Why ecocentrism is the key pathway to sustainability

Animals

Human activity affecting the welfare of wild vertebrates, widely accepted to be sentient, and therefore deserving of moral concern, is widespread. A variety of motives lead to the killing of individual wild animals. These include to provide food, to protect stock and other human interests, and also for sport. The acceptability of such killing is widely believed to vary with the motive and method. Individual vertebrates are also killed by conservationists. Whether securing conservation goals is an adequate reason for such killing has recently been challenged. Conventional conservation practice has tended to prioritise ecological collectives, such as populations and species, when their interests conflict with those of individuals. Supporters of the ‘Compassionate Conservation’ movement argue both that conservationists have neglected animal welfare when such conflicts arise and that no killing for conservation is justified. We counter that conservationists increasingly seek to adhere t...

Nature Sustainability, 2019

Biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate, making the conservation movement of critical importance for life on Earth. However, recent debates over the future of conservation have been polarised, acrimonious and dominated by an unrepresentative demographic group. The views of the wider global conservation community on fundamental questions regarding what, why and how to conserve are unknown. Here we characterise the views of 9,264 conservationists from 149 countries, identifying specific areas of consensus and disagreement, and three independent dimensions of conservation thinking. The first two dimensions ('people-centred conservation' and 'science-led ecocentrism') have widespread support, whereas 'conservation through capitalism' is more contentious. While conservationists' views on these three dimensions do not fall into distinct clusters, there are clear relationships between dimension scores and respondents' gender, age, educational background, career stage and continent of nationality. Future debates and policy processes should focus on the most contentious issues, and do more to include the perspectives of under-represented groups in conservation who may not share the views of those in more powerful positions. Main text Conservation is at a crossroads. Biodiversity loss is widely recognised as having serious consequences, but despite decades of effort in policy and site specific interventions, extinction rates remain high 1,2. The Convention on Biological Diversity 2010 goal to achieve "a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss" was not achieved, and there is no indication that the CBD Aichi targets for 2020 will be met 3. Against this backdrop, negotiations are underway for the post 2020 Biodiversity Framework of the CBD, which will set the global conservation agenda for at least a decade to come. There is widespread agreement that conservation needs to be more bold and ambitious, and to find more effective implementation measures 4,5. However, setting the future direction of conservation is hampered by the existence of various competing proposals which diverge on fundamental questions about why, what and how to conserve 4,6-9. Two positions in particular have been prominent in recent debates. Proponents of 'new conservation' argue for protecting biodiversity because of its importance to people, and emphasise partnerships with corporations, the natural capital approach, and the use of market-based tools such as payments for ecosystem services 6,10,11. Meanwhile advocates of 'traditional conservation' reject these views, arguing instead for the protection of nature for its own sake and emphasising state-based protected areas and regulation 7,12,13. This latter position is associated with calls for the radical expansion of protected area coverage targets in the post 2020 CBD framework to at least 50% of the terrestrial and marine realms 5,8,9. The 'new conservation' debate has dominated conservation thinking for several years, creating the impression of a stark choice to be made about the future of conservation. However, the debate has been critiqued in various ways. First, for recasting as 'new' what are in fact long-standing disagreements in conservation 11,14,15 over underlying rationales (such as ecocentrism and anthropocentrism) 16,17 , the role of market based approaches and economic valuation 18,19 , and the relationship between conservation and development 14,20. Second, for falsely suggesting there are only two perspectives, leaving out important alternative views on conservation, such as a 'critical social science' view which favours conservation for the benefit of people but disagrees with the use of market based approaches 4,21,22. Third, for under-representing the diversity of voices in the wider conservation community, because the main protagonists of the 'new conservation' debate are from an unrepresentative demographic group of North Americans who hold senior positions 23. Fourth, for being conducted in an excessively acrimonious and hostile tone 24,25. Addressing these critiques and moving the debate forwards requires empirical evidence on the views of the wider conservation community. However, at present these views remain unknown, beyond studies of specific issues such as coexistence with carnivores 26. Here, we report the findings of an online survey of 9,264 conservation practitioners and academics from 149 countries (Supplementary Figure 1). This is the largest published survey of the professional conservation community, responding directly to calls for conservationists to carefully identify their views and values, and to express them explicitly 14,27. Respondents indicated their level of agreement with 38 Likert items that were designed to assess their views on the issues raised within the new conservation debate, such as the underlying rationales for conservation, how goals should be set and the appropriateness of various tools to achieve those goals (Figure 1; see Methods for details). Respondents also provided information on their gender, age, educational background, career stage and continent of nationality (Supplementary Table 1). The survey was distributed via relevant listservs and through social media channels, targeted to encompass a range of ages and seniority (e.g. postgraduate and early career lists), disciplines (e.g. conservation social science, ecology specialist lists) and geographical locations (continent and country specific lists). The survey was then circulated organically amongst networks of conservation professionals and through social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Areas of consensus and polarization We found high levels of consensus among our respondents on multiple survey items, but also important areas with high levels of polarization (Figure 1; Supplementary Figure 2). As might be expected, the strongest consensus was in agreement that the maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem processes should be goals of conservation.

Animals, 2020

The study was conducted within and adjacent to Chitwan National Park in Nepal (CNP), where several wildlife species are involved in conflicts with humans. We assessed the spatial relationships between the number of victims/km2 (=victim density or VD) of attack by wildlife (elephant, rhino, wild boar, sloth bear, leopard or tiger) versus landscape features, including both natural habitat type and land use by humans (e.g., nursery, orchard or cultivated). We identified four levels of VD, ranging from <1 V (victim)/4 km2 to >1 V/2 km2 for each land use zone, then tested for correlations at one or more of those VD between each pair of wildlife species across different land use types. Our results high correlation for sloth bear and leopard (r ≈ 0.8), for all species except elephant and wild boar at VD > 1 V/4 km2 (r > 0.9) and for leopard vs. rhinoceros (r = 0.99) across land use types at 1 V/4 km2) indicate some risk-reduction measures. One of them would be division of each ...