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Sebastian Wolfrum

Department, Institution: Anthropology, UCL
UBEL Pathway: Anthropology
Supervisor: Dr. Ludovic Coupaye, Dr. Rafael Chiaravalloti
Contact details: Sebastian.wolfrum.22@ucl.ac.uk
About Me
My initial training was in Social Work (BA) at the University of Applied Science, Nuremberg, Germany. After working several years full time in that field, I returned to university and completed studies in Environmental Geography (BSc) at the University of Stirling, followed by an MSc in Anthropology, Environment and Development at UCL. Throughout these degrees I have focused on the interaction between human societies and the environment they live in, be that housing estates, high alpine pastures or rainforests.
In my work I combine Environmental Anthropology, the Ontological Turn and the Frensh philosophy of technology to elucidate the dynamic entanglements of humans and non-humans in webs of interaction.
 
Outside of academia, I lead the “Green Group” of the Alpine Club, coordinating and advancing environmental protection and climate change mitigation within high alpine mountaineering.
My Research
My research investigates the Community-Based Management Scheme (CBMS) for Pirarucu (Arapaima spp.), a large fish in the Brazilian Amazon, at a time when freshwater species are declining globally and dependent populations face uncertain futures. While sustainability initiatives often reduce human–environment relations to trade-offs between economy and ecology, the CBMS is widely regarded as a rare case in which ecological recovery coincides with improved local livelihoods.
Departing from anthropological approaches that emphasise conflict and failure in conservation, this project examines how externally conceived technical systems become socially and environmentally viable: how they are taken up, stabilised, and transformed in everyday practice. It focuses in particular on the coordination of shared activities, the integration of different forms of knowledge, and the ways in which conservation reshapes social relations within and between communities.
The project engages with environmental anthropology, the anthropology and philosophy of technology, and debates on distributed agency to conceptualise conservation as a technical tool that becomes effective through its incorporation into existing socio-technical relations. Conservation here is analysed as a process that unfolds within, and is shaped by, local forms of collective life.
Based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in three to four communities in the Middle Juruá region, the study combines participant observation, interviews, document analysis, and surveys to provide a grounded account of how conservation is enacted in practice and how its outcomes are produced.
Impact of My Research

My research will have tangible relevance for addressing the pressing challenge of a better integration of habitat and species protection with economic development in areas of conservation concern in the Global South. The research directly addresses challenges posed by the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, 2022, with its aim, to set aside 30% of all land for area-based protection by 2030 (30×30). This framework includes references to equitable rights for local populations. Important work towards such equitable rights can be done by expanding our knowledge and understanding about how local cosmologies (here actualised through technicity) can be incorporated into more equitable policies concerning nature-conservation in areas where groups of people practise subsistence fishing. As 50 out of the world’s 51 million fishers operate in small-scale fisheries the understanding of otherwise largely elusive win-win scenarios for both, economic development, and environmental protection, as is reported from Arapaima fisheries, is of great relevance. In advancing this understanding, the research will also directly relate to Sustainable Development Goals (1) no poverty, (2) zero hunger, (12) responsible production and consumption and (14) life below water.