The values of wildlife embodied
in protected areas
Gill Ainsworth, Stephen Garnett and Heather Aslin
12 October 2010
IUCN definition of protected area
"an area of land and/or sea especially dedicated to the protection
and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and
associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or
other effective means.”
Source: www.iucn.org 2010
IUCN values
However within IUCN there is a dominant position amongst
conservationists who promote a reification and commercialization of
‘nature’ based upon one dominant model of nature, economy,
markets, progress and value
Source: CSVPA SG email correspondence 2010
This dominant model is derived from the Western notion of a natureculture divide which is in conflict with a multitude of non-western
belief systems and values
Values
Value: ‘relative worth, merit or importance’ of something:
 cannot be observed directly
 expression in the form of attitudes & behaviours
Values are critical:
 personal goals: good & bad, right & wrong
 interpret events and information
 across situations & events
Values: attitudes: behaviours:
enduring
culture and society
general beliefs/worldviews
values
specific beliefs/specific attitudes
behavioral commitments/intentions
changeable
behaviours
Source: Cary et al 2000
Kellert’s wildlife values typology
Worth every
moment…
My team
mascot…
totemic
My best
friend…
Has a right
to live…
experiential
How
beautiful…
anthropomorphic
intrinsic
aesthetic
Wildlife values typology contd.
Great chase!
Tasty…
Unique…
utilitarian
mastery
scientific
Endangered?
Pest!
Environmentally
significant…
negative
conservation
ecological
Values in conflict…
• Conservation value v negative value
• protection of dangerous wildlife ; human – wildlife conflicts
• Intrinsic value v utilitarian value
•
poaching wildlife; clearing habitat for timber
• Spiritual value v economic value
•
commoditization of ecosystem services
Unprecedented challenges for IUCN
•
Sustainable development
•
Nature conservation
•
Socio-environmental sustainability
•
Stabilization of impacts of climate and energy crises
•
To ensure human wellbeing
•
Support revisions of fiscal and economic systems that monitor ecological
and carbon footprints and that internalize the ecosystem goods and
services impacted by modern economies
In the face of globalizing trends
•
Commoditizing elements of the air we breathe
•
Increasingly giving monetary valuation to ecosystems
•
Monetarizing relations with other cultures to access and
commercializing natural and cultural resources and expressions
•
Destroying biodiversity and cultural diversity at unprecedented levels
Protected area planning should
consider all values
•
Humankind is composed of 10,000 or so cultures, each of which have
their own belief and value systems to guide sustainable use of the
natural environment
•
"It is not the ecologists, engineers, economists or earth scientists who
will save spaceship earth, but the poets, priests, artists, and
philosophers."
Source: Hamilton, 1993