Acknowledging Conservation Trade-Offs and Embracing Complexity

Abstract

There is a growing recognition that conservation often entails trade-offs. A focus on trade-offs can open the way to more complete consideration of the variety of positive and negative effects associated with conservation initiatives. In analyzing and working through conservation trade-offs, however, it is important to embrace the complexities inherent in the social context of conservation. In particular, it is important to recognize that the consequences of conservation activities are experienced, perceived, and understood differently from different perspectives, and that these perspectives are embedded in social systems and preexisting power relations. We illustrate the role of trade-offs in conservation and the complexities involved in understanding them with recent debates surrounding REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), a global conservation policy designed to create incentives to reduce tropical deforestation. Often portrayed in terms of the multiple benefits it may provide: poverty alleviation, biodiversity conservation, and climate-change mitigation; REDD may involve substantial trade-offs. The gains of REDD may be associated with a reduction in incentives for industrialized countries to decrease carbon emissions; relocation of deforestation to places unaffected by REDD; increased inequality in places where people who make their livelihood from forests have insecure land tenure; loss of biological and cultural diversity that does not directly align with REDD measurement schemes; and erosion of community-based means of protecting forests. We believe it is important to acknowledge the potential trade-offs involved in conservation initiatives such as REDD and to examine these trade-offs in an open and integrative way that includes a variety of tools, methods, and points of view.

Social-ecological systems, social diversity, and power: insights from anthropology and political ecology

“…This focus on trade-offs among diverse and contested interests in SESs complements the work of other scholars in anthropology, environment, and development (Hirsch et al 2011, McShane et al 2011, who have emphasized the necessity of making the trade-offs in environmental decision-making as transparent and visible as possible. By increasing the focus on social diversity within an SES, resilience studies would be better able to understand how current or changed system configurations affect different people in different ways.…”

“…In much recent social anthropology focusing on environment and development, the importance of the notion of diverse and contested interests has led to an increasing emphasis on the notion of trade-offs (Hirsch et al 2011, Coulthard et al 2011, McShane et al 2011, Coulthard 2012). There has been increasing recognition in the environmental academic and policy community that "win-win" outcomes are in many cases impossible to achieve, and so the goal of much governance should be how to address and negotiate between competing goals and perspectives of different stakeholders.…”

What evidence exists on the impact of governance type on the conservation effectiveness of forest protected areas? Knowledge base and evidence gaps

“…Forestry Resources and Institutions (IFRI) methodology and research (http://www.umich.edu/~ifri) is a good example of this point. Incorporating measures of both social and ecological outcomes will give a more nuanced and complete picture of different PA effects, also acknowledging synergies and trade-offs in conservation [118]. Similar to Bowler and colleagues [113] in their review on community forest management, we also recommend standard outcome measures of conservation success to be able to compare between the studies.…”

Managing social–ecological systems under uncertainty: implementation in the real world

“…It is important to identify and analyze the potential trade-offs involved in conservation initiatives (Hirsch et al 2011), which can be done by applying tools such as MSE and AM. Management strategy evaluation has been used in situations in which several stakeholders had conflicting interests to identify objectives and alternative management strategies and help them choose among multiple options (e.g., Mapstone et al 2008, Smith et al 2008, Dichmont et al 2013.…”