The last few years have seen an intensification in the long running debate about the underlying rationale(s) for biodiversity conservation. In Georgina Mace’s terminology, is conservation about nature for itself, nature despite people, nature for people, or people and nature?
Some argue that there is no need to make choices here – conservationists should simply select the appropriate tool from the menu of rationales available to them to fit their particular needs. For example, a recent paper by Richard Pearson argues that different rationales should be applied to justify conservation depending on the spatial extent and biological level of the thing to be conserved. So, arguments about the benefits to people from pollination services apply well for populations of honeybees at the local scale, whereas arguments about existence value apply well to charismatic species that are globally threatened. Continue reading
Thinking like a human 