post-normal science and the art of nature conservation

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Journal for Nature Conservation 18 (2010) 89—105

1617-1381/$ - sdoi:10.1016/j.

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Post-normal science and the art ofnature conservation

Robert A. Francis�, Michael K. Goodman

Department of Geography, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK

Received 31 December 2008; accepted 3 April 2009

KEYWORDSUncertainty;Researcher;Practitioner;Knowledgeexchange;Knowledge transfer;Biodiversity

ee front matter & 2009jnc.2009.04.002

ing author. Tel.: +44 20ess: robert.francis@kcl

SummaryNature conservation may be considered a post-normal science in that the loss ofbiodiversity and increasing environmental degradation require urgent action but arecharacterised by uncertainty at every level. An ‘extended peer community’ withvarying skills, perceptions and values are involved in decision-making andimplementation of conservation, and the uncertainty involved limits the effective-ness of practice. In this paper we briefly review the key ecological, philosophical andmethodological uncertainties associated with conservation, and then highlight theuncertainties and gaps present within the structure and interactions of theconservation community, and which exist mainly between researchers andpractitioners, in the context of nature conservation in the UK. We end by concludingthat an openly post-normal science framework for conservation, which acknowl-edges this uncertainty but strives to minimise it, would be a useful progression fornature conservation, and recommend ways in which knowledge transfer betweenresearchers and practitioners can be improved to support robust decision making andconservation enactment.& 2009 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Conservation of species and ecosystems is amajor global trend that has developed over thelast 50 years in response to increasing evidence ofenvironmental degradation associated with human

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7848 1233..ac.uk (R.A. Francis).

activity (see e.g. Hunter 2002; Primack 1993). Muchcurrent global conservation policy and implemen-tation is motivated, and guided, by the Conventionon Biological Diversity, the aims of which implicitlyrequire sound scientific understanding of thespecies and ecosystems that are to be conserved.The major restriction for conservation implementationis that our level of understanding of ecosystemlevel ecology is insufficient, because ecosystems

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R.A. Francis, M.K. Goodman90

and their components are highly dynamic, complexand unpredictable (e.g. Francis 2009; Kay et al.1999; Pahl-Wostl 1995). Often the direct andindirect impactors and their effects within a givenecosystem are unclear, and so it is difficult to assesswhich impacts most need to be addressed (Carwar-dine et al. 2008; Lambin et al. 2001; Srivastava2002). Consequently, to conserve ecosystemssustainably while still utilising their resourcesand services, the level of information requiredis beyond the current realm of scientific inquiry,let alone the capacity of governmentalorganisations to make reliable legislation andmanagement decisions, and for such legalisation -and management to be effectively implemented(e.g. Papageorgiou & Vogiatzakis 2006; Watzold -& Schwerdtner 2005). Indeed, much recent scien-tific inquiry into ecosystem structure and proc-esses has highlighted system complexity and themany unknowns and uncertainties that precludeprediction, management and conservation (e.g.Doak et al. 2008; Dormann et al. 2008; Francis2009).

Despite such uncertainties, the conservationcommunity is driven by a supposition that some-thing should be done immediately to preservespecies and ecosystems despite our inadequateunderstanding of ecological principles and pro-cesses and how we may best manage and conservethem (Heywood & Iriondo 2003). In this sense,conservation is a post-normal scientific endeavour(see Ravetz 1999), as it represents a range ofurgent problems that require immediate attentionbut cannot be adequately addressed by currentscientific knowledge or methods, relies heavily onpractitioners who are not scientific experts (an‘extended peer community’), where decisionsmade may have substantial repercussions regardinghuman lives and livelihoods, and in which layper-sons from a range of backgrounds have a stake (seeRavetz 1999; Robertson & Hull 2001; Rosa & Da Silva2005). However, the notable separation that existsbetween 1) the rigorous scientific investigationsperformed by conservation ecologists, 2) thesetting of policy and legislation by governmentalorganisations and 3) the implementation of con-servation strategies by conservation practitioners,frequently leads to a range of conservation mea-sures being applied that often have little scientificobjectivity and justification, and are consequentlyineffective and can represent a waste of resources;intrinsic uncertainty is often not acknowledged(e.g. Carwardine et al. 2008; Pullin et al. 2004).With the growing governmental and publicinterest in ecological conservation and increasingmedia attention, all with expectations of success,

adopting conservation methodologies that lackadequate planning or resources is arguably moreharmful than beneficial.

There is also a separation between ‘biologicalconservation’ (a scientific discipline which hasgrown from the disciplines of ecology and biologyand is focused on biodiversity loss) and ‘natureconservation’ (the preservation of landscapes andland use regimes originally for recreation or in thepublic interest, and more recently incorporatingmanagement to conserve targeted habitats orspecies). Although both are inseparable, as con-servation of species and communities requires theconservation of biological and physical habitats,the current gap between the two approaches alsoconfounds conservation success (see Adams 2003).This inelegant mix of landscape management andbiodiversity conservation represents broad conser-vation practice in many countries today. Conse-quently, in this paper, we use the broad term‘conservation’ generally, to incorporate the currentmix of both approaches.

Recently there have been calls for greaterscrutiny of our response to biodiversity loss andconservation (see Brown & Sax 2004; van Loon2005; though see Larson 2007; Peterson et al. 2007)as well as greater public inclusion in conservation(Robertson & Hull 2001). Here, we suggest that thepost-normal science concept provides a usefulframework for encapsulating the totality of theconservation process, as long as 1) uncertainties atall levels are clearly acknowledged and realisticlimitations are set on the reliability of decisionsmade, including the advantages and disadvantagesof the proliferation of ‘extended facts’ and 2) allmembers of the extended peer community withinthe conservation sector are clear about their roles,and methodologies are in place to allow effectiveknowledge transfer between members. This paperbriefly reviews the implications of ecological,ethical, philosophical and methodological uncer-tainties for conservation, and then discusses thepost-normal conservation peer community and howit may be made more scientifically robust, using theUK conservation sector as context.

Ecological uncertainty

Objectivity is central to the philosophy ofscience, though several authors have questionedwhether such objectivity can ever really beachieved when considering nature and its values(Noss 2007; Peterson et al. 2007; Ridder 2007;Wallington & Moore 2005). Considering our current

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Post-normal science and conservation 91

state of ecological knowledge, there are substan-tial uncertainties associated with our understand-ing of biodiversity and ecosystems that compromiseconservation efforts. Any conservation strategyother than non-interaction ideally requires anunderstanding of what the system consists of andhow it functions to ensure that appropriatemeasures are taken to retain key components(e.g. Brussard et al. 1998; Hooper et al. 2005). Adetailed understanding of ecosystem biodiversityand functioning is assumed and is implicit to mostecosystem management and conservation; forexample Brussard et al. (1998) list ‘develop acomprehensive understanding of the ecosystem’ asone of their critical steps for ecosystem manage-ment. This is an unrealistic requirement even forecosystems in small, well-researched and well-documented countries such as the UK.

As a recent example of an implicit acknowl-edgement of the level of uncertainty associatedwith ecological understanding, the UK BiodiversityPartnership Biodiversity Research Advisory Group(BRAG) list 163 broad research priorities that needto be addressed for more successful implementa-tion of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan, which is theUK’s response to the Convention on BiologicalDiversity (Ferris 2007). One of the researchpriorities within the ‘The Role of Biodiversity inEcosystem Functioning’ theme is the need to:

‘‘Undertake research regarding the effect ofbiodiversity changes or species loss on ecosystemfunction and the resilience and stability ofecosystem function (the difficulty of formulatinga testable hypothesis needs to be recognised. Itmay prove impossible to answer this question,due to the many definitions of ecosystemfunctionality, and the large number of speciesin an ecosystem). Inconsistencies highlighted inprevious studies require that example protocolsare put forward, in order to contribute morerobust evidence.’’ (Ferris 2007, p. 15)

This brief example demonstrates the hugeuncertainties involved in our current level ofunderstanding and the level of resources thatwould be required to satisfactorily address such aresearch gap, if indeed it can ever be addressed ata level useful for conservation.

Even a basic understanding of the many bioticcomponents of ecosystems is often difficult to obtain(e.g. Francis 2009; Hooper et al. 2005). A goodexample is our reliance on taxonomy in quantifyingbiodiversity (see Isaac et al. 2004). Taxonomicteaching and training has been in decline for severaldecades, and specialists who can identify more thanone broad type of taxa are relatively rare; this

situation is only now beginning to reverse, mainlybecause of an increasing interest in the applicationof new technological advances to taxonomy and anincreased focus on genetics (Mallet & Willmott2003). Whether this trend will lead to increasingabilities of scientists to accurately assess biodiver-sity remains to be seen. In particular, the presentlack of taxonomic knowledge of under-representedbut functionally important taxa such as soil bacteriaand nematodes (e.g. Cox & Moore 2005; Gaston &Spicer 2004; Lorimer 2006), means that there iscurrently little accurate appreciation of biodiversityat any but the finest scales, other than for veryspecific groups of organisms (e.g. Cox & Moore2005). In total we have probably only identified lessthan 10% of global biodiversity, and there is muchuncertainty regarding species biodiversity of sometaxa even in highly scrutinised ecosystems such asthose in the UK (e.g. Bebber et al. 2007; Cox &Moore 2005; see Lorimer 2006 for a detailed anduseful discussion of this in the UK context). Anunderstanding of what constitutes whole ecosystembiodiversity, which is necessary for a robust reduc-tionist scientific approach to conservation, is cur-rently unobtainable. An alternative, more holisticviewpoint is that taxonomic assessment of biodiver-sity is not required or useful for nature conservation,as large-scale biodiversity conservation should focuson preserving functional integrity and dynamicsrather than individual species and communities.Nevertheless, the current focus on species andcommunity assessment within conservation philoso-phy and practice implicitly requires efforts atquantification at this level, however uncertain orpotentially unattainable.

Once components have been determined, thenature of their interactions with biota and abiotamust then be assessed. This includes type ofinteractions (e.g. predation, parasitism, infection,mutualism, competition, biogeochemical cycling)and interaction frequency, duration, and strength.This then allows some understanding of theimportance of each component and its interactionsin the functioning of the ecosystem. Although broadtrends have been established relating higherbiodiversity to more integral ecosystem processes(e.g. Loreau 2008), a paucity of informationregarding functional relationships and speciesinteractions in communities makes it difficult toassess which species or functional typologies areindicators of functional integrity, and so whichshould be conservation priorities (Cabeza et al.2008; Ferris 2007; Hendriks & Duarte 2008).

When considering system components and theirinteractions as a coherent ecosystem, furtheruncertainty is apparent. There has been increasing

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acknowledgement of the complexity, non-linearityand unpredictability of ecosystems and theircomponents over the last few decades, stemmingfrom original investigations into complexity andvariation within model ecosystems (e.g. May 1974).There are many examples of ecosystems displayingchaos, non-linearity and threshold shifts betweenrelatively stable states that may be brought aboutby relatively small changes in interactions andfeedbacks (e.g. Pahl-Wostl 1995; Rietkerk et al.2004). This means that establishing the suitabilityof even the most fundamental parameters forconservation methodologies, such as the mostappropriate spatial and temporal scales for im-plementation, and suitable target species, commu-nities or processes, is problematic (e.g. Francis2009; Geneletti 2004; Prendergast et al. 1999;Redford & Richter 1999). Creating conservationpriorities based on comprehensive scientific assess-ments of ecosystems is a laudable but currentlyunachievable ideal, particularly given the limitedresources available to conduct such assessments.Such limitations should not prevent conservationfrom being performed – and being performed well –

but should be appreciated and acknowledgedwithin both decision-making and conservation en-actment.

Philosophical and ethical uncertainty

Our concepts and judgements of biodiversity, thenature of evolution and our role in conservation areall large and complex topics, and our philosophicaland ethical systems relating to these have emergedrecently and are still relatively undeveloped (e.g.Chan et al. 2007; Lorimer 2007; Perry & Perry 2008;Webb & Raffaelli 2008; Whatmore 2002). The keyconcept of biodiversity is particularly problematic,and is used in a variety of scientific and politicalcontexts. The ways in which the concept ofbiodiversity is framed and interpreted in relationto conservation, and the implications this has forincreased uncertainty in conservation practice, isnoted by Haila (1999). It is important to considerthe ways in which biodiversity is being defined andits political, moral and philosophical context whenmaking value judgements for conservation. Adichotomy of thought certainly exists in ourevaluation of the intrinsic and extrinsic values ofspecies, which is firmly based in our perception ofthe potential threats and benefits a species mayoffer us. Although we can accept that all specieshave a ‘right to life’ (and also a right to die; seeChessa 2005), species certainly do not have an

indefinite ‘right to exist’ (nature does not ‘con-serve’ and all species are doomed to extinction atsome point) and in practice conservation is notmotivated by the intrinsic values of speciesexistence. Placing value judgements on the intrin-sic and extrinsic values of species is inherent in ourapproach to conservation (Carolan 2008; Trudgill2008), yet, the issues of uncertainty should alsoclearly give us pause.

A useful example of dichotomy in our approachto species values can be seen – at its most paredback – in our treatment of species that are parti-cularly harmful to humans: bacteria and viruses.From a purely objective viewpoint, these speciesmay play, for example, important functional rolesin regulating the populations of dominant speciessuch as Homo sapiens; but a substantial amount ofresources are invested annually in preventing thenatural spread of disease-causing organisms andstriving for their eradication. In 1980 the WorldHealth Organisation triumphantly declared the twosmallpox virsuses Variola major and Variola minorto be eradicated in the wild, and they have sincebeen confined to laboratories in the USA and Russia(Slifka & Hanifin 2004). There are few situationswhere the eradication of a species can be soembraced by society, and of course it is entirelypragmatic that we should view these species in adifferent way to those which are more beneficial toour existence. In short, a spectrum of speciesexists, from those which are harmful to humans,those which have no perceivable benefit, thosewhich are useful, those which provide ecosystemservices, and those which are charismatic, and therange of different values we associate with these,and ambiguities in these values, create extrauncertainty in decision-making and practice (e.g.Lorimer 2006, 2007). In particular we should beaware of the implications of value judgements, andthat they are at heart self-interested.

More topically, there is currently much concernabout a possible human-induced mass extinction(Diamond 1989; Grayson et al. 2001; Lyons et al.2004). Although there is increasing evidence of anelevated rate of extinctions due to human activity(e.g. Duffy 2003; Lande 1998; Michalski & Peres2005), the naturalness of extinction events is alsoof relevance for our perspectives of biodiversityand our approach to conservation. From an evolu-tionary perspective species extinctions, includingboth background and mass extinctions, are naturalprocesses that initially have negative consequenceson biodiversity, but can have long-term neutral orpotentially positive impacts on global speciationand diversity, such as the increase in biodiversityfor some taxa following the Permian extinction

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event 252ma, which may still be occurring (e.g.Sepkoski 1997; van Loon 2005). Uncertainty overthe current and potential impacts of humans onglobal biodiversity and evolution raises importantphilosophical and ethical questions about why andhow we conserve. We can reason that human-basedmass extinction, even extending over prolongedperiods (e.g. thousands of years), is unlikely tosignificantly impact upon the actual existence oflife on Earth, or the capacity of the Earth tosupport biodiversity and allow future speciation(though evolutionary processes may be disrupted;see Myers and Knoll (2001) but cf. Foster (1999) andO’Connor (1998)); rather, it will affect the currentglobal environment and make it less conducive toour survival. Again, the main (implicitly acknowl-edged but not explicitly stated) motivating forcefor conservation is that our species benefits fromthe current environment and species assemblages;whether we are right in trying to maintain currentbiodiversity (which has been noted as a furtherpotentially pragmatic anthropogenic act requiringindefinite management; see van Loon (2005)) andpreventing both natural and anthropogenic speciesextinctions (for we cannot yet be certain of thedifference) remains to be determined, and is likelyto be a topic of fierce debate for many years.

Uncertainty of anthropogenic impactsand conservation benefits

Substantial uncertainty exists relating to thescale, strength, duration and significance of humanimpacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning,and whether we are considering such impacts atthe correct spatial and temporal scales (e.g. De Leo& Levin 1997; Spangenberg 2007). To a certainextent, our evaluation of anthropogenic impactsand their naturalness has been limited by thehistorical perception of humans as being above andapart from nature, and therefore as a quasi-external influence disrupting a harmonious andbalanced system (see Terrell 2006), but of coursethis is far too simplistic an interpretation. Homosapiens may be considered a dominant species thatis out-competing many other species in a natural(or preternatural) series of processes, albeit at anunprecedented level (e.g. Murdoch 2001; van Loon2005). Certainly evidence exists that humans arecausing extinctions and efforts at quantifying thisare becoming increasingly sophisticated (Brooket al. 2008; Pereira & Cooper 2006), but significantuncertainty exists regarding the severity of impactsand future predictions of loss or change (e.g.

Burney & Flannery 2005; Hui et al. 2008; Laurance2007). Refinement of the boundaries of uncertaintyand quantification of both impacts and change isessential to enable predictions of biodiversity lossas well the potential effectiveness of conservationmethods, and this is likely to be a major focus offuture ecological research (e.g. Thuillera et al.2008).

With this level of uncertainty in anthropogenicimpacts, the effectiveness of conservation enact-ment also becomes uncertain and problematic. Thisuncertainty is explicitly acknowledged in the‘precautionary principle’ (Brauer 2003; O’Riordan& Cameron 1994), which advocates some level ofbiodiversity conservation and impact limitation asthe default option for resource and land manage-ment, due to the assumption that the effects ofbiodiversity loss are likely to be significant andirreversible (at least from an anthropogenic per-spective). The problem with the precautionaryprinciple is that the only effective way of ensuringthat an activity does not have an unforeseenimpact on biodiversity (particularly functionallyimportant groups that are hard to quantify and notwell understood) is by not performing the activity(Redford & Richter 1999). Even simple practicesperformed by late-Pleistocene human groups living(by our standards) sustainable hunter-gatherer orearly agrarian existences may have been respon-sible for biodiversity loss, particularly of mamma-lian megafauna (see Bulte et al. 2006; Pushkina &Raia 2008). Some dominant species, as a character-istic of their dominance, change the environmentand ambient biodiversity; this is demonstrated at alocal scale by some invasive species (see Clavero &Garcıa-Berthou 2005; Gurevitch & Padilla 2004;Henderson et al. 2006) and is suggested as apossibility for the dominant ‘dinosaur’ groupsbefore the end-Cretaceous (see van Loon 2005).Homo sapiens may be no exception, albeit that thescale of impacts is far greater for our species.Furthermore, even land which is completely unusedand designated as a conservation reserve maypotentially be subject to detrimental externalinfluences (e.g. pollution, reduced immigration ofspecies from external metapopulations, loss ofgenetic diversity). In practice, sustainable use ofresources is required, with an accepted level ofbiodiversity loss and an acknowledgement of somelevel of unavoidable change to ecosystem function-ing. Consequently our conceptualisation of con-servation in the context of these anthropogenicimpacts and sustainable transitions has begun to berevised to accept that some level of biodiversityloss and change is inevitable; practically, conserva-tion in our current uncertain period of transition

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from industrial to sustainable socioecological re-gimes has to be about establishing realistic limits tobiodiversity loss, and this represents an importantscientific and political focus for future research.

Establishing such limits is clearly a major taskand relies not just on the collection of data onspecies loss and impacts, but also on the collectionof evidence of effectiveness of conservation meth-odologies, which is currently limited (see Pullin &Stewart 2006). Pullin et al. (2004) noted that muchconservation practice in the UK is informed byexperience-based management rather than byevidence and that the scientific community needsto disseminate information in the form of systema-tic reviews to inform decision-making. Many con-servation organisations (including governmentalorganisations) implement projects that generatedata and evidence, but do not have suitably robustdesigns that allow statistical analyses and testing ofhypotheses and therefore do not provide the kindof peer-reviewed evidence that academically-dri-ven conservation issues require. Frequently con-servation (and restoration) projects are initiatedwith limited (or no) pre- and post-project monitor-ing, so that the effects of such activities can bejudged by observation only. Furthermore, manynon-academic conservation practitioners have lit-tle interest or incentive in making their resultspublishable; consequently many examples of bothsuccessful and unsuccessful methodologies remainunpublished or pass from practitioner to practi-tioner via informal networks. In this way, substan-tial amounts of resources and effort are being lostand/or fail to contribute to formal conservationscience and improving future decision-making. Ineffect, the absence of evidence from the vastmajority of conservation projects, which areexperienced-based and conducted with little re-search input, often over long periods of time,represents a further source of uncertainty thatneeds to be addressed for future conservationpractice. Without reliable knowledge of whichtechniques work over varying spatio-temporalscales, and which do not, progress remains pain-fully incremental.

Implications of covering uncertainty with‘extended facts’

The above discussion is intended to brieflyhighlight several key sources of uncertainty inconservation, and – it must be heavily stressed –

is not intended to suggest that no action should betaken until the uncertainty is resolved, if it ever is;

conservation is a potentially important and essen-tial activity for the continuation of our species andcivilisation, and waiting until all the evidence is inmight well forestall any kind of response tobiodiversity loss at all. Indeed, continual changesin our socio-ecological systems and concepts,perceptions and interactions with nature (seeCastree 2005; Fischer-Kowalski & Haberl 2007;Forsyth 2003) will mean that new uncertainties(‘unknown unknowns’) will frequently emerge (e.g.Carpenter et al. 2006; Myers 1993). Furthermore,even with reduced uncertainty, subjectivity willremain within conservation that will affect thedecision-making process, so that some mechanismsby which conservation priorities are establishedwill remain subjective regardless of advances in ourecological understanding. Nevertheless, the impli-cations of such uncertainty need to be acknowl-edged, and the uncertainty itself needs to beaddressed and incorporated into our responses tobiodiversity loss. In particular the placing ofconservation firmly within the context of currentand future developments in our ongoing socio-ecological transition towards sustainability (seeFischer-Kowalski & Haberl 2007), including realismabout the unavoidable loss of biodiversity and howour capacity to reduce loss may or may not change,should motivate a wide range of actors and form agood basis for decision-making. We also need toaccept that society and nature change concurrently(e.g. Castree 2005; Dickens 2004; Fischer-Kowalski& Haberl 2007) and that it may not be possible toentirely preserve the current environment whilestill allowing changes in our socioecological regime;when (and if) a sustainable society finally emerges,our local and global environments and biodiversitymay well be quite different, and this should not beregarded entirely negatively.

It would also serve the conservation communitywell to consider how ‘extended facts’, which arenon-scientific observations made by members ofthe extended peer community (Healy 1999), be-come embedded in conservation decision-makingand practice and can support progress as well ascreating errors and a false sense of reduceduncertainty. Extended facts can be invaluable inthe form, for example, of local knowledge held byconservation practitioners (e.g. van der Sluijs2007). Indeed for local-scale conservation, whichis the scale at which most conservation is actuallyperformed, such knowledge is essential for deter-mining the necessity, potential and likely success ofconservation initiatives (Healy 1999). Negativeconsequences can, however, result from extendedfacts that may have a sound observational basis buthave not been well researched. A regional example

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of this is the widely held perception within the UKof Buddleja davidii Fran. (an introduced horticul-tural species) being a good plant for wildlife,particularly butterflies (hence its common nameof Butterfly bush), presumably inspired by observa-tions that Lepidoptera frequently visit the flowersof this plant (e.g. Corbet 2000). This led to B.davidii being planted in many gardens and con-servation areas to improve their quality as wildlifehabitat at a local scale, despite long-standingevidence that the species is invasive outside itsnative range (China) and is a particular problem inurban areas, being frequently associated withstructural damage of buildings, roads and railways(Clay & Drinkall 2001; Smale 1990; Zhang et al.1993). The simple extended fact that ‘Certainbutterfly species frequently visit B. davidii flowersand so this plant may prove to be an interestingexotic addition to garden flora’ has been reinter-preted as ‘B. davidii is a good plant for wildlife’,which actually contains several assumptions thatintroduce unacknowledged uncertainty into the useof this species in conservation practice. These arefirstly that B. davidii attracts significantly highernumbers of butterflies than other native plants withsimilar characteristics, of which there is noconclusive evidence (Andersson 2003); indeed thechoice of cultivar of B. davidii also makes a notabledifference in appeal to butterfly species (Bruneret al. 2006); and secondly that an increase inbutterfly visitations significantly improves thebiodiversity of the area, at least for butterfliesbut possibly for biodiversity in general, for whichthere is also no evidence. This is just a simpleexample, but illustrates that such ‘extended facts’need to be carefully evaluated before beingincorporated into decision-making and practice.

We now consider how the application of a post-normal science framework to conservation mayhelp to encourage knowledge transfer betweenmembers of the extended peer community andreduce uncertainty, while encouraging an openacknowledgement that some uncertainty will al-ways be present.

Conservation as post-normal science andthe role of the extended peercommunity

The concept of post-normal science was intro-duced by Funtowicz and Ravetz (1993) to highlightthe transition of the ‘orthodox’ practice of sciencefrom a reductionist ‘search for truth’ to theaddressing of urgent problems and crises in society

wherein there is substantial uncertainty and thescientific community cannot provide comprehen-sive answers, or solutions with an absence of risk. Inthe post-normal science framework, it is arguedthat those non-scientists who can contribute andwho are willing to enter scientific dialogues shouldbecome involved in the problem-indication and -solving processes of wider societies.

From this definition, the science of conservingspecies and ecosystems is certainly post-normal;despite the abundance of rigorous scientific in-vestigation that is performed by the global scien-tific community, most of the decisions taken thatrelate to conservation policy, funding and imple-mentation are made by non-scientists while thephysical implementation of conservation practice(usually at a local scale) is often performed byindividuals with limited (or outdated) scientifictraining, often on a voluntary basis (e.g. Bruyere &Rappe 2007; Evans et al. 2008; Reidy et al. 2005).Altogether, this represents the ‘extended peercommunity’ demonstrated by Ravetz (1999) thatis central to post-normal science. Here, we focuson the extended peer community within the UK,firstly considering the legacy of the professionalisa-tion of conservation.

The professionalisation of conservation

The separation of research and practice withinthe UK conservation sector may be the result of UKconservation enactment emerging from two differ-ent pathways that eventually merged due to theprofesssionalisation of conservation. The practiceof ‘nature conservation’ emerged in the very early20th century and was driven by amateurs (amateurused in the literal sense of ‘for the love’ ofsomething) motivated by a desire to preserve,protect and enjoy wildlife and habitats within thealready heavily managed UK landscape. As such, itwas primarily about maintaining traditional landmanagement practices. It was only in the 1940sthat the UK government passed legislation relatingto conservation, for example the establishment ofthe 1949 National Parks and Access to the Country-side Act, and subsequently the National Parks,which were created to allow areas for publicrecreation in semi-natural environments (e.g.Adams 2003; Moss 1999). It was acknowledged thenthat the setting of legislation required someunderstanding of the ‘nature’ that was to beconserved, if only to provide the credentials formaking the policy and management decisions, andso the move towards professionalisation of conser-vation was begun. The subsequent establishment

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and development of professional governmental andnon-governmental organisations with responsibilityor interest in conservation, created subsequentemployment opportunities, and the conservationsector gradually emerged.

In the first half of the 20th century, academicecologists were mainly involved in investigatingecological theory relating to the characteristics,dynamics and diversity of ecosystems, drawingmainly on early modelling approaches and empiri-cal fieldwork (see Benson 2000; Francis 2009;Golley 1993 for reviews). The focus was on howecosystems and species functioned, and althoughthe preservation or conservation of these systemswas implicit (generating a few publications on theissue in the 1940s and 1950s, e.g. Anonymous 1959;Smith 1947), biological conservation as a sciencedid not emerge until the end of the 1960s, markedby the foundation of scientific journals with aspecific conservation focus (e.g. Biological Con-servation; see Shaposhnikov 1969). Researchersbegan to focus their investigations on both theore-tical and applied problems in conservation, estab-lishing how best to maintain species populationsand biodiversity, and with a presumed higher levelof ‘scientific objectivity’. Nevertheless, althoughthe more traditional and practice-oriented landmanagement and broad recreation focus of natureconservation in the UK began to incorporate moreresearch-led biological conservation, the two havedeveloped from different principles and ap-proaches, and have never been fully integrated(e.g. Miller 2005). This is probably partly to blamefor the current gap between the principles andmethods of biological conservation and recrea-tional land management, though both are unitedunder the same banner of ‘nature conservation’. Avery general example of this is the contrastingappreciation of ecosystem dynamics within the twotypes of conservation. Ecosystem dynamics, varia-bility and heterogeneity are widely acknowledgedas being linked to the maintenance of speciespopulations and biodiversity by the scientificcommunity (e.g. Chesson & Case 1986; Morin1999; Pickett et al. 1997; Ward et al. 1999),whereas traditional conservation associated withland management still perceives stability and lackof dynamism (essentially the artificial maintenanceof habitats by management) as being good practice.Progress will best be made by working to explicitlycombine the two approaches to conservation,which is the most logical progression though it willtake much effort; or by firmly separating the two.

Higher education courses and qualificationsspecifically focusing on conservation followed theemergence of the scientific discipline, training

people for both research and management roleswithin the conservation sector. These professional(and often well-qualified) conservationists emergedinto a poorly-paid sector where a good professionalcareer could generally be maintained only bybecoming managers or decision-makers, and char-acterised by job insecurity and short-term con-tracts, often with little time or opportunity forresearch. In time it became expected that aconservation practitioner had to be sufficientlyqualified, and it can be argued that this has to acertain extent displaced amateur conservationists,who remain within the volunteer workforce andalign more with the land management ethos, butwho nevertheless are responsible for much of theconservation practice that takes place in the UK.The saturation of the conservation sector withqualified individuals has also led to the develop-ment of ‘career volunteers’ who volunteer withconservation organisations largely in order toobtain ‘work experience’ that can help them toobtain a job in the sector, rather than due to adesire to engage in conservation enactment at apractical level.

The UK Biodiversity Action Plan and theextended peer community

The UK Biodiversity Action Plan (from 2003) isserved by a range of organisations providingdifferent levels of scientific and social engagement,information and action, as displayed in Figure 1.The highest level of organisation is the UKBiodiversity Standing Group, which consists of theDirector of Wildlife, Countryside and Flood Manage-ment at the Department for Environment, Food andRural Affairs (Defra), chairs of the four UKbiodiversity groups (England, Scotland, Wales andNorthern Ireland), and representatives of the‘county nature conservation agencies and theNGO community’ (JNCC 2007). This Standing Groupis advised by 1) the Biodiversity Research AdvisoryGroup (BRAG), which advises on national andinternational research priorities and facilitatesresearch in support of UK BAP objectives; and 2)the Biodiversity Reporting and Information Group,which ensures knowledge exchange throughout theUK Biodiversity Partnership structure and ensuresthat the action plans are appropriately maintainedand reviewed. Priority habitats and species deser-ving of action plans are determined by the StandingGroup, and responsibility for drawing up specificaction plans and their enactment is devolved to theindividual country biodiversity groups. These theninvite conservation organisations (often but not

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UK Biodiversity Standinggroup

Biodiversity ResearchAdvisory group

Biodiversity Reportingand Information group

Research prioritiesand updates

UK BAP updates

Identification ofpriority species

and habitats

Publication ofbiodiversity

reports

England BiodiversityGroup

Scotland BiodiversityGroup

Northern IrelandBiodiversity Group

WalesBiodiversity Group

Selectinglead partners

Strategicdecisions for

priority species andhabitats updates on SAP,

HAP and LBAPstatus and progress

Lead Partners

Writing SAPs,HAPs and LBAPs

Cordinating planimplementation

Partners

Plan implementation

Figure 1. Structure of the UK Biodiversity Partnership and Biodiversity Action Plan implementation. UK BiodiversityPartnership members are denoted by boxes, while key processes are shown by connecting arrows.


always government funded agencies such as theEnvironment Agency) to lead individual actionplans, with support from a range of other con-servation organisations. These plans are then usedas the basis for implementation of conservationmeasures by national, regional and local conserva-tion groups.

This is an excellent structure for decision-makingand implementation (though see Lorimer 2006)involving an extended peer community with differ-ent expertise, knowledge and perceptions. Inpractice however, the notable lack of interplaybetween conservation research and implementa-tion maintains many of the uncertainties discussedabove. Although BRAG can highlight the keyresearch priorities for UK conservation (see Ferris2007), a clear mechanism for incorporating re-search into the UK BAP structure (and for practi-tioners to feed data back into research) does notexplicitly exist. It may be argued that this researchis performed ‘outside’ of the system, mainly byacademic researchers, but this again createsproblems in terms of reliance on a small advisorygroup (of researchers who have full-time positions

outside of this group) to filter through vast amountsof research and provide useful pointers to membersof the extended community, in a top-downapproach. A more effective approach would be toincrease the ties between research and practicemore directly, by building clearer links betweenorganisations responsible for these elements ofconservation throughout the sector. However,this is not a question of simply increasing interac-tions between key member organisations, butsomething that needs to happen across thebroader ‘components’ of the sector, which can begrouped according to their priorities and function-ing (Figure 2).

Within the UK, there may be considered tobe three main components of the conservationsector: 1) researchers (primarily academics), whoconduct short-to medium-term research into ecolo-gical questions that affect conservation principlesand methodologies; 2) governmental (first sector)agencies (e.g. Department for Environment, Foodand Rural Affairs, Environment Agency, NaturalEngland), wherein professionals make decisions re-lating to conservation policy, legislation, funding

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Academic

Roles:

• Training of environmental professionals • Conservation enactment

• Data compilation

• Practitioner recruitment

• Community engagement

• Environmental awareness education

• Workforce and logistics

• Site histories and specifics

• Amateur taxonomic specialisms

• Knowledge dissemination

• Observation and experimentation

• Data compilation and analysis

• Development philosophy and theory

• Publication of research

• Scientific mehtods• Experimental design and sampling• Statistical analysis• Developing philosophy and theory• Published literature• Collaboration and funding

Knowledge base:

Practitioners

Roles:

Knowledge base:

Education and training

Edu

catio

n an

d tra

inin

g

Policy/method advice

Pol

icy/

met

hod

advi

ce

Research dissemination

CPD

CP

D

Collaborative research

Col

labo

rativ

e re

sear

ch

Extended facts

Per

mis

sion

/adv

ice

Site

reco

rds

and

info

Ext

ende

d fa

cts

Workforce

Site and case knowledge

Fund

ing

Per

mis

sion

/adv

ice

Fund

ing

Government Roles: • Finding projects and research• Project implementation• Legislation/policy • Budgets and funding • Workingforce and logisticsKnowledge base:

• Data complilation • Community engagement• Deciding conservation priorities and legislation

Figure 2. Conservation sector components, with established types of knowledge transfer highlighted (solid arrows)alongside underdeveloped interactions (dashed arrows).


allocations, training and management, and to a lesserextent, designing and implementing conservationprojects; and 3) non-governmental (second and thirdsector) conservation organisations (e.g. Royal Societyfor the Protection of Birds, The Wildlife Trusts toname a couple of the larger ones; many are verysmall organisations with a local focus), whereintrained, semi-trained and amateur individuals enact(generally experience-based) conservation methodol-ogies, and in some cases conduct long-term monitor-ing of (for example) environmental characteristics orspecies populations. As in the framings of post-normalscience, scientifically-trained consultants play a roleby advising organisations; but within conservation,this is mainly for species identification and surveying(which is often not possible by conservation practi-tioners), rather than for project design or assess-ment, and so consultants are usually in effect dataproviders rather than researchers or practitioners.

Despite interactions between individual organisa-tions, there is notable separation between each broadcomponent of the sector, characterised by limited

interactions, particularly between researchers andthe conservation organisations that are most fre-quently performing conservation in practice (e.g. seeAnonymous 2007; Wheeler 2008). Figure 2 demon-strates key interactions between sector components,highlighting key methods of knowledge exchange thatbroadly exist, and potential methods that largelyremain to be developed.

This separation has significant implications for theeffectiveness of conservation in the UK, and eachsector component operates according to differentdrivers and priorities. Although each component hasits strengths, and it would be wrong to highlight onlythe negative aspects, nevertheless the differentpriorities and operational methods create problems.Ecological researchers, motivated by a desire forunderstanding and to publish their research, gen-erally conduct their investigations usually overrelatively short timescales (a usual three-yearproject or PhD funded by a UK Research Council)and then move on to a new question or topic, alwayskeen to break new ground, and constantly chasing

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new funding sources. Governmental organisationsare driven by an expectation that they need tolegislate and act to preserve biodiversity, but thismainly consists of making and remaking decisionspartly to adapt to constantly changing information(due to uncertainties and requests for decisions onbest available knowledge) and also partly to demon-strate that decisions are being made and thereforematters are under control. Second and third sectorconservation organisations operate under govern-mental legislation and advice within their means,often using experience-based management methodsthat have uncertain effectiveness (Pullin et al.2004). Although some strong linkages exist betweensector components and peer community members,these are generally insufficient to unite natureconservation and biological conservation adequately,and to address many conservation issues. A potentialmechanism that might promote interactions includeincreased public-private partnerships aimed at es-tablishing a research and evidence base for decisionmaking in privately owned areas or in associationwith the management of natural resources ratherthan simple land preservation or experience-basedconservation (e.g. Endicott 1993). Such public-private partnerships have worked well in some areaswhere research and evidence collection has directlyinformed management, e.g. public health (Peters &Phillips 2004), and has been noted as essential forconservation practice in some studies (e.g. Stoll-Kleemann & O’Riordan 2002), but has so far hadlimited success in relation to natural resources andconservation, where long-term partnerships andcommitments are required (Stoll-Kleemann & O’Rior-dan 2002). It is likely that some institutional changein perceptions, priorities and incentives would beneeded for this to be effective.

This has implications for the effectiveness of theUK BAP, which relies heavily on a large number ofactors for its implementation. To date, the UK BAPis composed of a total of 436 Habitat Action Plansand Species Action Plans, drawn from a priority listof 1149 species and 65 habitats, and relying on 1850different organisations to enact the individual plans(JNCC 2007). Without focusing on the strengths andweaknesses of the individual plans, the sheernumber of plans and organisations involved can beinterpreted in two ways: firstly, as a positive signthat a wide range of national and local organisa-tions are involved, but secondly as an indicationthat the UK BAP, and the UK approach to conserva-tion, is substantially disjointed and fragmented,and any separation or distance in knowledgeexchange between the organisations involved inindividual HAPs and SAPs is likely to weakenimplementation (see also Pullin & Knight 2001).

At a time when there is a real political will forgreater effectiveness of conservation implementa-tion and acknowledgement and reduction of un-certainty (e.g. via evidence collation andutilisation), improving interactions between mem-bers of the extended peer community throughoutall components is an essential step forwards.

We next will discuss key barriers and mechanismsfor improving interactions within the extendedpeer community before briefly concluding.

Developing knowledge transfer withinthe extended peer community

Making clear the roles of members of the‘extended peer community’ of conservation practi-tioners within both global and local conservationsectors, and building long-term knowledge transferlinks between organisations is essential to ensurethat resources invested are not wasted. ‘Knowl-edge transfer’ in general is a key concern of the UKResearch Councils who fund much environmentalresearch in the UK (Anonymous 2007; NERC 2008),and there have recently been calls for academicresearchers to be more involved in practice, thoughthis has also been criticised as being unrealistic(Wheeler 2008). In order for the conservationcommunity to more fully acknowledge and embracea post-normal conservation framework, each peercommunity member needs a wider perspective ofits place within the community and the linkagesthat do and do not exist, as well as an under-standing of the uncertainties associated withconservation. A recent workshop based at King’sCollege London (UK), which focused on increasingknowledge transfer between Academe and practi-tioners within the London area, raised the questionof how linkages could be improved to facilitateknowledge transfer within the peer community.The discussion identified several key barriersbetween researcher and practitioner communitymembers, as follows:

1.
Differences in perceptions of the role of sciencewithin conservation. Academics and researchersgenerally considered that a scientific basis todecision-making and enactment is essential forconservation, and should provide both a startingpoint (to justify what is being done, why andhow) and an end point (to demonstrate thatthe enactment has an effect). Practitionersacknowledged that they would support theinvolvement of scientific principles and methodsbut considered that this was a luxury rather than

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a necessity, and a luxury that they could notafford in terms of time or money.

2.
Differences in academic and practitioner prio-rities. Researchers generally have priorities inmaking a long-term contribution to the sum ofscientific knowledge for conservation. This in-volves the acquisition of limited fixed-termresearch grants and the publication of peer-reviewed international articles. This is alsocentral to their career development. Althoughthe UK Research Councils have a requirement forknowledge transfer to encourage the applicationof research where possible, this remains agenerally ancillary activity on the part ofresearchers. Practitioners primarily prioritiseobtaining funds to keep people in employmentin order to complete individual short-termprojects. The large number of conservationorganisations, often with relatively narrow localfoci, also makes obtaining funding difficult.There is therefore relatively little direct incen-tive for knowledge transfer for either research-ers or practitioners, despite both recognising itsimportance.
3.
Lack of understanding of respective roles.Practitioners were largely unaware of whatresearch was being conducted, why it wasrelevant to them and how the outcomes wouldbe made available, instead responding primarilyto governmental reports (which may incorporateresearch findings, but are often more selectivesummaries of findings). Researchers were gen-erally unaware of the small, more local con-servation organisations, their reason for existingand what their primary interests were.
4.
Lack of access to publications. A key gap inknowledge transfer was the inaccessibility ofscientific journals that publish research topractitioners, due to the prohibitive cost of thejournals and because practitioners do not haveaccess to institutional libraries. Although ab-stracts are available online, this is not sufficientfor practitioners to be able to utilise publica-tions. Likewise, a large range of data exists inthe form of grey literature and informal recordsheld by varying practitioner organisations, andwhich tend not to be readily noticed byresearchers, who tend to rely on peer-reviewedjournal articles.
5.
Uncertainties leading to inaction. It was alsonoted that some of the scientific and institu-tional uncertainties associated with conserva-tion (and which may result from ‘extendedfacts’) cause practitioners to become unwillingto invest resources in efforts that may notproduce desired results. A key example of this
is the uncertainty associated with climatechange (what kind of change will occur andwhen), meaning that efforts to support habitator species may be made redundant if ranges andhabitats are changed by climatic shift. Muchscientific research does lead to unclear orcontradictory evidence that can lead to uncer-tainty in application, for example the benefitsand disadvantages of planting non-native spe-cies. Evaluating such uncertainties is a key taskfor researchers, but this needs to be performedwithin a post-normal science framework.

In response to these barriers, we suggest thatthere are several potential mechanisms that can beimplemented, certainly within the UK conservationsector, to improve interactions between the peercommunity, increase the scientific rigour of prac-tice and reduce uncertainty:

1.
New means of facilitation of research findingsand their implications for practice from re-searchers to practitioners. These may include: i)publication of summaries of methodologies orevidence for specific kinds of conservationpractice, in journals or magazines that conser-vation practitioners have access to and are likelyto read. Academic journals are frequently not ofdirect interest to practitioners and are expen-sive to subscribe to, substantially lowering theiravailability and appeal (partly due to academicelitism; Ravetz 2004). A new format of journal(or potentially sections in existing heavily-sub-scribed popular science/nature magazines)dedicated to research summaries may help toovercome some of these boundaries, and aca-demics should be given credit for publications inthese media; indeed this is already happening tosome extent with the online access journalConservation Evidence, which has existed from2004, although academic researchers have yetto contribute substantially to this resource; ii)allowing practitioners individual or organisa-tional access to institutional libraries; and iii)the explicit creation of knowledge facilitator orinterpreter positions (ideally funded by govern-mental bodies), who may be responsible forcollating, summarising and interpreting researchinto information and media that practitionerscan effectively use. Trained in academic andresearch skills (e.g. via a PhD) such individualsshould be able to work at varying levels withinthe conservation sector to ensure mutual under-standing of key issues, and to help build bridgesbetween various organisations. Note that thecurrent suggestions of researchers working to

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develop knowledge transfer to bring researchinto practice is likely to be problematic simplybecause it involves a ‘stretching’ of resourcesand takes time and effort away from theresearch or the knowledge exchange; conse-quently, one of the two is likely to suffer. Thecreation of specific facilitation posts is muchmore likely to lead to successful knowledgetransfer.

2.
Data sharing arrangements, wherein the datafrom projects performed by conservation orga-nisations is provided to researchers to analyseand publish the results so as to provide evidenceand further inform conservation practice. This ismost likely to be effective in situations whereresearchers are asked to comment on projectdesign and implementation at an early stage, toensure that the data will be robust and can besubjected to appropriate statistical analyses.Such arrangements can easily be reciprocal;with a small investment of researcher time toadvise such projects, a substantial amount ofdata could be collected to provide much neededevidence and material for publication, and islikely to be of a suitable scale and subject forwider conservation application.
3.
Collaborative research projects supported byfunding, to target applied questions. Somemechanisms for this currently exist, such asthe Natural Environment Research Council Co-operative Award in Science and Engineering(NERC-CASE) studentships, but collaborative re-search wherein researchers utilise their experi-mental design and statistical skills alongside thepractitioner workforce’s experience and localknowledge is also likely to be successful, and tolead to the development of lasting knowledgetransfer relationships. Much more scope shouldbe given to funding projects that utilise membersfrom across the peer community.
4.
Mutually beneficial educational exchanges, in-cluding researcher/practitioner workshops,practitioner organisations inviting researchersonto boards of trustees and working parties, anduniversities encouraging ‘guest lectures’ orother contributions to conservation teaching bypractitioners, who may be able to providedifferent perspectives on the sector to aca-demics. In particular, the creation of specific‘knowledge facilitator’ posts as outlined abovewould allow professionals to perform many ofthese roles, and to dedicate an appropriateamount of time to them, avoiding the need forresearchers/practitioners to perform these rolesoutside of their usual responsibilities and there-by devaluing the knowledge exchange.
Conclusions and future directions

This review has briefly summarised the ecologi-cal, ethical, philosophical and methodologicaluncertainties inherent in both the science andpractice of nature conservation, and highlightedways in which the extended peer community canwork together to both acknowledge and reduce thisuncertainty within a post-normal science frame-work. Fragmentation of the current UK conserva-tion sector is due in part to the different pathwaysby which nature conservation as both a science anda practice developed, and several barriers existthat restrict knowledge transfer between differentacademic, governmental and non-governmentalmembers of the sector. These include barriers ofperception, priorities, understanding, resourcesand the various uncertainties discussed above.There is now a need to ensure that a more focusedand cohesive conservation community emerges aswe work towards a more sustainable society, andthis may be achieved by increasing exchanges ofpeople, publications, data and funding betweenorganisations. In particular, future conservationistsshould acknowledge the uncertainty inherent to alllevels of nature conservation, and ensure that suchuncertainty is taken into account in management.These uncertainties will continue to emerge asrelationships between society and nature changeand it is these uncertainties that require more andbetter joint efforts among scientists, practitionersand managers for nature conservation.

Acknowledgements

Several of the themes for this paper developedfrom the workshop ‘Increasing knowledge transferbetween researchers and practitioners for restora-tion and conservation of aquatic ecosystems’ heldby the Centre for Environmental Assessment,Management and Policy (CEAMP) at King’s CollegeLondon on 23 June 2008, and sponsored by theLondon Development Agency. Rob Francis wouldlike to acknowledge all of the delegates whoattended and contributed to the discussions, andin particular Nick Bertrand of the CreeksideEducation Centre. Two anonymous reviewers arealso thanked for their constructive comments thathelped to improve the manuscript.

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post-normal science and the art of nature conservation

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