Frontiers of conservation

Abstract

Action‐oriented conservation sciences are crippled by 3 false assumptions. First, although it is recognized in theory that natural and anthropic components of ecosystems are tightly intertwined, in practice, many conservation policies and actions are still based on the assumption that human and nonhuman stakes should be dealt with in deeply different ways. Second, although the anchorage of environmental sciences in values is amply demonstrated, many conservation scientists still assume they will lose their scientific credentials if they actively participate in decision‐making. Finally, although there is much scientific evidence of the permeability—to both protected entities and threats—of static geographic frontiers delimiting protected areas, many conservation policies are still based on the assumption that these frontiers in themselves produce relevant protections. To overcome these false assumptions, it is useful to articulate them in terms of frontiers based on 2 ideas associated with the term. As a synonym of border, frontier materializes a limit whose crossing can have high stakes. As used in phrases such as frontiers of knowledge, the term also refers to the ever‐moving horizon of what should be overcome. These 2 ideas capture the reasons current attempts at overcoming the 3 assumptions remain unsatisfactory. They are also useful for elaborating a new vision of conservation to simultaneously break from the 3 assumptions. Instead of taking fixed geographic frontiers of protected areas for granted, conservation scientists should participate, along with stakeholders and Indigenous peoples, in the collective identification of the conservation problems that need to be addressed. For these problems, decision committees that include representatives of concerned humans and representatives of concerned nonhumans should be formed to determine the temporal and spatial scope of relevant conservation actions. The result would be multidimensional protected areas dynamically fine‐tuned to the conservation issues they address and to changing environmental conditions.