Global ChangeIntersection of Nature and Culture

The diversity of values held by conservation scientists and why this matters

Monday, November 1st, 2010

Right up there with climate change, biodiversity conservation is one of the most challenging issues at the intersection of nature and culture.  Part of this challenge arises because of genuine differences in how people value other species.

In an interesting forthcoming article in Conservation Biology, Chris Sandbrook and colleagues at Cambridge University argue that these value differences not only show up in society at large, but among conservation professionals, who—like climate scientists—are drawn to the possibility of developing scientific consensuses to inform policy debates:

Conservation biology has been called a crisis science and a mission-driven discipline. Both the mission, and its urgency, seem clear, and there has been a substantial increase in activities intended to address the rapid decline in the variety of life on Earth at all levels of biological organization (structure, composition, and function). Nevertheless, there are tensions within the field about the values that underpin the conservation mission, particularly concerning the nature and singularity of these values and the role of values when conservation professionals try to inform or influence policy.

Recently, the values held by conservation professionals themselves have been debated. Conservation professionals often refer to both instrumental values (the usefulness of nature for humans) and noninstrumental or intrinsic values, and there may be an element of opportunism when they do so. Thus, although some may privately base the positions they hold on intrinsic values, they may espouse use-value arguments in public, adapting arguments to the interests of their audience. Some call for conservation scientists to return to a conservation ethic derived from intrinsic values

…[Others] propose a more pragmatic engagement with material values of nature in their focus on what they see as the “hard socioeconomic realities in real-world conservation problems.” The environmental philosophy of pragmatism, with its acceptance of both intrinsic and instrumental values of nature, is the hallmark of adaptive management

To study values held by conservationists, the research team posed a set of values to scientists and asked them to rank the degree to which they agreed or disagreed with the statements (Q methodology).  The responses were then run through a set of statistics (factor analysis) to distill the huge pile of value-by-person data into four overarching factors that summarized the main values held.

Their results suggest that consensus building may not only be difficult, it may be counterproductive…

Excerpts edited by me:

Factor 1…reflected the view that the value of biodiversity does not depend on its current usefulness to humans, potential future values to humans, or its importance to human survival.

• In terms of strategies and actions for conservation, the factor focused on global issues, such as changing human population growth rate and to a lesser extent changing the consumption levels of the wealthy.
• At the local level the factor did not express that conservation has a role in addressing poverty alleviation and considered it important to understand how people and nature interact in particular places, which suggests respondents considered that livelihoods of the poor as well as the rich are linked to biodiversity conservation.
• Because the focus of this factor was human population size and resource consumption, respondents appeared to be influenced by the concept of carrying capacity.

Factor 2…reflected a preservationist viewpoint, that conservation should prevent the human caused extinction of species.

• Nevertheless, the views in this factor emphasized social issues in the practice of conservation, particularly understanding how people and nature interact in places and to a lesser extent ensuring that conservation does no harm to human communities and does not displace long-term residents.
• This emphasis and the fact that science driven approaches to priority setting were rejected, suggests that this factor represents the viewpoint that conservation is mainly a political rather than a scientific endeavor.
• In terms of practical strategies, those that adhered to this factor do not believe conservation should focus on protected areas, involve strict law enforcement, or keep areas free from human influence.
• Rather, adherents to this factor strongly supported changes in consumption by the rich, which are actions far removed from the local level of protected areas. At the same time, the factor does not suggest the sole purpose of conservation is human survival.
• The factor also reflects a deep engagement in pragmatic and economic approaches to conservation action. Thus, the viewpoint expressed by this factor was that conservation planning must be local, can involve trade-based
  strategies, and can use incentives.
• This factor also showed there was an interest in holistic solutions, that conservation should not be confined to key priorities or areas and conservation actions should not be focused only where they are most cost-effective.

Factor 3…reflected a viewpoint that emphasized the diverse values of biodiversity, particularly the right of all species to exist and the role of species
in sustaining ecosystem functions

• The notions that trade in wild species can be a tool for conservation and that conservation action should prioritize cost-effectiveness were strongly rejected.
• Instead, priority was given to conservation of species and ecosystems, and the belief was that they should be conserved through implementation of protected areas. Little attention was given to the context and complexities of the practice of conservation, and there was a sense of disconnection between people and their environment at a variety of spatial scales, as evidenced by the focus on protected areas, little emphasis (relative to the other discourses) on understanding how people and nature interact, and rejection of any connection between conservation and consumption by the rich.
• Overall, this factor emphasized reasons biodiversity should be conserved, but gave little attention to mechanisms for achieving this goal.

Factor 4… reflected a view that biodiversity is useful to people, rejecting notions that biological diversity should be conserved for its beauty and that
all species have a right to exist.

• It emphasized the importance of connections between people and the environment, arguing that conservation success requires substantial changes in both human population growth and consumption by the rich.
• Conservation planning was seen to require detailed place-specific knowledge of human–environment interactions and not less-grounded patterns generated through tools such as GIS.
• The position expressed in this factor on economic tools was cautious: incentives are needed and cost-effectiveness is important, but trade in wild species and products was not considered a useful tool for biodiversity conservation.

There are several things I like about this article:

First is the notion that conservation is as political as it scientific— informed by the social sciences (policy, economics, sociology, psychology) and humanities (ethics, history) and ultimately debated by our local, national, and global societies.  It is not the role of science to drive contested, normative debates, although it’s great at providing information to inform these debates.

Second, now you see part of the reason why issues like conservation can be so contentious. There are myriad ways that people value biodiversity and it’s often difficult to reconcile these opposing philosophical positions.

Third, as I have written about previously on the blog, this is a good example of why nature needs to be situated in the context of culture and vice versa in order for challenging environmental problems to be studied effectively, as the authors allude to here (emphasis added):

[O]ur results provide an empirical challenge to the portrayal of conservation as a monolithic activity, driven by a convergent set of Western values, implicitly denying the possibility of differences in viewpoints about conservation at many spatial and temporal scales. The monolithic conception of conservation is based on an assumption that conservation professionals share a core set of values and goals, regardless of the social and economic contexts in which they are embedded and the experiences that have shaped their conservation interests. In reality, most conservation professionals draw on a range of values, from the intrinsic values of species to the use values of nature to humans. We consider it likely that such diverse views exist across a wide range of individuals and organizations involved in conservation.

…We believe conservation science and practice should not try to create a consensus under which conservation professionals can unite and instead acknowledge the diversity of opinions in the field. By acknowledging different
viewpoints, we believe conservation actors can build more honest and ultimately effective relationships with each other and the wider public.

SANDBROOK, C., SCALES, I., VIRA, B., & ADAMS, W. (2010). Value Plurality among Conservation Professionals Conservation Biology DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01592.x

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Photo credit: wildxplorer