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Mountains in Norway
Photo: Lovisa Molin

The Interdisciplinary Conservation Network (ICN) is a meeting place for university employees and students who work with or have an interest in nature conservation. Our aim is to connect people across faculties and disciplines at NMBU and to facilitate interdisciplinary conservation research.

About the network

Activities

We arrange monthly meetings which are open to all employees at NMBU.

  • Upcoming Events

    25 February 2026

    ICN 2702

    We encourage people to join us in person. However, if that is not possible, join online HERE.

    Conservation Policy as Governmentality and the Contemporary Navigation of Indigenous peoples (Batwa) in and around Kahuzi-Biega National Park, DR Congo 

    Bisimwa Matabaro Lionel 

    PhD Candidate, School of Human and Social Sciences, University of Mons, Belgique 

    Researcher at Angaza Institute, Institut Supérieur du Développement Rural/ISDR-Bukavu, RD Congo 

    How do global conservation policies shape—and sometimes clash with—the lives of Indigenous peoples? This talk invites you to explore that question through the story of the Batwa community living around Kahuzi-Biega National Park (KBNP) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Batwa are Indigenous peoples who are living around KBNK, in the eastern part of DRC. During the precolonial period, they primarily inhabited Kahuzi-Biega Forest, where their livelihoods were based on hunting, gathering, foraging, and taking care of biodiversity. However, they were pushed out of their ancestral territories for the sake of conservation.

    Lionel’s research draws on two main strands of scholarship: critical literature on the social construction of Indigenous identities, and research linking governmentality to environmental policy.

    This framework highlights how conservation policies often function as regimes of homogenization and “ecologization,” seeking to regulate and reshape the lives of populations living within or near protected areas. Through various institutional and discursive mechanisms, these policies attempt to transform local practices, values, relationships to ancestral lands, and forms of subjectivity.

    Moreover, the case study from KBNP, in DR Congo emphasizes the agency of the Batwa as diverse and adaptive actors. Rather than being passive recipients of conservation agendas, they reinterpret policy discourses and values, reinvent their practices, and navigate among multiple—often ambivalent—strategies in response to both local and global dynamics.

    The event will take place at Tårnbigning 27th of February from 12:30-14:00. The event will also be streamed online. 

  • Past Events

    4 February 2026

    Rose Keller (NINA), Knut-Bjørn Stokke (NMBU), Håvard Steinsholt (NMBU) discussed: The Right of Public Access versus Nature Conservation – Do We Need to Choose?

    29 October 2025

    Juliette Hunault Fontbonne will talk about landscape connectivity and animal mobility, Admiralen in Bikuben from 15h00-16h00.

    17 September 2025

    Dr Andrés Ordiz will talk about wolf management in Spain and Europe, and its relationship with scientific evidence, Thor Larsen Loftet (in the Tivoli building on the 3rd floor) from 15h00-16h00.

    26 May 2025

    The De-extinction of the Dire Wolf: Miracle or Marketing? Sustainability Hub from 15h00-16h00

    24 April 2025

    Assistant Professor Sareh Saeidi Derakhshi will talk about “kind architecture”, architecture practices that foster multispecies co-living to reduce biodiversity loss and increase the quality of life for both human and nonhuman inhabitants of architecture, Sustainability Hub from 15h00-16h00

    7 April 2025

    Professor John-Andrew McNeish will talk about the idea of giving legal rights to natural entities, such as forests, rivers or mountains., Sustainability Hub from 15h00-16h00

    27 February 2025

    Conservation's fascination with forest: discussion of the following paper, Sustainability Hub from 15h00-16h00

    28 November 2024

    Rewilding: a transformative pathway to coexistence with Dara Sands, Sustainability Hub from 15h00-16h00

    31 October 2024

    Panel discussion about sustainable management of wild salmon with Thrond Haugenand Hans Magnus Gjøen

    26 September 2024

    Wasimuddin on host-agent-environment interface

    25 April 2024

    The Global Economic Value of Avoiding Deforestation of the Amazon Rainforests by Ståle Navrud

    21 March 2024

    The Myth of Balance in Nature by Simon Schowanek

    29 February 2024

    Science and policy in Norwegian species and land management by Richard Bischof & Øystein Aas

    25 January 2024

    Indigenous people and conservation by Aida Cuni Sanchez

    23 November 2023

    Julia Naime (Rainforest Foundation Norway) on supply chain policies of transition minerals. Julia will also share her experience on how different it is to do research of advocacy purposes as compare as writing an academic paper.