Conservation Conflicts Flashcards
Why Conflicts?
Why Conflicts?
The human population is growing
Human influence spreads into most ecosystems
Contact between people and wildlife leads to conflicts
Competition over limited resources leads to conflicts
Differing value systems lead to conflicts
Conservation success can result in conflicts
Why Conflicts?
Conflicts can have positive outcomes
More often they are costly
Time, Money, PR, Trust
So understanding causes and consequences of conflicts important for environmental management
Conflicts are “one of the most intractable
problems facing conservation”
Conservation conflicts are “situations that occur when two or more parties with strongly held opinions clash over conservation objectives and when one party is perceived to assert its interests at the expense of another”
TREE 28: 100-109 (2013)
Redpath et al., 2013
Two types of conflict
Human-wildlife conflicts:
- conflicts involving direct interactions between people and wildlife
Biodiversity conflicts
arguments between people seeking to conserve species and those with other goals
Human-wildlife conflict
crop-raiding
predation of livestock and game
injury or death of people
Case Study
Human-Carnivore Conflict
Treves, A., & Karanth, K. (2003). Human-carnivore conflict and perspectives on carnivore management worldwide Conservation Biology 17: 1491–1499
Carnivore-related threats to: human life
economic security
recreation
Conflicts pit people against carnivores, and against other people who want to conserve carnivores
Carnivores eat livestock
Wolves and bears eat sheep (Europe, N America)
Pumas and jaguars eat cattle (S America)
Tigers and leopards eat livestock (Asia)
Smaller carnivores eat game species, crops, fish, poultry
Conservation can drive conflicts
Carnivores are often conservation icons
Restoring habitat can bring carnivores closer to human settlements
Restoring and reintroducing carnivore populations increases the chance of contact
Livestock depredation by large carnivores in the Indian trans-Himalaya
Mishra
Madhusudan
Living amidst large wildlife:
livestock and crop predredation in South India
Linking snow leopard conservation and people-wildlife conflict resolution: grassroots measures to protect the endangered snow leopard from herder retribution
Livestock depredation has become a significant problem across the snow leopard’s range in Central Asia. Such predation, especially incidents of “surplus killing”, in which 5 to 100 more sheep and goats are lost in a single night, almost inevitably leads herders to retaliate by killing rare or endangered carnivores like snow leopard, wolf, and lynx. Such loss can be avoided by making the night-time enclosures predator-proof, improving animal husbandry techniques, educating herders on wildlife consrvation and the importance of protecting the natural prey base, and by providing economic incentives like handicrafts skills training and marketing, along with carefully planned ecotourism;
Large carnivore depredation on livestock in Europe
Each bear kills an average of 82 sheep annually, each wolf 41, and each lynx 9
Managing wolf conflict with livestock in NW USA
Wolves were once common but deliberately exterminated because of livestock depredations. Sixty years later the gray wolf was listed under endangered species act. Natural recovery and reintroduction has resulted in an expanding wolf population. Minimise conflicts between wolves and livestock to build human tolerance for restoring wolf populations
Sandstrom et al., 2015
Meta-analysis of studies on attitudes towards bears and wolves
“Across Europe, people’s attitudes were more positive toward bears than wolves. Attitudes toward bears became more positive over time, but attitudes toward wolves seemed to become less favorable the longer people coexisted with them. Younger and more educated people had more positive attitudes toward wolves and bears than people who had experienced damage from these species, and farmers and hunters had less positive attitudes toward wolves than the general public.”
Navarrete et al., 2016
Moral dimensions of human-wildlife conflict
“Most respondents attributed intrinsic value to wolves… Leveraging agreement over intrinsic value may foster cooperation among stakeholders and garner support for controversial conservation policy.”
Case Study
Hen Harriers and Red Grouse
Thirgood, S., & Redpath, S. (2008). Hen harriers and red grouse: science, politics and human-wildlife conflict Journal Of Applied Ecology 45: 1550–1554
The context
Many heather moorlands in the UK are managed
for grouse
Management involves burning heather, and
controlling parasites and predators
Killing raptors illegal, but continues and is the
main limiting factor to harrier populations
Hen Harriers and Red Grouse
The conflict
At high population densities, harriers do limit grouse populations
This reduces shooting bags
Which causes economic losses (c. £100K on
one moor in one year)
Potential solutions
Diversionary feeding
Legal limit on harrier densities
Conservationists prefer no control
Hunters prefer legal culls
No agreement results in illegal killing of raptors
“The problems are 99% political, we need no new data to know what to do” Jeremy Jackson
Redpath et al. (2013) TREE 28: 100-109
“Progress… occurs when ecologists work with sociologists and economists, not when they do more ecology” Sybille van den Hove
“There is no silver bullet, but there are silver
principles - engaging people is key to success”
Juan-Carlos Castilla
People: the common thread
all proposed solutions involve engaging people
people are (by definition) central to human-wildlife conflicts
Conservation Conflicts
some conflicts are all about values
not simply health, safety, livelihood or economics
not simple ecological problems
people arguing about conservation and policy priorities
Case Study
Hedgehogs and Ground-Nesting Birds
Webb, T. J., & Raffaelli, D. (2008) Conversations in conservation: revealing and dealing with language differences in environmental conflicts Journal of Applied Ecology 45: 1198–1204
Hedgehog population exploded from 4 to >5000
Hedgehogs vs. Waders
Decline in internationally important breeding colonies of wading birds
Ecological evidence of causation very clear
SNH solution: cull the hedgehogs
Cue howls of protest from animal rights groups, celebrities, print and broadcast media
Solutions Do a New Zealand?
Implications
Immediate conservation problem solved
Could lead to a legacy of mistrust
SNH already referred to as a ‘so-called ‘conservation’ quango’
Perhaps OK if restricted to animal rights activists Less so if spread through the press
Restoring the Auckland Islands: Eradicating pigs and cats
Wild animal control and biosecurity services
Hedgehog threat to wading birds (BBC 1998)
Death knell for island hedgehogs (BBC)
Hedgehog death squads get ready to exterminate invaders (Independent)
£5 for every hedgehog saved from extermination (Independent)
Islanders net £4000 in bounties as hedgehog rescuers needle SNH (Scotsman)
HEDGEHOG CULL FURY (Gloucestershire Echo) HEDGEHOG TAX FURY (Sunday Mail)
Hedgehog massacre planned on Scottish Islands (New Scientist)
Hedgehogs Must Die (Telegraph)
Birds vs. Hedgehogs
Birds vs. Hedgehogs
This conflict typifies many conservation conflicts
Disagreements between groups which do ‘value nature’
Valuing a wildlife spectacle (rights of species)
Valuing the rights of individual animals
Perry, D., & Perry, G. (2008) Improving interactions between animal rights groups and conservation biologists Conservation Biology 22: 27–35
Eradication of invasive species vs. animal rights groups
Case Study
North Sea Cod Recovery Programme
Cod Recovery Plan Context
CRP introduced in 2004 in response to North Sea spawning stock biomass of cod decline from 250KT in 1970s to 39KT in 2002
Cod quotas cut, days-at-sea restrictions imposed, various monitoring requirements
Less than ICES recommendations (which included a closure of the fishery in 2003 and zero catch from 2003-2007)
. . .in the name of trying to restore cod stocks to unattainable levels, fishermen have to stagger on year after year under an increasingly unsupportable burden of restrictions. At most risk this year are the prawn fisheries, which the EU Commission shows every sign of wanting to restrict as part of its ‘Cod is God’ campaign (Fishing News, editorial, 21/10/05, p. 2).
It’s plain for all to see that ‘cod is still God’ to Joe and his cronies across in Brussels (Skipper Alex Flett, Fishing News, 28/10/05, p. 7).
[I am not prepared to contemplate] what some people have called a ‘sod the cod’ policy. (Ben Bradshaw, then UK Fisheries Minister, Fishing News, 16/12/05, p. 7).
The message from Brussels is now clear—cod is being written off as a priority stock worth conserving. With each successive year of tinkering with the problem, this perception of ‘sod the cod’ is gaining currency. (Dr. Euan Dunn, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Fishing News, 5/1/07, p. 4).
Two different perspectives. The cause of cod declines:
Overfishing vs. climate change
Conceptual: the purpose of ecosystem-based management:
Maintain ecosystem within range of natural variability vs. adapt to ecosystem change by fishing different species
Political governance structure:
top-down regulation vs. participatory management
Solutions Policy Consensus Building
Building consensus:
Cod Symposium held in 2007 Major attempt to build consensus With some notable success
Cod Symposium Consensus
Cod decline was caused by both overfishing and environmental factors
At least some recovery of North Sea cod is possible
Any recovery plan for cod should not impinge on sustainable fisheries for other stocks
Movement in the right direction more important than hitting specific biomass targets
But…
Some differences just too deep to resolve Fishers will always want to fish
Sod-the-codders favoured increased quotas, to avoid discards of mature cod
Cod-is-godders felt otherwise, e.g. “…all the scientific advice still points to the need for much less fishing effort if cod stocks are to
recover” (Defra)
Consensus may be unattainable:
People may just plain disagree
Management requires that difficult decisions be made
Not everyone will be happy with any decision
Consensus should be sought:
Efforts to address points of contention important
Speaking the same language is a good start
Open official channels for participation - the alternative is often protest
The Science of Conservation Conflicts
Such engagement is often uncomfortable for scientists
But applied ecology is judged on impact
And providing management advice is just the start
Impact only occurs when policy is implemented
Conclusions
Conservation is about conflict, consensus, and compromise
Understanding the values and priorities of stakeholders is vital to effective conservation action
The emerging interdisciplinary natural-social science of conservation conflicts is set to be an important tool
Difficult choices must be made about the most effective ways of conserving biodiversity in an increasingly crowded world,
while considering the legitimate livelihoods and well-being of affected humans.
Redpath et al. (2013) TREE 28: 100-109
