Overlapping Hotspots: A student atlas of the effects of ASF control measures on biodiversity in Lusa

This hands-on research-oriented course involves planned excursion focuses on the intersection of biodiversity and disease control measures for African Swine Fever (ASF), a highly deadly (95% est. lethality) hemorrhagic virus virus affecting pigs and wild boars. ASF also exists beyond the bodies of sus scrofa species, being omnipresent in the environment and having the ability to be carried in meat and on material surfaces. (1) The movement of the major host, wild boars, who are found in high numbers in the German borderland with Poland are attempted to be restricted via wildlife fencing which beyond disturbing genetic exchange in wildlife and leading to deaths on and at the fences, there may be unintended effects on the 'Weide Nutztierlandschaft' via the affective learning of wolves to jump such 'parallel fences'. (2) as a result of this omnipresence, overlapped with the high fever symptoms of ASF and wild boars going to wet and moist biodiversity sensitive regions, wild boar carcasses and removal efforts in Lusatia, as a region with many moors and wetlands. 

Two separate planned in-person excursions related to the above topics (1 - June 21 (Evening arrival) - 23 & 28 (ibid) - 30 & 2 - July 22-26) will take place over 4 days (of work) each with 2 day in Saxony (upper Lusatia) and Brandenburg (lower Lusatia). The excursions will be supported by an online component of background readings (more-than-human food geographies, animal/disease control infrastructure/ biosecurity/biodiversity overlaps outside the farm, etc) and methodological preparation (for surveys, interviews and GIS data management), with the students expected to deliver their own findings that contribute to a compiled atlas of maps and essays.

Lusatia is a site of late-capitalist cultural and economic development after its expansive settlement prior to world war two and displacement of the native slavic speaking populations as a crucial border region producing coal, lumber, water, and textiles. Hunting has thrived in the region with the flat lands and sensitive biodiversity soils, plant and animal life provided by the post-glacial landscape (brown coal being a result of glacial flows). This project will facilitate further exploration of how the fragmented ecology of Lusatia as a 'cultural landscape' – development of the region for economic purposes – contributes too sustaining a large wildlife population (wild boars, deer, wolves), which has been a challenged for containing the spread of ASF.  Lusatia offers 'more than ideal living room' of monoculture forest/farms. In seeking to protect the industrial pork industry in Germany, biosecurity applications outside the farm disturb biodiversity and the diversity of the agricultural landscape. As viral and biodiversity hotspots come to overlap with one another, the government and peri-government responses question the biological sustainability of disease management control over the landscape.