The Intrinsic Worth of Minifauna: A Lesson on Inclusion in Conservation with Erim Gomez

The following interview comes from an episode of the same title from Can I Get a Retake?, a podcast by Great River Learning.

In this episode of Can I Get a Retake?, Michelle and Macayla interview Dr. Erim Gomez, assistant professor of Wildlife Biology at the renowned college of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana. He has dedicated years to studying amphibians and other charismatic minifauna, working to preserve species and life forms that have existed for billions of years.

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How do you talk to people about the need to do research and save amphibians?

Gomez: "These smaller organisms are important and provide food for other organisms that we do care about. They serve important ecological roles, so if you keep on removing species from the ecosystem it will fall apart... Other amphibians or creatures who do not get as much attention have been evolving since life began an estimated 3.7-4.2 billion years ago… As a group they have survived multiple mass extinctions, they were here before and after the dinosaurs… And right now, they are facing mass extinction, and they are facing it because of what we are doing to the ecosystem. Whether that is research extraction, moving invasive species across the landscape, introducing disease accidentally, changing or altering habitat, and climate change.”

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Why is it important for students to learn about traditional ecological knowledge?

Gomez: "The reason I start with it is because there were people on this land that were already managing the ecosystem [before colonizers]...North America was not what we think of, this wilderness. There were an estimated 11 million people in North America at the time of the late 1400s. So, if we’re trying to be honest about the history, and we spend several chapters talking about the wildlife management, we must include the Native American perspective. Plus, there is not one perspective, there are obviously multiple perspectives, but there is one common thread oftentimes.”

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What benefit does conservation have when students represent the full range of humanity of gender, age, diversity, and ethnicity?

Gomez: "When there are more diverse perspectives from people with diverse backgrounds, you come up with more creative solutions… There’s data that suggests that diversity of backgrounds gives you diversity of thought and diversity of solutions.”

To hear more from the interview with Dr. Erim Gomez, check out the podcast episode at https://grl.pub/podcast