JUSTCONSERVATION

Over the past three decades, biodiversity conservation has expanded, from a focus on nature preservation alone, to more ‘people-friendly’ approaches integrating objectives for both conservation and human well-being, as visible in the governance of protected areas and other conservation measures worldwide. However, integrated approaches have not necessarily led to benefits to local people, giving rise to a further shift from a focus on economic development, to one on social justice.

This research project will analyse how justice concerns find support and integration in biodiversity conservation; a research need which is currently under-addressed. It asks:

• how different conceptualizations of justice and equity influence the governance of protected areas and other effective conservation measures?
• to what extent and through what mechanisms the integration of social objectives in conservation governance influence conservation effectiveness?

From an initial pool of over 3,000 publications, 169 were found to provide detailed evidence of both the social and ecological sides of conservation (Dawson et al., 2021). Strikingly, the authors found that 56% of the studies investigating conservation under ‘local’ control reported positive outcomes for both human well-being and conservation. For ‘externally’ controlled conservation, only 16% reported positive outcomes and more than a third of cases resulted in ineffective conservation and negative social outcomes, in large part due to the conflicts arising with local communities. The main reason for this difference is that locally controlled conservation can produce active and collective environmental management. When local values and practices are respected and local communities play a central role in conservation, a shared vision of the landscape can be established. This then generates a mobilization to preserve, restore and defend the environment.