I’ve was asked to take part in a webinar for Threatened Species Day on Tuesday 9 September (4:00 to 5:30pm AEDT) with the OceanEarth Foundation exploring the question of how to transform society’s thinking to enable conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only mechanism to create biodiversity, which is the mechanism that creates a habitable planet for humans. Without animals, the energy from today’s plants (algae, trees, flowers etc) will eventually reach the atmosphere and ocean, much of it as carbon. The quantity of this plant-based waste is so More. You can watch the seminar here:
This short blog summarises my introduction and begins by asking you three easy questions.
- Do you seek a natural area outside work to relax and recuperate?
- If necessary, could you define the natural character of this place and what attracts you to it?,
- Does this ongoing need you have, depend on that place having a healthy ecosystem?
If you answered yes to all three, you’ve proved the innate connection we have with nature. When we act to conserve wildlife we are altering its ecosystem, affecting the very foundation of your society and economy. Community-led programs are therefore necessary for conservation to become transformational. But true community participation doesn’t come naturally to most conservationists. Yet it leads to two other considerations, without which, more certain long-term outcomes might be impossible.
At the event I will briefly explain those three considerations with reference to the project Restore the Bay in Melbourne, Australia, which I’m doing alongside the wonderful OceanEarth Foundation.
STEP 1 Enable true community participation
The impact of most conservation actions – like all developments – are a foregone conclusion by the time ‘consultation’ begins with the people affected. To enable transformational change and sustain landscape-scale outcomes, modern conservationists have to learn to do conversations, not consultation.
The conversations need to happen between their own community members. It’s tough. What usually happens is people want an outsider to provide answers but that’s not something anyone can do. Their own thinking hasn’t transformed yet. Whatever they suggest will inevitably conflict with something no-one properly understands yet because they’ve only just met.
Transformational change doesn’t depend on altering what people think. It depends on discovering what we all know. All communities on Earth have the capacity to look after their landscape, evidenced by the fact we can all answer the three questions (above) in the affirmative.
The role of a conservationist is to enable imagination and use shared experiences to reframe the conversation around what could be possible. At first, that doesn’t mean assuming the possible is either necessary or achievable. It means celebrating the knowledge and values we share until the answers begin to appear.
READ MORE Why we have conversations and not consultation We’re used to being ‘consulted with’ on environmental issues. It turns out, this is a terrible methodology. This is why, in Restore the Bay, we talk about conversations, not consultation. There are certain words we never use. For example, no-one is here to teach anyone. It’s not about community education … which implies there is something you don’t know.
STEP 2 Focus on values and their connection to ecological features
The questions and approach outlined above lead to one inevitable conclusion. Shared social values flow back through identifiable ecological features that can be protected. Compiling this evidence alongside people affected (and not before) enables a whole community to imagine possibilities that might include restoring wildlife populations. This has a greater chance of success when the community is involved because decisions are socially-prioritised.
As the community learns to understand their own ecosystem, it also fosters stronger connection to nature, sense of community belonging and wiser decision-making for all. Plus, the community can map the effects of conservation and the positive impact that has on shared social values, which also reduces conflict.
READ MORE Passing the sniff test: the science behind our decision tool. The majority of our socio-economic values arise from the health of specific ecosystem features and services. In our approach we know exactly where this lies. If we identify that 25% of community values are affected by impacts on three specific ecosystem features, we might want to interrogate that more specifically, to identify exactly where those features are and which community members are most seriously affected.
Many shared values are supported by Cultural Ecosystem Services and are the foundation for whole economies. You answered the three questions (above) by the way you ‘feel’. It’s these less tangible connections we have with nature that make up the majority of our economic resilienceReferring to an ecosystem’s ability to maintain a steady stable-state. The need to build resilience is entirely anthropocentric and symptomatic of ecosystems that are damaged or declining, leading to loss of ecosystem services on which humans depend. More. Yet when we divest decision-making to an outside authority – even a conservation organisation – they are usually measuring outcomes based only on the number of animals.
STEP 3 Put a value on ecosystem services not components
This is the final consideration but the most important. There is hardly a conservation project in the world that gets this right. That’s because most conservationists skip the first two steps, leaving them no choice but to compete for money based on the number of animals they can rebuild. Number of animals is not an inherently poor metric for outcomes but when it is the only metric, we have problems.
Ask yourself, how many is the right number of animals for anywhere? There is no answer. Too many and it costs too much, too few and it costs too much. The ‘cost’ is societal. It’s either in conflict between wildlife and people, or in tax dollars to prop up species survival in tiny reserves. Either way, decisions to protect animals that aren’t truly community led and co-designed are not sustainable because they leave shared values out of the cost-benefit equation, leaving only cost.
The consequence of overlooking the value of services animals provide, is to disarm community involvement and almost inevitably cause social disruptionThe result of an action that creates a sudden change in the stability of an ecosystem or process. This tends to create a gap where there is free surplus energy and organisms will move in to fill the space. Disruption might be a tree fall, or the application of pesticide to farmland. Disruption is important to maintain dynamics in ecosystems More and failure to provide evidence of success. Eventually funding dries up. The threat to wildlife may not have changed (or it has changed, but society has not transformed it’s thinking to adapt and remove the new threat), so the species once again becomes threatened with extinction.
READ MORE From love to hate wildlife to awe-inspiring possibility conservationists are getting this wrong most of the time and it leads to broadscale economic loss. Refocusing our understanding will shift society from love to hate wildlife to awe-inspiring possibility for regional economies. It’s the key to a more nature-centred and thriving society.
Transforming conservation outcomes
EcosystemsHow ecosystems function An ecosystem is a community of lifeforms that interact in such an optimal way that how ecosystems function best, is when all components (including humans and other animals) can persist and live alongside each other for the longest time possible. Ecosystems are fuelled by the energy created by plants (primary producers) that convert the Sun's heat energy More without animals are functionless. Animals that are disconnected from ecosystems are functionless. This is why we know conservation is important. But restoring functional ecosystems requires a systems-level understanding of the connection between animals, the landscape and people. Because, whether we like it or not, humans remain the drivers of most ecosystem processes.
For these reasons, a transformation in the way people see themselves as part of nature is needed to ensure conservation activity can become scalable and sustainable.
- Transformational change cannot happen unless programs are community led and co-designed throughout.
- Evaluation of a program must happen before actions are taken, so the community can make decisions and co-design projects, identifying where, when and how they will be done. This ensures the outcomes are socially prioritised and measurable, enabling long-term financial and social security and sustainability.
- Programs must value the services animals provide, not the number of animals (because putting value on the component makes them a liability risk).
Integrating community knowledge, in particular Cultural Ecosystem Services (supporting the way people need to feel, to be productive), leads to a different and altogether more effective set of measures. Conservation programs that establish around these principles will be far more likely to achieve long-term ambitions.
