Conservation is a subject which, over the past decades has
suffered from a split between those who study it and those who practice
it. This gap, resulting from a lack of
communication between the two groups represents the loss of a great opportunity
a problem which is now beginning to be addressed
In 2005 an academic called William Sutherland found that
less than 3% of conservation practitioners in an area in the South East of
England chose their conservation interventions on the basis of primary
literature- articles published in academic journals. As academic journals are the medium by which
scientists communicate their findings, if conservation practitioners are not
basing their decisions on primary literature, what are they basing their
decisions on? Many practitioners based
their decisions on ‘common’ sense, whilst others used past experience or
recommendations from a peer. Though
these may all seem sensible options it is important to note that ‘common sense’
can be misleading when dealing with complex biological systems. It is the role of science to test ‘common
sense’ ideas and find out which are correct and which are not.
To look at things another way, if two different conservation
practitioners are using different interventions in similar situations then the
likelihood of these interventions both being equally effective are pretty much
zero. This means that one of the
practitioners is using a more effective intervention than the other. By finding out which intervention is most
effective and then ensuring that both practitioners use this intervention,
conservation can effectively get more for its money by avoiding ineffective
actions.
But biological systems are complex and present managers with
a huge range of challenges. Academics
can’t test all ‘common sense’ approaches to all problems and recommend the best
solution on a case by case basis.
Instead two approaches are needed both of which are being
implemented. Firstly, scientists need to
work with practitioners to identify the largest sources of uncertainty or
disparity between alternative interventions, identifying the best intervention
to make the largest possible contribution.
This requires academics to communicate with conservation practitioners
asking where the largest uncertainty exists
Secondly, academics need to ensure that the most is made of
the small scale imperfect experiments carried out every year by every
conservation practitioner. This was the
main thrust of Sutherland’s paper which argued that every conservation
practitioner should record details of their management of a habitat or
ecosystem and the consequences of these management interventions. Ideally experiments would be repeated and a
control experiment, in which no action is taken, should be carried out
alongside the intervention, this is unlikely to be the case for conservation
practitioners who cannot justify a control experiment (as no intervention may
be too costly) or who do not have the means to carry out multiple, well
controlled repeats. However, this is not
to say that nothing can be learned from the experience of each conservation
practitioner. By summing the experience
of all conservation practitioners, just in England, it would be possible to
identify interventions which do and don’t work.
Futhermore, I believe that the greatest gains in knowledge will be made when conservation runs in both directions between conservation academics and practitioners. Academics posses the skill of ensuring that, for given resources, they can create an experiment which maximises the knowledge gained. Therefore, I suggest that a structure should be in place which ensures that those with an experimental background help co-ordinate the work of conservation practitioners so that valuable information regarding the effectiveness of current interventions (as well as novel potential interventions) can be generated and captured
If you are interested in this subject then please check out
www.conservationevidence.com
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