Culturally diverse expert teams have yet to bring comprehensive linguistic diversity to intergovernmental ecosystem assessments

Lynch, Abigail J.; Fernández‐Llamazares, Álvaro; Palomo, Ignacio; Jaureguiberry, Pedro; Amano, Tatsuya; Basher, Zeenatul; Lim, Michelle; Mwampamba, Tuyeni H.; Samakov, Aibek; Selomane, Odirilwe

doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2021.01.002

Cited by 51 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…Evidence synthesis plays a major role in informing decisions for tackling global challenges in fields such as healthcare [ 4 ], international development [ 5 ], and biodiversity conservation [ 6 ]. To date, non-English-language studies have largely been ignored in evidence synthesis [ 7 – 9 ]. The consequences of this common practice are, however, rarely investigated in most disciplines apart from healthcare.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tapping into non-English-language science for the conservation of global biodiversity

et al. 2021

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The widely held assumption that any important scientific information would be available in English underlies the underuse of non-English-language science across disciplines. However, non-English-language science is expected to bring unique and valuable scientific information, especially in disciplines where the evidence is patchy, and for emergent issues where synthesising available evidence is an urgent challenge. Yet such contribution of non-English-language science to scientific communities and the application of science is rarely quantified. Here, we show that non-English-language studies provide crucial evidence for informing global biodiversity conservation. By screening 419,679 peer-reviewed papers in 16 languages, we identified 1,234 non-English-language studies providing evidence on the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation interventions, compared to 4,412 English-language studies identified with the same criteria. Relevant non-English-language studies are being published at an increasing rate in 6 out of the 12 languages where there were a sufficient number of relevant studies. Incorporating non-English-language studies can expand the geographical coverage (i.e., the number of 2° × 2° grid cells with relevant studies) of English-language evidence by 12% to 25%, especially in biodiverse regions, and taxonomic coverage (i.e., the number of species covered by the relevant studies) by 5% to 32%, although they do tend to be based on less robust study designs. Our results show that synthesising non-English-language studies is key to overcoming the widespread lack of local, context-dependent evidence and facilitating evidence-based conservation globally. We urge wider disciplines to rigorously reassess the untapped potential of non-English-language science in informing decisions to address other global challenges. Please see the Supporting information files for Alternative Language Abstracts.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tapping into non-English-language science for the conservation of global biodiversity

et al. 2021

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“…For example, important information related to species ecology and conservation is often available in non-English languages [ 8 ], as researchers in countries where English is not widely spoken publish their research not only in English but also in other languages [ 27 ]. Scientific information that is available only in non-English languages is however usually omitted when conducting conservation research and generating conservation plans [ 28 ]. The omission of such non-English-language information can bias inferences of ecological analysis [ 29 ] and cause gaps in the spatial and taxonomic coverage of scientific evidence that is useful for conservation [ 24 ], which in turn can cause suboptimal conservation decisions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language barriers in global bird conservation

et al. 2022

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Multiple languages being spoken within a species’ distribution can impede communication among conservation stakeholders, the compilation of scientific information, and the development of effective conservation actions. Here, we investigate the number of official languages spoken within the distributions of 10,863 bird species to identify which species might be particularly affected by consequences of language barriers. We show that 1587 species have 10 languages or more spoken within their distributions. Threatened and migratory species have significantly more languages spoken within their distributions, when controlling for range size. Particularly high numbers of species with many languages within their distribution are found in Eastern Europe, Russia and central and western Asia. Global conservation efforts would benefit from implementing guidelines to overcome language barriers, especially in regions with high species and language diversity.

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“…These efforts have contributed to the rise in international authorship in published papers, including authors from the Global South (Figure 3). Ethnobiology 2021 41(2): 122-143 Because diverse authorship is central to our mission, we are cognizant of imbalances in English-language academic publishing, which tends to favor research from the Global North (Hicks et al 2015;Lynch et al 2021;Pettorelli et al 2020). Several factors complicate the process of inclusivity, however.…”

Section: Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeking a More Ethical Future for Ethnobiology Publishing: A 40-Year Perspective from Journal of ethnobiology

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Fernández‐Llamazares

et al. 2021

Journal of Ethnobiology

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Culturally diverse expert teams have yet to bring comprehensive linguistic diversity to intergovernmental ecosystem assessments

Cited by 51 publications

References 65 publications

Tapping into non-English-language science for the conservation of global biodiversity

Tapping into non-English-language science for the conservation of global biodiversity

Language barriers in global bird conservation

Seeking a More Ethical Future for Ethnobiology Publishing: A 40-Year Perspective from Journal of ethnobiology

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