We're losing species at shocking rates so why is conservation failing?

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We're losing species at shocking rates – so 
why is conservation failing? 
This article is more than 4 years old 
John Vidal
 
One million plant and animal species are threatened with extinction, yet 
governments are failing to stem the tide 
The age of extinction is supported by 
 
About this content
 
Wed 18 Sep 2019 07.00 BST 
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T
he number of mammals, insects, amphibians, fish and birds is in 
steep decline, the world’s forests are on fire and the abundance of life is 
diminishing at rates unprecedented in human history. The TV screens are full 
of images of gorgeous wildlife but one million plant and animal species are 
threatened with extinction and governments appear paralysed. 
Faced with stark and mounting evidence of nature’s precipitous decline, 
leading natural and social science researchers, philosophers, anthropologists 
and conservationists have 
come together
 to ask why conservation is failing, 
and to call for an urgent re-think of how the natural world should be 
protected. 
So what is conservation getting wrong? The political reasons for its failure 
were discussed last week in Vienna, at a meeting of 70 academics, 
professionals and researchers at the Luc Hoffmann Institute, a research body 
set up by the WWF. 
Top of the list were capitalism and neo-liberal policies that encourage the 
over-consumption of resources; the financial starvation of nature protection 
by governments; global trade and subsidies for energy industries, and a 
licence for agriculture and mining to expand into even the remotest places. 

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But identifying the cultural reasons for conservation’s abject failure to stem 
the tide of nature’s losses also emerged. These ranged from media disinterest 
in anything other than a few animals, conservationists’ narrowness and out-
of-date attitudes, and scientists’ reluctance to shout. 
Mainstream conservation’s historic focus on rare species, “hotspots” and 
numbers is part of the problem, said Bill Adams, professor of conservation 
and development at Cambridge University. “Species, particularly the 
charismatic ones, dominate the conservation imagination. Birds and 
mammals grab the headlines, followed by unusual reptiles and amphibians. 
The occasional plant features, and sometimes a flamboyant insect. But of 
other invertebrates, let alone lower plants, fungi, and bacteria essential to the 
ecosystem function … there is rarely public attention,” he said. 
This narrow vision suggests that conservation has no interest in people and 
therefore no appeal, he said. “Loss of the Earth’s astonishing diversity is an 
outrage, a disgrace, a tragedy – perhaps even a cause for rebellion. [But] the 
loss of most of the species apparently of greatest concern to conservationists 
does not offer an existential risk to humankind. Rhinos are rare, wonderful 
and irreplaceable, but they do not have a globally significant ecological role. 
Their loss would tragically impoverish human futures, but would not threaten 
human extinction.” 
Conservation must become more inclusive and accountable to people, said 
Dilys Roe, principal researcher at the International Institute for Environment 
and Development in London. A failure to address the problems of people in 
developing countries – home to most of the world’s wildlife – undermines its 
credibility. 
“Money doesn’t get to the ground and local citizens must be able to hold 
governments and big international groups to account. We should learn to 
adapt to biodiversity loss. The regions of highest biodiversity loss coincide 
with the areas of the highest poverty,” she said. 
A new generation of conservationists with a fresh agenda is needed, argued 
Jon Hutton, director of the Luc Hoffmann Institute and former head of the 
UN’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre. The world’s wealthy wildlife 
groups, which attract 
more than $10bn a year
 to protect nature are in danger 
of becoming disconnected from real-world politics and people, he said. 
“We consistently overlook the highly political nature of issues such as land 
ownership and rights and access to natural resources. The result is our 
biodiversity maps and plans that sketch out sweeping agendas for land-use 
change may unwittingly contain the seeds of their own failure. We need to re-
imagine everything – rethink and challenge everything we do, how we do it 
and who does it.” 
“Conservation is dominated by elderly white guys. There is a strong perception 
that we have failed..” 

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Dissatisfaction with the “corporate nature” model of conservation practised by 
the big international non government groups is growing, said Sarah Milne, a 
researcher at the Australian National University. “[They] now consume and 
channel a significant proportion of available conservation funding. This is 
corporate nature [where] branding is fundamental, market-based and 
technocratic. It risks being top-down, impervious and homogenous and calls 
for a rethink of how global conservation works.” 
These groups count success by numbers and the money they attract, not by 
consideration of conservation, said Dominique Bikaba, director of Strong 
Roots, a group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “They do not 
understand local people. They come with big degrees and an idea from 
London or Washington. They don’t want to learn from local and indigenous 
peoples.”. 
“Conservation still thinks in terms of separating people from nature and of 
saving pristine places,” said South African anthropologist Anselmo Matusse, 
who has just spent a year in a remote, forested part of Mozambique where 
people have lived successfully and sustainably for years, but which 
governments and conservation groups now want to “protect”. 
Matusse pointed to EO Wilson, the world’s foremost biologist, who has 
proposed that only by committing 
half of the planet’s surface area
 to nature 
can we hope to save the life forms that compose it. 
“If we continue with the present path of nature conservation then biodiversity 
will soon be like art that is of value to only some – kept locked away in highly 
guarded museums where only the rich can visit. Is the current path of 
protecting biodiversity not another form of colonialism? Are the state and the 
market the only options to change the route of human civilisation and Earth, 
which [are] heading towards collapse?” asked Matusse. 
Western science must now listen and learn from the world’s 350 million 
indigenous people, who currently conserve 80% of the world’s remaining 
diversity but who have been barely acknowledged by conservationists, argued 
Eli Enns, Canadian political scientist and co-chair of the Canadian Indigenous 
Circle for Experts. 
“Indigenous knowledge of how to live with nature has been routinely 
dismissed or downplayed,” he said. 
“Western scientists and indigenous peoples come with very different world 
views. [In general] western science is more utilitarian and sees the world in 
pieces, indigenous knowledge is more about understanding the 
interconnectedness of things,” he said. 
The danger, said Jon Hutton, is that welcome action on climate change dwarfs 
and imperils biodiversity protection. “There is a real danger that radical 
climate action might, in reality, involve a rush to solutions that are anything 
but biodiversity-friendly. A renewed drive for biofuels, perhaps, or for more 

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indiscriminate hydropower, or an escalation in forest restoration based on 
fast-growing, non-native species? In anticipation, we need to develop science, 
policy and advocacy responses right now.” 
 

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What is biodiversity and why does it matter to us? 
Read more 
But conservation must also recover the passion and emotion that once 
informed it, said Cambridge lecturer Chris Sandbrook, who has invited 
Extinction Rebellion activists to help teach his students about the power of 
direct action to change perceptions and create the space for political action. 
“Conservation may be more organised and professional, but has this come at 
the expense of the creativity and passion that enticed many to the 
conservation world in the first place? Conservationists have some choices to 
make. Should we continue down the path to professionalisation? Or should we 
lay down our laptops and lie down in the streets? 
“The world needs organised, skilled and professional conservationists, but it 
also needs them to stay in touch with the authenticity and the energy of 
protest groups and never to forget their raison d’être is change not 
conformity.”