Session 3: Conservation values

Session 3: Conservation values

1. Pristine landscapes vs. learning to live with people and nature

2. Soule's normative statements on Conservation Biology (1985)

   • Diversity of organisms is good
   • Ecological complexity is good
   • Evolution is good
   • Biotic diversity has intrinsic value, irrespective of its instrumental or utilitarian value
   • Differs to the newer approach: Karieva & Marnier's normative statements on CB (2012)
     • Conservation must occur within human-altered landscapes
     • Conservation will be a durable success only if people support conservation goals
     • Conservationists must work with corporations
     • Conservation will only succeed if people seek to jointly maximise conservation and economic objectives
     • Conservation must not infringe on human rights and must embrace the principles of fairness and gender equity
     • Mission statements of newer conservation organisations are a lot more inclusive of human needs

3. 1989 Moi staged first ever ivory burn in Nairobi national park, Kenya - showing that the intrinsic value exists within the elephants, not their ivory

   • CITES banned commercial trade in African elephant ivory
   • Differs to what's happening in South Africa - more about control...selling nature to people to save nature
     • Legal trade of Africa's rhino horns
     • South Africa allows hunting within their parks (unlike morals of Kenya)
       • Pump hunting money back into conservation
     • South African model - maximize conservation and economic objectives
       • Economic principles
       • Funding conservation through hunting
       • Criticize trade bans for limiting supply, raising prices and driving black market poaching
   • Kenyan/East African model - biotic diversity has intrinsic value
     • Moral principles
     • Zero tolerance for wildlife crime
     • Criticize sales for opening markets elsewhere and driving black market poaching

4. Conservation is most challenging where most biodiversity exists i.e. tropics, developing countries

   • Poverty
   • Low research and governance capacity
   • In developing countries, income and benefits received from conservation are not being felt locally
     • Low literacy rates and high poverty rates
   • Leads to a lot of human-human and human-wildlife conflict
     • Up to 5000 rangers have been killed in the last 10 years due to illegal wildlife trade
   • Increasing development threatens the efforts of biodiversity conservation
     • There is however a national park right on the outskirt of Nairobi on the edge of the city
       • Shows the 2 can work together but can result in conflicts
         • Railway planned to be built through the national park - protested against

5. Case study: values in marine conservation, East Africa

   • What is important to people?
     • People have high levels of dependence on fishing
       • Coastal areas in Kenya is one of the poorest regions - rely on fisheries for food and income
     • Used photovoice to assess this
       • No predetermination of what is important to locals
       • 4 main trends
         • Spiritual & religious value - 'traditional elders...can reach God through living things'
         • Economic value - fish
         • Cultural - 'when one relaxes at the beach, he feels fresher'
         • Tradition - 'we are proud of our fishing...we are skilled experts in fishing of octopus'
       • Priority hierarchy
         • Provisioning (fishing and materials) > cultural (education, bequest, culture, recreation) > supporting (habitat) > regulating (coastal protection, sanitation)
   • How do people prioritise 'natures contributions'?
     • Focus groups & interviews in 4 countries --> 22 communities --> >700 respondents
       • Fishery > habitat and education > coastal protection, sanitation and bequest > materials, recreation and culture
   • Why do people prioritise 'natures contributions'?
     • Trade-off between held values
       • Self-enhancement (power & achievement) vs. self-transcendence (benevolence & universalism)
         • Benevolence = welfare of people close to you
         • Universalism = welfare of all people and nature
       • Traditionalism (security & tradition) vs. openness to change (stimulation & self-direction)
     • Fishery comes under self-enhancement which conflicts with coastal protection and habitat (come under self-transcendence)
   • Background
     • Generally relies on government enforcement
       • However, where community cohesion is high (with government support) there has been a number of co-management arrangements
     • Most management involves some form of area or gear based controls
     • Parks were set up after colonialism - for viewing nature for recreational services
       • Now have more of a conservation role
     • Exist within a social-ecological system i.e. people constantly interacting with local environment

6. Case study: Swiss Alps

   • Background
     • Landscape change causes
       • Agriculture use
       • Abandonment of agricultural use
         • Big in peripheral areas
         • After this = natural reforestation --> good opportunity for protection of natural areas that can be left free to grow
           • Conflicts against interest in lowlands to invest more into saving the traditional, cultural landscapes with high scenic value and biodiversity
       • Tourism
       • Industry
   • Want to look at inter-relationship between environmental values/conservation priorities and landscape preferences
     • Similar study done in Norway
     • Want to know if people value the traditional conservation way or the more modern approach of conserving natural processes and entire ecosystems
       • van den Born (2006) talks about the 'visions of nature'=idea that people hold of what nature is and how we should relate to it
         • Encompasses 3 main aspects of peoples ideas on nature
           • Values of nature (why it is important)
           • Images of nature
             • Some people have an anthropocentric view of nature (in their head nature=landscapes with human influence i.e. cultural landscapes)
             • Some people have an ecocentric view of nature (in their head nature=untouched landscape)
           • Images of relationship
             • How people perceive nature and humans to be related e.g. 'dominion over nature', or 'stewardship'
   • https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10531-009-9603-9.pdf