery regimes of endangered species, and species-oriented conservation. On Orchid Island, community composition and diversity of ant fauna mainly can be mainly classified by natural barriers of geographic habitats. Biogeographical dispersal may play a key role to mediate regional context of ecological communities. The understanding of the ecological context and agroecosystem under Yami subsistent economy illuminates an informative case for a variety of biodiversity issues, ranging from preserving biodiversity within particular habitats to conservation in a landscape matrix. The future trend of conservation should move from scarcity-oriented projects toward a systemic consideration of functioning biodiversity sustainability.