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Erica Linnea Charlotte Von Essen
Researcher
- Email
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erica.essen@inn.no
- Phone number
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+47 62 43 03 08
Faculty of Applied Ecology, Agricultural Sciences and Biotechnology
Department of Forestry and Wildlife Management
Campus Evenstad
Short description
Erica von Essen is an interdisciplinary human-wildlife scholar with a background in Environmental Communication. She has examined the scope of human-wildlife interactions including conflicts, killing, ethics, wildlife tourism, urban wildlife, digital animal encounters, wildlife management, rewilding and hunting. She is especially knowledgeable in matters pertaining to wolves, wild boar, and to all things hunting.
von Essen regularly appears in the Swedish and international media, both print and TV/radio to speak on issues of wildlife, particularly controversies such as trophy hunting, poaching, and wolf conservation
She is the project manager for Pig non Grata, and works mainly from Sweden where her primary employment is at Stockholm Resilience Center.
von Essen can be found on ResearchGate and Googlescholar for a full list of publications.
Publications
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Tickle, Lara; Von Essen, Erica & Fischer, Anke
(2022).
Expanding arenas for learning hunting ethics, their grammars and dilemmas: An examination of young hunters’ enculturation into modern hunting.
Sociologia Ruralis.
ISSN 0038-0199.
62(3),
p. 632–650.
doi:
10.1111/soru.12371.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Although hunting is declining in western countries, thenumber of people taking the hunting exam in Swedenare stable, and new demographic groups are becominghunters. Through interviews done in Sweden with bothnew and experienced hunters, as well as focus groupswith young hunters at agricultural colleges, we investi-gate how they navigate praxis and ethical frameworkstaught in hunting. Using theories on moral learning, aswell as Walzer’s thick and thin moral argument, we con-trast the views of these young hunters with the ethicalprinciples outlined in the educational literature for thehunting exam. We then present how young hunters rea-soned around issues regarding hunting ethics, animalwelfare and the place of hunting in modern society, bothinside and outside the classroom. The young hunters wespoke to acted as moderators of modern trends in hunt-ing, often bringing ‘destabilising’ influences like socialmedia and female hunters. Young hunters are encultur-ated into traditional hunting structures and, in the pro-cess, caught in a dialectic between modern influencesand traditional hunting culture. Our findings highlight challenges such as ‘false consensus’ and ‘ethical trade-offs’ in the learning of hunting ethics, which emergepotentially due to a lack of space for deliberation onhunting ethics.
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Krange, Olve; Von Essen, Erica & Skogen, Ketil
(2022).
Law Abiding Citizens On Popular Support for the Illegal Killing of Wolves.
Nature and Culture.
ISSN 1558-6073.
17(2),
p. 191–214.
doi:
10.3167/nc.2022.170204.
Full text in Research Archive
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Conflicts over wolf management are a stable feature of Norwegian public debate. In some segments of the population, nature management, and especially predator management, have a very low legitimacy. A strong
expression of these controversies is the illegal killing of wolves, a practice
sufficiently extensive to impact wolf population size. In several studies, the
killing of wolves is interpreted as politically motivated resistance/crime of
dissent. This study contributes to the research field by examining the support
for such illegal actions. We ask if the Norwegian public find such illegal actions
to be acceptable or not. Analysis shows that acceptance joins a broader
pattern of controversies, expressed by phenomena such as xenophobia, climate
change denial, anti-elitism, and low confidence in institutions working
to preserve nature.
anti-elitism, crimes of dissent, illegal killing of wolves, legitimacy,
nature management, resistance
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Skogen, Ketil; Von Essen, Erica & Krange, Olve
(2021).
Hunters who will not report illegal wolf killing: Self-policing
or resistance with political overtones?
Ambio.
ISSN 0044-7447.
doi:
10.1007/s13280-021-01588-w.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Illegal killing of wildlife is challenging
conservation efforts worldwide. Ecological research has
shown that illegal killing is severely affecting the
transboundary Swedish-Norwegian wolf population. A
previous study indicated that unwillingness to report
illegal killing of wolves among Swedish hunters contains
an element of protest against perceived unjust treatment of
hunting and hunters but that it could also simply be a
reflection of ineffective law enforcement in the
backcountry, driving hunters to effect forms of selfpolicing. Based on a survey of Norwegian hunters, the
present research goes one step further. One in five hunters
decline to report illegal wolf killings, and unwillingness to
report is predicted by lack of trust in environmental
institutions and a general anti-elite sentiment. Huntingrelated issues and other factors also affect outcomes, but to
a lesser degree. We conclude that unwillingness to report is
often part of an oppositional stance related not only to
wildlife management and conservation, but to
contemporary social change in rural areas and perceived
societal power relations. It is unlikely that reluctance to
report is driven by frustration over inefficient official
enforcement. While a political dimension is not always
articulated, overlooking it may stoke conflicts and fortify a
perception of unjust power relations.
Keywords Enforcement Hunters Illegal killing
Resistance Self-sanctioning Wolves
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Li, Wenxiu & Von Essen, Erica
(2020).
Guarding crops from monkey troops: farmer-monkey interaction near a nature reserve in Guangxi, China.
Environmental Sociology.
ISSN 2325-1042.
doi:
10.1080/23251042.2020.1811004.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Crop damage by wildlife can cause significant economic loss and non-human primates can be
nuisances to farmers following their ingenuity in crop-raiding strategies. There is an emerging
research interest on interspecies interaction in human-wildlife conflicts, following the growing
field of merging human-animal barrier, at least analytically. We collected qualitative data from
two villages experiencing macaque crop damage near a national nature reserve in Guangxi,
China, to understand how humans and macaques interact in a crop damage scenario and how
the interaction evolves in time. We find the mutually interactive processes taken place between
farmers and monkeys as they try to learn and adjust to the counterparts’ daily activities and
raiding/guarding strategies. Their interaction is also mediated by materiality: the crops, the
topography of the landscapes and managerial tools. In recent years, socioecological changes
such as afforestation, hunting bans and out migration have enabled macaques to grow their
population and more boldly pursue for their preference of crops. Our finding reveals the role of
non-human animal agency, conservation, and other social processes in shaping human-wildlife
relations, as well as the potential of using more-than-human perspective and ethnographic
methods in understanding human-wildlife relations. It further implies the need of enhancing
farmers’ knowing and adjustment, as well as encouraging human-wildlife cohabitation.
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Joosse, Sofie; Powell, Stina; Bergeå, Hanna; Böhm, Steffen; Calderon, Camilo & Caselunghe, Elvira
[Show all 18 contributors for this article]
(2020).
Critical, Engaged and Change-oriented Scholarship in Environmental Communication. Six Methodological Dilemmas to Think With.
Environmental Communication.
ISSN 1752-4032.
doi:
10.1080/17524032.2020.1725588.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
While calls for critical, engaged and change-oriented scholarship in environmental communication (EC) abound, few articles discuss what this may practically entail. With this article, we aim to contribute to a discussion in EC about the methodological implications of such scholarship. Based on our combined experience in EC research and drawing from a variety of academic fields, we describe six methodological dilemmas that we encounter in our research practice and that we believe are inherent to such scholarship. These dilemmas are (1) grasping communication; (2) representing others; (3) involving people in research; (4) co-producing knowledge; (5) engaging critically; and (6) relating to conflict. This article does not offer solutions to these complex dilemmas. Rather, our dilemma descriptions are meant to help researchers think through methodological issues in critical, engaged and change-oriented EC research. The article also helps to translate the dilemmas to the reality of research projects through a set of questions, aimed to support a sensitivity to, and understanding of, the dilemmas in context.
critical, engaged, change-oriented, methodology, dillemmas
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Von Essen, Erica & Allen, Michael
(2020).
‘Not the Wolf Itself’: Distinguishing Hunters’ Criticisms of
Wolves from Procedures for Making Wolf Management
Decisions.
Ethics, Policy & Environment.
ISSN 2155-0085.
23(1),
p. 97–113.
doi:
10.1080/21550085.2020.1746009.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
Swedish hunters sometimes appeal to an inviolate ‘right to exist’ for wolves, apparently rejecting NIMBY. Nevertheless, the conditions existence hunters impose on wolves in practice fundamentally contradict their use of right to exist language. Hunters appeal to this language hoping to gain uptake in a conservation and management discourse demanding appropriately objective ecological language. However, their contradictory use of ‘right to exist' opens them up to the charge that they are being deceptive – indeed, right to exist is a 'disguised NIMBY!' We address this situation by distinguishing hunters’ criticisms of wolves from the procedures for reaching objective policy decisions.
Wolves; conservation policy;
deliberation; NIMBY; metaconsensus; hunters
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Peterson, M. Nils; Chen, Alyssa; Von Essen, Erica & Hansen, Hans Peter
(2020).
Evaluating how Swedish hunters determine which species belong in nature.
European Journal of Wildlife Research.
ISSN 1612-4642.
66.
doi:
10.1007/s10344-020-01418-6.
Show summary
Understanding whether people view non-native species as belonging in a place will help guide important conservation efforts ranging from eradications of exotics to re-introduction of extirpated species. In this manuscript we describe the degree to which Swedish hunters perceive key wildlife species as belonging in Swedish nature. We surveyed 2014 Swedish hunters randomly
selected from a database of all registered hunters with a 47.5% response rate. We measured hunters’ perceptions of the belonging of 10 key species on the Swedish landscape, compared them with confidence intervals for proportions, and predicted them using regression models. Construct validity was assessed through pretesting and focus groups. Our results suggest Swedish hunters consider species introduced wholly by humans as less likely to belong in Sweden compared with species that evolved in situ,
species with negative socio-economic impact as less likely to belong in Sweden compared with species with no impact or positive economic impacts, and species with wide distributions to be seen as more likely to belong in Sweden compared with those with narrow distributions. Perceptions of wolves, fallow deer, and European rabbits differed from these broad trends potentially due to
unique cultural constructions of belonging for the species and the duration since anthropogenic introductions for the latter species. Age was generally negatively related with considering species as belonging in Swedish nature, whereas few effects were detected for other demographic variables. This study suggests multiple drivers of perceived belonging for species exist, and
may include where species evolved, socio-economic impacts of species, breadth of distribution, cultural naturalization, and age of stakeholders making assessments. These findings highlight the importance of managing invasive species before they become
culturally naturalized or gain broad geographic distribution.
Belonging . Exotic . Hunters . Introduced species . Invasive . Native
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Von Essen, Erica; Allen, M. & Tickle, Lara
(2020).
Game of Drones: On the Moral Significance of Deception in Modern Sport Hunting.
Philosophical Journal of Conflict and Violence.
ISSN 2559-9798.
4,
p. 137–157.
doi:
10.22618/TP.PJCV.20204.2.
Show summary
The seeming absence of mutual consent in interspecies sports makes it difficult to justify
non-human animals participating on equal terms with humans in for example sport hunting.
Nevertheless, hunted animals might appear to be ‘playing the game’ to the extent they resort to
counter-deceptions, which often fool the hunters or their dogs. In this paper, we consider whether
counter-deception by hunted animals is evidence that they are not playing the hunter’s game at all, or
rather playing a different serious game of survival, one in which they repudiate the role of ‘worthy
opponent’ instead by playing the role of trickster-resistors.
Deception; Sports; Ethics; Hunting; Trapping; Animal Rights; Harm; Killing.
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Von Essen, Erica; Lindsjö, J. & Berg, Charlotte
(2020).
Instagranimal: Animal Welfare and Animal Ethics Challenges of Animal-Based Tourism.
Animals.
ISSN 2076-2615.
10(10),
p. 1–17.
doi:
10.3390/ani10101830.
Full text in Research Archive
Show summary
By animal-based tourism, a host of activities offering passive viewing or active interaction
with wild, semi-wild or captive animals is included. The multibillion dollar industry is on the rise
globally today, offering modes of engagement with animals that trade on increasingly embodied close
encounters with non-human animals. As new modes of animal-based tourism proliferate, such as
sloth selfies, visiting cat cafes, swimming with sharks and agri-tourism petting zoos, animal welfare
standards risk deteriorating. In the following paper, we collate concerns over animal welfare into a
discussion on the challenges facing animal-based tourism. Our synthesis is the first to consider the full
spectrum of such animal-based tourism: across agri-, hunting, zoo and safari tourism, to name a few,
and crossing consumptive and non-consumptive boundaries. A literature review is first provided.
Findings are then presented thematically following workshops at an international interdisciplinary
symposium of leading tourism, animal welfare, ethics and leisure sciences scholars together with
practitioners of the industry. It discusses macrolevel drivers to animal-based tourism as an industry,
the problem of cultural relativism and the role of technology in enhancing or promoting the experience.
We indicate ways forward toward implementing a compassionate animal-based tourism.
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Von Essen, Erica & Allen, Michael
(2020).
Killing with kindness: when hunters want to let you know they care.
Human Dimensions of Wildlife.
ISSN 1087-1209.
doi:
10.1080/10871209.2020.1800145.
Full text in Research Archive
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Care’ is a term that hunters increasingly apply to diverse practices
pertaining to their interactions with wildlife. In this article, we investigated the extent and durability of hunters’ use of care language,
including appeals made to sentiment, relation, compassion,
embodiedness and situated morality. After establishing the use of
such language in contemporary hunting media, we discuss two case
studies of contemporary sport hunting that tease out dimensions of
care. These case studies show how hunters’ appeal to care is deeply
problematic and oppositely, how these hunting forms bring out new
relations and scopes of care with wildlife unanticipated by critics.
Without discounting hunters’ sincerity, we note that hunters may use
this language opportunistically rather than with consistent philosophical appeal. We conclude by discussing the possible role of hunters’
appeal to care language in mediating public acceptance of hunting.
Care ethics; hunting; killing;
relations; distance
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Tickle, Lara & Von Essen, Erica
(2020).
The seven sins of hunting tourism.
Annals of Tourism Research.
ISSN 0160-7383.
84.
doi:
10.1016/j.annals.2020.102996.
Show summary
In a review of situational pressures on tourists, we identify seven sins or risk zones that inducemoral disengagement and allow for behaviour that would be considered unethical by the samepeople when not on holiday. The context of hunting tourism reveals the following sins act cu-mulatively on the hunting tourist:“The Pay Effect”,“The Tourist Bubble”,“Last ChanceTourism”,“The Bucket List”,“When in Rome”,“The False Display”, and“The Saviour”.Identifying these sins and the way hunting tourists draw from them to neutralize eco-guilt areargued to be afirst step on the call to set standards and practices within consumptive wildlifetourism consistent with the Precautionary Principle in tourism planningHunting, Ethics, Wildlife, Precautionary principle, Eco-guilt, Trophy
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Vajas, Pablo; Von Essen, Erica; Tickle, Lara & Gamelon, Marlene
(2023).
Correction: Meeting the challenges of wild boar hunting in a modern society: The case of France (Ambio, (2023), 52, 8, (1359-1372), 10.1007/s13280-023-01852-1).
Ambio.
ISSN 0044-7447.
doi:
10.1007/s13280-023-01932-2.
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Addresses
Postal Address
Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences
Postboks 400 Vestad
2418 Elverum
Norway
