Conservation is not preservation

“That never works,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, there is little land these days that we can leave untouched.”

I was confused, as you might be right now, wondering where this is going. The conversation took place some months ago in Austria, with a fellow student of a natural sciences field. We were discussing nature conservation projects throughout the world. I shared about a few conservation projects going on in my home country, Guatemala. But I kept using the term “conservation”, only to receive puzzled looks. Eventually, I said, “I think we’re talking about different things”.

If we understand conservation as “untouched”, then we are definitely not on the same page.

Years earlier, during my undergraduate studies in Guatemala, I learned that conservation biology is a highly multidisciplinary field requiring human intervention and a multi-stakeholder approach. We learned that our part, as biologists, was just one piece of the bigger puzzle of conservation. It is not about “preserving” nature untouched. I got to see this firsthand on field trips, where we monitored wildlife and presented findings to local stakeholders.

One example I dearly remember was in a private nature reserve managed as an agroforestry system. I must clarify here that agroforestry in most tropical countries implies a very different system than what is considered agroforestry in Central Europe. After two wildlife sampling field trips in different seasons, we brought the results back to the people working in the reserve: the owner, the rangers, the tour guides. We did not simply deliver a presentation, but held workshops where they were the key actors and decided what from our proposed measures would work or would not work, and their input and priorities would go into the report. After all, they know the day-to-day there far better than any of us.

Another experience that stuck with me was when a professor highlighted a project on reproductive health education for women and girls near Guatemala’s Atlantic coast as a very successful conservation initiative. At first, I wondered what that had to do with conservation. You see, women are often the most trusted for specific endeavors in a family or community. On occasion they are the land managers and decision-makers around key aspects, like food, in a household (not to confuse this with economic power). So empowering women strengthens community organization, benefiting conservation efforts around protected areas. Another related aspect comes from the famous Maslow pyramid in psychology: if we as human beings have our basic needs satisfied, we can then maybe start caring for other things, like conservation work. (For more details on the project on women’s reproductive health and its direct link to conservation, check out this link; 2020 update: here is another recent mention of this project)

But back to 2018. I discovered that my Austrian colleague equated conservation with preservation. Now it made sense that he was against it. I am, too, against preservation. This confusion prompted me to reflect on how these concepts are understood and to write this post.

According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)—and I am purposefully citing their 1980 “World Conservation Strategy” document here despite their countless more recent publications for the sake of depicting how not-so-novel this concept is—, conservation is “the management of human use of the biosphere so that it may yield the greatest sustainable benefit to present generations while maintaining its potential to meet the needs and aspirations of future generations”. Sounds familiar? Seven years later this would also become the definition of “sustainability” published in the Brundtland Report in 1987: “Sustainability: meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Michael Soulé, often credited with defining modern conservation biology, described it as addressing “the biology of species, communities, and ecosystems that are perturbed, either directly or indirectly, by human activities or other agents. Its goal is to provide principles and tools for preserving biological diversity.” Crucially, conservation requires human intervention, not a “hands-off” approach. Soulé’s paper also highlights conservation as a mix of science and art, demanding collaboration across disciplines and sectors.

Conservation is a process. It involves management, intervention, and collaboration, incorporating public support and technological advancements. Yet, nearly 40 years after the IUCN’s 1980 strategy, many still perceive conservation and development as opposing forces. In reality, development depends on basic resources derived from ecosystem processes. As Kareiva and Marvier (2012) noted, “Scientists now widely acknowledge that we live in a world dominated by humans, and therefore, the scientific underpinnings of conservation must include a consideration of the role of humans“. In the 21st century, conservation aims to protect biodiversity and improve human well-being.

Many communities in the Global South remain skeptical of conservation due to its colonial past (and this does not mean 1500’s; as recent as the 60s and 70s with the beginning of the environmental movement in the US, a lot of North-South mistakes were made on this topic). Historically, after some countries in the Global North realized what they messed up by destroying their forests, channelizing rivers, and other natural re-engineering that caused more harm than good or had unpredictable effects, they thought they had the right to tell locals in the Global South what to do, including forbidding them from using their own lands for the sake of conservation. To this day, in several countries in Latin America, the word “conservation” can evoke aversion in rural areas, as people fear they will lose their land rights or other benefits once again. Understandably.

Conservation efforts fail if they don’t make local communities the beneficiaries and custodians of these initiatives, including them from the very beginning. The best programs are community-led, empower local stakeholders, and foster genuine collaboration rather than imposing other’s interests.

Unfortunately, early Western conservation efforts often disregarded indigenous knowledge and local needs. Organizations and governments from the Global North approached the Global South with a paternalistic mindset, dictating how lands should be managed or “not touched at all” to avoid replicating the mistakes they made in the North. This history has left a legacy of distrust.

We can compare this with why so many Climate COP’s have massively failed. Before the Paris Agreement (2015), COP proposals had a very top-down approach, placing more responsibility on Global South countries than they actually have and expecting them to be on board on measures that hindered their development for the sake of not exacerbating a problem primarily caused by the Global North—while the North often did little to curb their own emissions.

The concept of conservation has evolved, influenced by multidisciplinary perspectives and a growing recognition of human-nature interconnectedness. From concepts like ecosystem carrying capacity to the establishment of the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992) and the planetary boundaries framework (2009), conservation science continues to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

Today, the challenge lies in addressing misconceptions, integrating indigenous knowledge, practices, and desires, and ensuring equitable collaboration and financing. Having a clear definition might be very helpful in science, but we might need to be more flexible and cautious with the use of the word “conservation” in practice. As we continue to learn from history, we can strive for conservation that benefits both people and the planet.

There is also an argument to conserve nature for its inherent value, to respect its sole existence for the sake of its existence because, in the end, who are we to decide the fate of the myriad of other species we cohabitate this planet with? There’s partly a religious answer to this, and an economical one, but I do subscribe to the idea of respecting nature for its sole existence. This might be a topic for a future post.

So, what would you add to this? I know there’s a more complex history I have not included in detail, and probably other perspectives I haven’t thought about. Let me know in the comments!

References

IUCN UNEP WWF. 1980. World Conservation Strategy: Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development. Switzerland. 

Brundtland, G.H. 1987. Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. Geneva, UN Document A/42-427.

Soulé, M.E. 1985. What is Conservation Biology? A new synthetic discipline addresses the dynamics and problems of perturbed species, communities, and ecosystems. BioScience. 11 (35) 727-734.

Kareiva, P. & Marvier, M. 2012. What is Conservation Science? BioScience 11 (62) 962-969.