Rogelio Luque-Lora MA, MSci

PhD candidate, St Catharine’s College, funded by the Cambridge Trust and Fundación Rafael del Pino.

Interested in the social, ethical and cultural aspects of nature conservation. My current work primarily focuses on the values driving people’s engagement with nature.

Biography

I have arrived in Geography via the Biological Sciences (BA) and History and Philosophy of Science (MSci). The common theme throughout my studies and work has been the natural world and its protection. My Masters dissertation explored the disenchantment and re-enchantment of nature, and the implications of this for environmental motivation. I have since collaborated in research investigating conservationists’ views on where, why and how to conserve, as well as the political ecology of using camera traps for conservation. I am also very interested in the relationship between literature and landscape.

Career

• Research assistant at the University of Edinburgh, School of Geosciences (2018)
• Research assistant at the University of Cambridge, Department of Geography (2016-2017)
• Intern and consultant at the UN Environment – World Conservation Monitoring Centre (2016)

Qualifications

• MSci in History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge
• MA in Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge

Awards and funding

• Cambridge Trust European PhD Scholarship (2018-2021).
• Rafael del Pino, beca de excelencia (2019-2021).
• University Fieldwork Fund (2019-2020).
• Crausaz-Wordsworth Essay Prize (Robinson College, 2016).
• Sylvia Haslam Award for excellent ecological study (Dept of Plant Sciences, 2015).

Research

My PhD explores the role that values play in shaping people’s relationships with the natural world and its conservation. Specifically, I ask why and how people think that wildlife ought to be protected, drawing on theories of environmental values as they exist attached to particular places. I’m also interested in what an understanding of environmental values can contribute to political ecological knowledge, and vice versa. My fieldwork takes place in Central-South Chile, where there is a broad diversity of actors involved in and affected by wildlife conservation.

Publications

Academic articles

• Luque-Lora, R. 2022. The trouble with relational values. Environmental values  https://doi.org/10.3197/096327122X16611552268681
• Luque-Lora, R. 2022, in press. What conservation is: a contemporary inquiry. Conservation & Society
• Luque-Lora, R., Keane, A., Fisher, J.A., Holmes, G., and Sandbrook, C. 2022. A global analysis of factors predicting conservationists’ values. People and Nature https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10391
• Luque-Lora, R. 2021. Chile’s social uprising and constituent process: toward a more-than-human understanding. Interface.
• Donfrancesco, V. and Luque-Lora, R. 2021. Managing hybridization beyond the natural-anthropogenic dichotomy. Conservation Biology. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13816
• Luque-Lora, R. 2021. Engaging imaginaries, rejecting utopias: the case for technological progress and political realism to sustain material wellbeing. Political Geography. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102358
• Sandbrook, C., Fisher, J., Holmes, G., Luque-Lora, R. and Keane, A., 2019. The conservation movement is diverse but not divided. Nature Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0267-5
• Sandbrook, C., Luque-Lora, R. and Adams, W., 2018. Human bycatch: conservation surveillance and the social implications of camera traps. Conservation and Society, doi:10.4103/cs.cs_17_165

Public writing (selected)

2022

• Why I’m sceptical about giving legal rights to animals, trees and rivers. The Guardian.

2021

• Living with nonhumans: a review of The Conservation Revolution. The Philosopher.

2020

• Review of Nuestros años verde olivo. Toward Freedom.

2019

• Caminar como conocimiento. Revista de Libros.
• Out there lives a fox. Canary Literary Magazine.
• Underland (review). ECOS.
• La Montaña Viva. Quercus.

2018

• A debate el futuro de la conservación. Quercus.
• La razón de ser del optimismo. Quercus.
• The root of optimism. ECOS.

2017

• ¿Cómo conectaremos con la naturaleza?

2016

• La memoria no basta en la universidad de los genios. El País. (Media appearance.)

2014

• Spirit of the journey. Lakeland Walker.

Teaching (supervision)

• Citizenship, Cities and Civil Society: 2022.
• Political Ecology in the Global South: 2021, 2022.
• 1B Ecology (Natural Sciences): 2018 and 2016.