Edited by Jennifer Sills
Reindeer Ewenki’s fading culture THE INDIGENOUS “REINDEER Ewenki”
PHOTO: AP PHOTO/ANDY WONG
peoples of China use a traditional reindeer herding system unique to the Siberian taiga forests. Yet since the 1970s, this reindeer population has decreased by at least 28% (1), posing a threat to both the reindeer and the indigenous peoples whose culture depends on them. Along with climate change, compromised habitat due to timber production, and land management that restricts foraging and seasonal migration, socioeconomic change in China threatens the reindeer herding system and reindeer population size. Reindeer and Ewenki communities were relocated in 1957, 1965, and 2003 (2), and in 1984, the household responsibility herding system replaced the collective reindeer herding system (3). After the 2003 relocation, in which reindeer were moved 280 km southward to their current location, the population declined abruptly owing to the unsuitable climate, habitat condition, and a shortage of food (4). Moreover, national and regional wildlife and forest protection programs, along with programs banning hunting for Ewenki herders (5), have allowed large mammalian predators to flourish and prey upon young reindeer (1). Because of the increasing importance of tourism as a revenue source, the whole nomadic herding system, including reindeer
and Ewenki, has gradually become sedentary, causing overgrazing and forageshortage (4–6). Meanwhile, Ewenki herders are increasingly attracted to the lifestyle offered by regional centers of urbanization. Currently, fewer than 100 Ewenki are directly or indirectly involved in reindeer herding, and fewer than 50 Ewenki regularly live in campsites. Across all Ewenki communities, there are no more than 40 people who can speak the traditional Ewenki language (2). Indigenous cultural practices have declined, including shamanistic performances, traditional medicinal use, and traditional dress, whereas the incidence of alcoholism has increased (4). Because of the threat to both the reindeer population and the development, culture, and even survival of the herding system and indigenous communities, their conservation should be prioritized. The current International Union for Conservation of Nature classification of global reindeer of “least concern” should be corrected to reflect the reindeer’s population and distribution (7–8). Reindeer in China should be recognized as “wildlife” or at least “semidomesticated wildlife” by the government and included into the national protected species list. Ecologically suitable nature reserves should be established with different functions such as reintroduction, field-releasing, feralizing, herding culture conservation, and commercial ecotourism. Reindeer and herding conservation and resource management should be based on the socioecological development of local Ewenki communities, in which economic compensation mechanisms should be initiated whereby the losses resulting from predation, climate change, and some governmental activities can be compensated, and
A member of the Ewenki walks his reindeer at a forest park in Genhe, Inner Mongolia, China. SCIENCE sciencemag.org
the locals should be provided paid positions as rangers and managers to join all aspects of the management and conservation of reindeer, and the herding cultural system. Jing Wang,1 Junping Sun,1 Achyut Aryal,2 David Raubenheimer,3 Deguang Liu,4 Yan Sheng,1 Dunhu Chang,1 Lei Shi,1 Jian Wu,1 Zhong Ma,1 Hongchen Wang,1 Xiuxiang Meng1* 1 School of Environment and Natural Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China. 2 Institute of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand. 3Charles Perkins Centre and Faculty of Veterinary Science and School of Biological Sciences, the University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia. 4College of Plant Protection, Northwest A & F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] REFERENCES
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
X. Meng et al., J. Nat. Conserv. 22, 539 (2014). R. Fraser, Inner Asia 12, 317 (2010). H. Beach, Cultural Survival Quart. 27, 33 (2003). A. Kolås, Hum. Org. 70, 397 (2011). Y. Guo et al., Chinese J. Appl. Environ. Biol. 20, 892 (2014) [in Chinese]. 6. P. Wang et al., Chinese J. Appl. Ecol. 25, 2529 (2014) [in Chinese]. 7. L. S. Vors, M. S. Boyce, Glob. Change Biol. 15, 2626 (2009). 8. B. C. Forbes et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 106, 22041 (2009).
Genetic privacy: Trust is not enough IN HER NEWS story “Trust me, I’m a medi-
cal researcher” (special section on The end of privacy, 30 January, p. 501), J. CouzinFrankel concludes that mutual trust is key for truthful collaboration between patients and medical researchers. The comparison to collaborations between service providers and users of Uber (a crowdsourced taxi service) and Airbnb (a crowdsourced hotel service) is compelling, but inaccurate: Customers of these companies can easily opt out of service when unsatisfied, with no long-term consequences. By contrast, once a person’s DNA sequence is present in public databases, there is no way to contain its dissemination (1). Whereas credit cards may be cancelled, sharing of genetic data cannot be undone, and data donors cannot, at least for the foreseeable future, replace their genetic code. Our world has become a global village, where people often move between countries in search of a livelihood, education, career, or relationship. A person who consented to the open sharing of her genome sequence in a country where she felt protected from misuse of her personal genetic information owing to laws forbidding it, such as the Genetic Information 27 FEBRUARY 2015 • VOL 347 ISSUE 6225
Published by AAAS
957
Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on February 26, 2015
LET TERS
INSIGHTS
Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA) in the United States (2), may later move to another country where such protections are nonexistent. There, she could face severe consequences such as denial of health or life insurance or mortgage (which typically requires life insurance), if her genome contains risk alleles for severe illness such as certain types of cancer or neurodegenerative disease. Moreover, even in the United States, GINA does not protect individuals from discrimination by bankers or providers of life or disability insurance (3, 4). Thus, in the context of assuring the genetic privacy of research participants, mutual trust between patients and researchers is vital, but insufficient. There are no simple solutions for the conflict between genetic privacy and biomedical research needs. Given that trust cannot be enforced, easing such tensions could best arise from further countries passing comprehensive genetic information nondiscrimination laws. David Gurwitz Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, 69978, Israel. E-mail: [email protected]
REFERENCES
1. J. E. Lunshof, R. Chadwick, D. B. Vorhaus, G. M. Church, Nat. Rev. Genet. 9, 406 (2008). 2. R. Korobkin, R. Rajkumar, N. Engl. J. Med. 359, 335 (2008). 3. D. Gurwitz, I. Fortier, J. E. Lunshof, B. M. Knoppers, Science 325, 818 (2009). 4. Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, Public Law No. 110-233.
Navigating Massive Open Online Courses WE AGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY with J.
Reich that research on the effectiveness of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) must focus on learning rather than mere clicking (“Rebooting MOOC research,” Education Forum, 2 January, p. 34). Our biggest challenge will be figuring out what is most appropriate for an individual student at a given moment. Ideally, a MOOC would work like the GPS navigation device in your car. You tell it where you want to go, it figures out where you are, and it guides you along the most optimal route. Keeping with the analogy, current MOOCs are like having all GPS navigation devices instruct every car driver to turn right at 9:15 on Monday morning.
If we can’t adapt teaching and practice to the individual learner, MOOCs will never be more than a digital version of classroom teaching. To personalize the learning experience, we first need a detailed description of what a student already can and cannot do. Such information can be determined by traditional tests or by more powerful methods such as the practice-based trackers that already exist in other domains of online education (1). The A/B testing discussed in the Education Forum provides us with ideal methodology to start putting roads on the educational map. Once we gather information about various conditions, we can map each student’s optimal route. Alexander O. Savi,1* Han L. J. van der Maas,1 Gunter K. J. Maris1,2 1
Department of Psychological Methods, University of Amsterdam, Weesperplein 4, 1018 XA, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 2Cito, Amsterdamseweg 13, 6814 CM, Arnhem, Netherlands. *Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
REFERENCE
1. S. Klinkenberg, M. Straatemeier, H. van der Maas, Comput. Educ. 57, 1813 (2011). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Funding by NWO (The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research), grant number CI1-12-S037.
“YOU ARE WATCHING THIS BEAUTIFUL ECOSYSTEM BE DEGRADED BY CLIMATE CHANGE OR HUMAN INTERACTION… THEN YOU SORT OF PULL UP YOUR SOCKS AND GO SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO.”
Marine conservationist Marine c conservationist and Kenyan coral Kenyan coral reef reef expert, expert, Tim McClanahan, Tim McClanahan, AAAS AAAS Member Member
Every scientist has a
story
Read his story at membercentral.aaas.org
Published by AAAS
Reindeer Ewenki’s fading culture THE INDIGENOUS “REINDEER Ewenki”
PHOTO: AP PHOTO/ANDY WONG
peoples of China use a traditional reindeer herding system unique to the Siberian taiga forests. Yet since the 1970s, this reindeer population has decreased by at least 28% (1), posing a threat to both the reindeer and the indigenous peoples whose culture depends on them. Along with climate change, compromised habitat due to timber production, and land management that restricts foraging and seasonal migration, socioeconomic change in China threatens the reindeer herding system and reindeer population size. Reindeer and Ewenki communities were relocated in 1957, 1965, and 2003 (2), and in 1984, the household responsibility herding system replaced the collective reindeer herding system (3). After the 2003 relocation, in which reindeer were moved 280 km southward to their current location, the population declined abruptly owing to the unsuitable climate, habitat condition, and a shortage of food (4). Moreover, national and regional wildlife and forest protection programs, along with programs banning hunting for Ewenki herders (5), have allowed large mammalian predators to flourish and prey upon young reindeer (1). Because of the increasing importance of tourism as a revenue source, the whole nomadic herding system, including reindeer
and Ewenki, has gradually become sedentary, causing overgrazing and forageshortage (4–6). Meanwhile, Ewenki herders are increasingly attracted to the lifestyle offered by regional centers of urbanization. Currently, fewer than 100 Ewenki are directly or indirectly involved in reindeer herding, and fewer than 50 Ewenki regularly live in campsites. Across all Ewenki communities, there are no more than 40 people who can speak the traditional Ewenki language (2). Indigenous cultural practices have declined, including shamanistic performances, traditional medicinal use, and traditional dress, whereas the incidence of alcoholism has increased (4). Because of the threat to both the reindeer population and the development, culture, and even survival of the herding system and indigenous communities, their conservation should be prioritized. The current International Union for Conservation of Nature classification of global reindeer of “least concern” should be corrected to reflect the reindeer’s population and distribution (7–8). Reindeer in China should be recognized as “wildlife” or at least “semidomesticated wildlife” by the government and included into the national protected species list. Ecologically suitable nature reserves should be established with different functions such as reintroduction, field-releasing, feralizing, herding culture conservation, and commercial ecotourism. Reindeer and herding conservation and resource management should be based on the socioecological development of local Ewenki communities, in which economic compensation mechanisms should be initiated whereby the losses resulting from predation, climate change, and some governmental activities can be compensated, and
A member of the Ewenki walks his reindeer at a forest park in Genhe, Inner Mongolia, China. SCIENCE sciencemag.org
the locals should be provided paid positions as rangers and managers to join all aspects of the management and conservation of reindeer, and the herding cultural system. Jing Wang,1 Junping Sun,1 Achyut Aryal,2 David Raubenheimer,3 Deguang Liu,4 Yan Sheng,1 Dunhu Chang,1 Lei Shi,1 Jian Wu,1 Zhong Ma,1 Hongchen Wang,1 Xiuxiang Meng1* 1 School of Environment and Natural Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China. 2 Institute of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand. 3Charles Perkins Centre and Faculty of Veterinary Science and School of Biological Sciences, the University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia. 4College of Plant Protection, Northwest A & F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] REFERENCES
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
X. Meng et al., J. Nat. Conserv. 22, 539 (2014). R. Fraser, Inner Asia 12, 317 (2010). H. Beach, Cultural Survival Quart. 27, 33 (2003). A. Kolås, Hum. Org. 70, 397 (2011). Y. Guo et al., Chinese J. Appl. Environ. Biol. 20, 892 (2014) [in Chinese]. 6. P. Wang et al., Chinese J. Appl. Ecol. 25, 2529 (2014) [in Chinese]. 7. L. S. Vors, M. S. Boyce, Glob. Change Biol. 15, 2626 (2009). 8. B. C. Forbes et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 106, 22041 (2009).
Genetic privacy: Trust is not enough IN HER NEWS story “Trust me, I’m a medi-
cal researcher” (special section on The end of privacy, 30 January, p. 501), J. CouzinFrankel concludes that mutual trust is key for truthful collaboration between patients and medical researchers. The comparison to collaborations between service providers and users of Uber (a crowdsourced taxi service) and Airbnb (a crowdsourced hotel service) is compelling, but inaccurate: Customers of these companies can easily opt out of service when unsatisfied, with no long-term consequences. By contrast, once a person’s DNA sequence is present in public databases, there is no way to contain its dissemination (1). Whereas credit cards may be cancelled, sharing of genetic data cannot be undone, and data donors cannot, at least for the foreseeable future, replace their genetic code. Our world has become a global village, where people often move between countries in search of a livelihood, education, career, or relationship. A person who consented to the open sharing of her genome sequence in a country where she felt protected from misuse of her personal genetic information owing to laws forbidding it, such as the Genetic Information 27 FEBRUARY 2015 • VOL 347 ISSUE 6225
Published by AAAS
957
Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on February 26, 2015
LET TERS
INSIGHTS
Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA) in the United States (2), may later move to another country where such protections are nonexistent. There, she could face severe consequences such as denial of health or life insurance or mortgage (which typically requires life insurance), if her genome contains risk alleles for severe illness such as certain types of cancer or neurodegenerative disease. Moreover, even in the United States, GINA does not protect individuals from discrimination by bankers or providers of life or disability insurance (3, 4). Thus, in the context of assuring the genetic privacy of research participants, mutual trust between patients and researchers is vital, but insufficient. There are no simple solutions for the conflict between genetic privacy and biomedical research needs. Given that trust cannot be enforced, easing such tensions could best arise from further countries passing comprehensive genetic information nondiscrimination laws. David Gurwitz Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, 69978, Israel. E-mail: [email protected]
REFERENCES
1. J. E. Lunshof, R. Chadwick, D. B. Vorhaus, G. M. Church, Nat. Rev. Genet. 9, 406 (2008). 2. R. Korobkin, R. Rajkumar, N. Engl. J. Med. 359, 335 (2008). 3. D. Gurwitz, I. Fortier, J. E. Lunshof, B. M. Knoppers, Science 325, 818 (2009). 4. Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, Public Law No. 110-233.
Navigating Massive Open Online Courses WE AGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY with J.
Reich that research on the effectiveness of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) must focus on learning rather than mere clicking (“Rebooting MOOC research,” Education Forum, 2 January, p. 34). Our biggest challenge will be figuring out what is most appropriate for an individual student at a given moment. Ideally, a MOOC would work like the GPS navigation device in your car. You tell it where you want to go, it figures out where you are, and it guides you along the most optimal route. Keeping with the analogy, current MOOCs are like having all GPS navigation devices instruct every car driver to turn right at 9:15 on Monday morning.
If we can’t adapt teaching and practice to the individual learner, MOOCs will never be more than a digital version of classroom teaching. To personalize the learning experience, we first need a detailed description of what a student already can and cannot do. Such information can be determined by traditional tests or by more powerful methods such as the practice-based trackers that already exist in other domains of online education (1). The A/B testing discussed in the Education Forum provides us with ideal methodology to start putting roads on the educational map. Once we gather information about various conditions, we can map each student’s optimal route. Alexander O. Savi,1* Han L. J. van der Maas,1 Gunter K. J. Maris1,2 1
Department of Psychological Methods, University of Amsterdam, Weesperplein 4, 1018 XA, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 2Cito, Amsterdamseweg 13, 6814 CM, Arnhem, Netherlands. *Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
REFERENCE
1. S. Klinkenberg, M. Straatemeier, H. van der Maas, Comput. Educ. 57, 1813 (2011). ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Funding by NWO (The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research), grant number CI1-12-S037.
“YOU ARE WATCHING THIS BEAUTIFUL ECOSYSTEM BE DEGRADED BY CLIMATE CHANGE OR HUMAN INTERACTION… THEN YOU SORT OF PULL UP YOUR SOCKS AND GO SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO.”
Marine conservationist Marine c conservationist and Kenyan coral Kenyan coral reef reef expert, expert, Tim McClanahan, Tim McClanahan, AAAS AAAS Member Member
Every scientist has a
story
Read his story at membercentral.aaas.org
Published by AAAS
