Ethical Issues in Conservation

Dear Colleagues,

There are many pressing conservation challenges we face today including climate change and massive habitat loss around the world. How to protect biodiversity, and to restore and regenerate ecological systems, is necessarily difficult and complex, and requires engaging or reengaging many different stakeholder groups. It requires us to employ many different policy tools and conservation interventions, and to apply them at once at multiple scales, from one's front yard and neighborhood, to cities, states, countries and at the international level as well. The conservation tools are varied and range from official plans and regulations to public education programs to incentives-based approaches. These different geographical scales and different (and many) policy levers in turn raise significant values and ethics questions. Moreover, conservation necessarily involves multiple stakeholders with often quite different values and perspectives and modes of operation. These include government agencies, private conservation organizations, and the general public, among many others.

However, every conservation action from the smallest to the largest raises serious value and ethical questions. We rarely talk about or sufficiently uncover and analyze them, something this Special Issue of conservation aims to partially rectify. While we mostly agree that there is a need to move quickly to transition to renewable energy, what happens when solar or wind projects harm biodiversity and threaten the existence even of some species? Decisions at even a smaller scale–say, what species of trees to plant in an urban forest (or even our backyard)—represent serious value choices (do we select only native species that support local biodiversity, or do we accept that other values such as beauty, safety and ease of management also legitimately come into play?) Many of the specific programs, policies and institutions by which we seek to advance conservation are inherently controversial: the role of zoos and aquaria, for instance, or the management of non-native and invasive species. 

Rarely do we see the conservation of biodiversity and natural systems as an ethical matter. It is often treated more as a technical or scientific endeavor, even though there are usually deep ethical quandaries and value assumptions are almost always present. International treaties and agreements between the wealthier (and some would say more culpable) nations (and cities) of the Global North, and the less affluent of Global South, for example, raise difficult questions of fairness and equity.

Increasingly under discussion are larger conservation goals and strategies such as the (now adopted) goal of 30% protected area of earth and sea by 2030, or even more ambitious the vision of Half Earth. A number of difficult ethical issues emerge here: where will protected or conserved land be set aside, and who will benefit (or be harmed) in the process; who (e.g., which countries) will pay to achieve these conservation goals and what is a fair and equitable outcome? Furthermore, how will those living in or near to these conserved areas be impacted and how will their traditional rights or uses be curtailed (or expanded if given more direct management control). There are many difficult ethical and value-added aspects of these conservation strategies in need of working through and it is hoped the Special Issue organized here will help advance discussion and resolution of some of these difficult questions.

Examples of specific topics of articles in this Special Issue could include the following:

• Environmental justice with examples and case studies efforts to implement environmental justice policies at city, regional or national levels;

• Analysis of major values or ethical concepts or principles that ought to guide conservation programs and decisions;
• An analysis of the extent of our collective environmental rights (e.g., to clean air, water, to see the night sky);
• The importance of the perspective of animal rights and welfare and potential conflicts with conservation efforts?
• The ethics of large scale conservation visions such as Half Earth;
• Ethical assumptions of wildlife and biodiversity modeling;
• Ethical dilemmas in the forging of international treaties, agreements, and diplomacy on behalf of conservation (e.g., are there economic or political power imbalances that lead to unfair outcomes);
• The rights of nature movement and its implications for conservation?
• Ethical perspectives on extinction and the ethical obligation to prevent human-caused extinction;
• Ethical dilemmas in design and implementation of urban rewilding programs;
• Ethical dimensions of the politics of conservation: e.g., how fair and equitable is the decision-making process through which conservation decisions are made;
• The ethical aspects of conservation science: how do we go about studying biodiversity and nature and are there ethical guideposts and standards that must be adhered to along the way (e.g., research ethics standards of conduct, standards of evidence);
• The ethical frameworks and ideas of native and indigenous peoples and their importance in conservation decision making and policy;
• The role of awe and wonder in protecting nature and in building up public support for conservation;
• How to balance or navigate the tradeoffs between conserving and protecting different species;
• Questions of whether particular species should be given priority in conservation. Iconic or culturally important species? Perhaps visually, aesthetically pleasing fauna should be given priority?;
• Question of whether there are especially important new (or rediscovered) ethical concepts or ideas that ought to guide conservation?
• Ethical issues in the design and planning of cities and built environments: how much nature should be protected and designed-in? What kinds of urban planning strategies or policies are ethically necessary or ought to be mandated to protect nature?;
• The ethical status (and appropriate conservation treatment) of little nature? E.g. EO Wilson’s notion of “micro wilderness”;
• The ethical and equity dimensions of how we go about financing and paying for conservation programs and measures;
• Ethical concerns around surveillance, privacy, unfair and harsh policing methods, among others approaches to implementation of conservation programs;
• The value of the idea of the health of land and landscapes;
• Questions about what ought to be the guiding vision for conservation: conservation, preservation, restoration and/or regeneration?;
• Different approaches (and ethical limitations) to valuing nature. Is putting an economic value on nature a useful (and perhaps necessary) step or an unethical?;
• The value and use of (and ethical assumptions behind) benefit-cost analysis in making conservation decisions;
• Discussions of whether conversation be guided (more) by a biocentric or ecocentric moral framework (As opposed to say an anthropocentric, utilitarian ethical framework);
• A discussion of the adequacy and ethical assumptions around the timeframes of conservation plans and strategies; Are conservation goals ambitious enough and are actions occurring quickly enough? What are the ethical obligations to future generations? What form of conservation action is owed to those living in the future?;
• Circumstances where individuals' rights to use one land and property conflict with conservation plans and goals. Are individual rights and freedoms trumped by larger conservation needs?;
• The role of private property in conservation. Is it a good thing and helpful or an impediment?;
• The need for and prospects of a new land ethic that could guide and constrain private property ownership in order to protect biodiversity and natural systems;
• The ethics and imperative of managing zoonotic diseases;
• The ethics of citizen science; the ethical aspects and challenges of engaging the public in conservation and conservation science;
• The ethics of controlling non-native and invasive species;
• Conflicts between renewable energy and biodiversity conservation, and how to resolve them; case studies of good resolution and lessons for the future;
• The ethical issues surrounding aquaculture (e.g., the controversies surrounding newly proposed octopus farms);
• The ethics and value of zoos and aquaria;
• The importance of wilderness and/or wildness in a modern world; the meaning of wildness and its practical implications for conservation;
• Other ethical dilemmas and issues that arise in the formulation, operation and implementation of conservation strategies and programs.

Prof. Dr. Timothy Beatley
Guest Editor

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• ethics
• ethical conservation
• ethical issues in conservation
• equity and fairness in conservation
• environmental justice
• value dilemmas
• value assumptions