Wildlife conservation: what should we save?

In April's guest blog, Rebecca Nesbit looked at the question of what wildlife species should be saved, and the issues that arise from strategies to protect species.

In the summer after I finished my A levels, I was lucky enough to spend time volunteering on nature reserves. I did residential placements on Skomer island in Wales, and while I was at university I volunteered for the RSPB on the Shetland Islands. This was an incredible experience,  but left me with questions. The seabirds we protected on land fly long distances to fish – how can we protect the sea in the same way as we protect the land? And what’s most important to protect? Was I focussing on the puffins because they were funny and attractive, or because they really are the most important?

These are the kind of questions I tackle in my new book Tickets for the Ark https://rebeccanesbit.com/tickets-for-the-ark/.

What should we save? And how do we do that most effectively? On answer is that we need protected areas – patches of land and sea that are protected for the benefit of nature, such as national parks.

Protected areas can protect wildlife and bring great benefits. For example, they can absorb flood water and store carbon. However, there are choices to be made about which habitats to protect on land and at sea. We will never have enough resources to protect everything. So how do we choose?

Science will be important to our choice – research can answer questions such as which areas will protect most species, or store most carbon. But science can’t tell us which questions to ask. Is it more important to store carbon or protect species? This answer is down to our values.

Every protected area will have winners and losers, both among people and the rest of nature. Some species thrive in human landscapes such as farms and cities, so they won’t benefit from protected areas that support ‘wilder’ habitats. Likewise, some humans will lose out due to protections. If we take the example of Marine Protected Areas in the UK, these cause arguments about how much fishing should be allowed. Conservationists often argue that we need a complete ban on fishing [https://www.devonwildlifetrust.org/take-action/marine-protected-areas], but anyone who relies on the fishing industry may see things differently.

Elsewhere in the world people are still being removed from their land so that it can become a protected area, and many more are forbidden from using resources they need for survival. When land is taken for conservation and people are evicted, this is often known as a ‘green land grab’. This is currently happening in Tanzania, for example, with Massai being removed from their ancestral lands to make way for a wildlife corridor (https://news.mongabay.com/2022/02/tanzania-siding-with-uae-firm-plans-to-evict-maasai-from-ancestral-lands/).

Attitudes are now changing, with a realisation that people can be guardians of the lands they inhabit. Recent research concluded that deforestation is reduced in areas traditionally owned, managed, used or occupied by Indigenous peoples (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00815-2).

In tropical Africa, Indigenous lands performed better than traditional protected areas. This is a sobering thought for a conservation movement which has often assumed that western scientists know best.

There’s now widespread acceptance that conservation must recognise the contributions of Indigenous peoples and uphold their rights. However, we are still a long way from ensuring that local communities and Indigenous peoples are true partners in conservation. That would require us not just to be open about how we protect nature, but also what we should prioritise. We would need to listen to other worldviews about what is important to save, even if they conflict with our own.

Back here in South West England, we too have important protected areas, including national parks such as Dartmoor, Exmoor and the New Forest. Exactly what should happen within their borders is a source of ongoing debate. For example, should we carefully manage habitat to protect certain species, or let nature take its own course (often called rewilding)? https://www.dartmoorsociety.com/debates/2016_debate

There are no easy answers to questions like this, but it’s important that we ask them. We need lots of voices in these debates, particularly people who have traditionally been silenced.

About the author: 

Rebecca Nesbit, writer, artist and ecologist studied Biology at Durham University, then researched butterfly migration for her PhD. She is author of Tickets for the Ark, which explores dilemmas in conservation, including which species are most important to save.