threatened species 'conservation recovery projects from the perspectives of ... debates over the value of threatened species recovery projects cause many.
Debating Biodiversity: Threatened Species Conservation and Scientific Values
Yann Toussaint Anthropology and Sociology, University of Western Australia This paper explores some aspects of the cultural logic of conservation biology and threatened species ’conservation recovery projects from the perspectives of environmental anthropology and science studies. Responses of the scientific community to recent ‘re-discoveries’ of species believed to have become extinct are considered within current decision making models that emphasise landscape scale restoration over single species recovery projects. In particular, this paper considers responses to the proposition that dedicating resources towards recovery projects for critically endangered species is inconsistent with a rational approach to biodiversity conservation. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, I demonstrate that debates over the value of threatened species recovery projects cause many scientists to reflect on the ethical responsibilities and emotional attachments that led them to act as advocates for threatened species.
On the 6‘h of September 2002, the day before National Threatened Species Day,’ I found myself taking participant observation to new inter-species levels. Dressed as an over-size and anatomically suspect Gilbert’s potoroo I stumbled around the newly established Farmer’s Markets in my adopted town of Albany (pop. 30,000), on the southern coast of Western Australia, handing out information sheets about Australia’s rarest mammal. Guiding me past stalls selling a range of local organic produce was a zoologist who had been one of the founding members of the recently formed Gilbert’s Potoroo Action Group (GPAG). In between greeting friends and colleagues, he told market-goers the story of the potoroo’s chance re-discovery in 1994 at nearby Two People’s Bay. He also chatted to conservation-minded stall holders about the group’s activities in assisting scientists from the Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM). These activities included public awareness raising and hands-on involvement with labour-intensive monitoring activities and the maintenance of the captive breeding colony. With professional and personal links to the local farming community, he was also well placed to draw connections between the work that scientists were undertaking on behalf of threatened species such as the potoroo and local landholders’ own efforts to protect and restore bushland on their farms.
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Our appearance caused a stir of interest, garnered donations, increased membership and elicited promises from landholders to report any unusual sightings to the group. As the morning progressed we answered questions about the species: How many exist in the wild? Did it live anywhere else in Australia? What does it eat? Why are they at risk of extinction? What can be done to save it? These questions were similar to those being asked by scientists working to save this and other endangered species across Australia. Yet, in the fimy recesses of the potoroo suit, I was asking different questions: What do responses to the ‘reappearance’ of species such as the potoroo reveal about the way that science is practised? On what basis do scientists advocate saving particular endangered species? What insights can a focus on debates over threatened species recovery projects offer into the ways in which ‘nature’ is valued by scientists? In considering these questions, I observe Weiner’s call to recognise the potential of science studies to contribute to the emergence of a reinvigorated anthropology through the development of ‘the kinds of critiques that will embody scientific knowledge with the stuff of lived experiences as people everywhere are faced with growing contradictions about the way they have named and come to know the natural world’ (Weiner 1993 cited in Franklin 1995: 164). I suggest it is important to recognise that scientists also see contradictions in the way they have named and come to know, and value, the natural world. In doing so, I draw attention to the healthy self-examination that occurs within the discipline of conservation biology, defined by Barry and Oelschlaeger (1 996: 906) as
... a crisis discipline grounded in the recognition that humans are causing the death of life-the extinction of species and the disruption of evolution. Soule (1986: 1 I , our emphasis) suggests that this planetary tragedy is also a personal tragedy to those scientists who feel compelled to devote themselves to the rescue effort. The re-discovery of species such as Gilbert’s potoroo, and subsequent debates over its status, provide one example of the challenges which scientists and others face in arguing that critically endangered species are a rational choice for intervention.
Rationalising re-discovery In December 1994 the corporate relations division of the Western Australian Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) circulated a series of news releases celebrating the reappearance of Gilbert’s potoroo (CALM 1994). The species had last been recorded in 1869 despite extensive scientific surveys in the intervening years and consequently was believed to be extinct. The press-release noted the serendipitous nature of the re-discovery. Two university students had set cage traps at Two Peoples Bay, on the south coast of Western Australia, as part of a project looking at genetic variation amongst quokkas, a species that is ubiquitous on the popular holiday island of Rottnest but rare on the mainland. While the quokkas remained elusive, the students caught a small marsupial which they did not recognise. The first capture was released but when another animal appeared the students contacted the reserve manager who recalled an unsuccessful search for the potoroo some 20 years before. The news of the re-discovery caused great excitement in scientific circles (Burbidge 1995), and in the local and national press. As one of the scientists involved in the rediscovery told local reporters: ‘I mean can you imagine how we felt when the first one was trapped? ... In the space of 24 hours the Gilbert’s potoroo had gone from something we
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could only read about, an extinct species, to something we now had in our hands. The feeling was amazing’ (Albany Advertiser 1995). In an interview I conducted some years later, another scientist described having worked with Australia’s rarest mammal as ‘an incredible privilege’. Feature articles appeared, and continue to appear, in popular journals aimed at nature enthusiasts (Start et al. 1995; Friend 2003a, 2003b). To date, appeals to the public for information and searches of likely habitat within a 100 km radius of Two Peoples Bay have failed to locate any potoroos existing outside the 4500 hectare nature reserve. Estimates drawn from extensive monitoring within the reserve suggests a total wild and captive population of forty animals. A captive breeding program for the species has so far met with only moderate success and the wild population continues to be monitored intensively while new strategies to induce better rearing of young in captivity are trialled. Consequently, the discovery of three more individuals some three kilometres from the main population, though still within the reserve, was also greeted with great excitement amongst the scientific community (Friend 2003~). Significantly, the initial press release announcing the re-discovery did not include the potoroo’s scientific name. British naturalist and illustrator John Gould had described the species in 1841 as Hypsiprimnus gilbertii on the basis of specimens collected near Two Peoples Bay and shipped back to England by his Western Australian based collector, John Gilbert.’ Later revisions, based on morphological comparisons of museum specimens undertaken a century after the animal had last been seen alive, placed it as a sub-species of the relatively common long-nosed potoroo, Potorous tridactylus, found in south-eastern Australia (Friend n.d.). It was as Potorous tridactylus that its re-discovery was reported in the scientific literature (Sinclair, Danks and Wayne 1996). A year later the potoroo was ‘rediscovered’ a second time; this time in the laboratory. A study by Sinclair and Westerman ( 1997) concluded that there was sufficient genetic divergence to warrant Gilbert’s Potoroo being reinstated as a separate species, Potorous gilbertii. As a result, Gilbert’s potoroo was regarded, in some circles at least, as being more deserving of conservation funding than would have been the case if it continued to be classified as a sub-species. Sinclair and Westerman concluded that their study provided further evidence of the shortcomings of relying on morphological data to establish the taxonomic status of species and highlighted the problematic status of sub-species in formulating conservation priorities. The re-discovery also renewed discussion over the conservation status and management of the Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve. The potoroo’s survival is believed to have been significantly aided by CALM’S efforts to control feral foxes and cats and to preserve a thick cover of sedges and understory through the suppression of tire. This management history was in turn part of a strategy aimed at preserving another critically endangered species, the noisy scrub-bird, Atrichornis clamosus. This species, like Gilbert’s potoroo, had first come to the attention of European science through the work of Gould and Gilbert before disappearing from view until 1961. Nonetheless, the scrub-bird’s future was far from secure; at the time of its re-discovery, Two People’s Bay had been gazetted for development as a holiday resort. Intervention by local conservation groups, the then World Wildlife Fund, and the Duke of Edinburgh saw the site declared a Nature Reserve in 1967 (Robin 2001: 261). Subsequent recovery efforts saw the noisy scrub-bird’s numbers increase significantly and the species has been successfully re-established in a number of locations. Ironically, this success, combined with increasing visitor numbers, resulted in proposals to downgrade the status of Two Peoples Bay from an A Class reserve, managed for conservation purposes, to that of National Park, a designation which could have allowed much greater recreational pressure on the area. The re-discovery of the potoroo renewed
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debates over the future of the reserve (Albany Advertiser 1994a, 1994b; Haynes 1994) and the eventual decision to keep Two People’s Bay as an A-class reserve was welcomed by many from the local conservation and scientific communities (GPAG pers. comm.). In considering the accidental nature of many scientific discoveries, Kantovich (1993: 3) has suggested that most remain hidden from the public ‘ ... since they contradict the ethos of science. Science should appear as a nice and neat rational enterprise’. This brief sketch, then, can be read as an example of how a species, the continued survival of which went unrecognised for over a century, is brought back into the scientific domain. From this perspective, the potoroo’s re-discovery could be seen, and presented, as evidence of sound scientific management of the landscape, albeit for a different target species. Likewise, the revision of the taxonomic status of the potoroo draws attention to ways in which scientific knowledge can be seen as both technologically mediated and subject to negotiation while still following scientifically rigorous methods. The taxonomic study also foregrounds contestations over ‘species’ both as a natural category (Milton 1997) and as a basis for effective biodiversity conservation (Knapp 2003; Molnar, Marvier and Kareiva 2004). Similarly, negotiations over the management of the nature reserve highlight the historical dimensions and wider local, national and international political context of decisions surrounding threatened species conservation. However, I do not wish to argue a narrowly social constructionist perspective here, nor enter into debates over the social construction of nature or scientific knowledge (see, for example, Eder 1996; Yearley 2002; Newton and Freyfogle 2005). Indeed, several of the scientists interviewed during the course of fieldwork expressed frustration at social constructionist perspectives. In doing so they argued that they were very aware that they were using science, in a particular social and economic context, as a tool to construct understandings of nature and that such constructions could well prove fallible. Rather, I use this example to outline some of the ambiguities scientists encounter as they attempt to know, value, and manage species that once were ‘lost’ and remain in danger of being lost forever. Such ambiguities are also present in the debates that followed the re-discovery of the potoroo over what level of priority should be given to critically endangered species.
Debating biodiversity As a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity 1992, Australia has a commitment to preserving: ‘the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are a part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems’ (United Nations 1992: Article 2). This commitment, and its definition, have been given legislative standing through the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and through the endorsement of The National Strategy for the Conservation ofAustralia ’sBiological Diversity at Commonwealth and State levels (CALM 2004). Yet, biodiversity is variously interpreted. A discussion paper circulated by Western Australia’s Department of Conservation and Land Management acknowledges that
... the term has come to mean different things to different people, institutions and disciplines: a spectrum of meanings can now be perceived. At one extreme is a narrow and simplified [mis]understanding of biodiversity equating to charismatic mammals on the path to extinction or merely referring to native species, native vegetation or simply equating to nature. (CALM 2004: 2, square brackets in the original)
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Given such broad interpretation there is considerable uncertainty as to the best strategy for maximising biodiversity conservation. It was this issue that Professor Hugh Possingham, Head of the Australian Government’s Biological Diversity Advisory Committee, sought to address on Radio National’s Background Briejng program the day after National Threatened Species Day 2002 (Australian Broadcasting Commission 2002). Possingham suggested that, given the severity of environmental problems in Australia, there was an urgent need for a rational, systematic approach to prevent further biodiversity loss. In doing so, he advocated the adoption of ‘ecological triage’, in which resources would be preferentially allocated to ecosystems and species where the greatest conservation outcome could be achieved per unit investment. According to such a principle, he argued that some landscapes and some species are: ‘ecological basket cases .. . and we might have to sacrifice endangered species that are so far gone. We’re not going to make them extinct, but we certainly can’t spend the millions and millions of dollars to save them’ (Australian Broadcasting Commission 2002). The triage model also emphasises the need to recognise conservation and taxonomic hierarchies. Thus, ecosystems contain more diversity than individual species and are consequently more deserving of resources. In the same way, species typically contain greater genetic diversity than sub-species and therefore deserve a higher conservation priority. The triage perspective is not new; it has been the subject of critical attention for over a decade, not just from scientists but from environmental philosophers such as Rolston (1994). Possingham had previously articulated his position in a discussion paper commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation (200 1) and in a popular nature magazine (2002) in which he wrote ‘I believe that Australia’s policy about how we allocate funding is sentimentalist and muddle-headed’. Nonetheless, the radio program excited considerable discussion on the south coast of Western Australia where several critically endangered species exist and are the subject of intensive management programs., For some, the triage position was welcomed as ‘good science’, providing a systematic framework for rational decision making both within the region and across the nation. Yet for others, Possingham’s views constituted a professional and personal challenge to their identities as scientists working on behalf of threatened species. In the weeks and months following Possingham’s interview, I spoke to a range of scientists involved in threatened species conservation about their views on triage. At an international conference on biodiversity held in Albany some six weeks later I undertook further discussion with scientists working in the fields of threatened species conservation. Early the following year, triage was the subject of a well-attended public debate, also held in Albany, in which two scientists with academic links to Possingham addressed the contention ‘That support for Gilbert’s Poloroo is a waste of time and money’. These events provided excellent opportunities to explore the issues surrounding the triage model and, by extension, the scientific rationale and the personal significance and philosophical foundations of threatened species conservation. Those supporting Possingham’s triage model emphasised the importance of statistically based decision theory in providing a rational response to biodiversity loss. In advancing the need for rationality, several spoke of their identities as scientists and what constituted good scientific practice. As one scientist described it: It’s an emotive issue, none of us likes the prospect of things going extinct. But as scientists we need to be rational about this if we’re really serious about minimising further losses. We need good science here. We need a system, we need a robust method and we need reliable information.
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Another was critical of the scientific rationale behind threatened species recovery projects:
.... there’s no point in trying to save a species, any species, through a massive captive breeding effort if its likely to go extinct anyway, say because of climate change, or irreversible habitat loss, or because there just isn’t the genetic diversity within the population to sustain it in the long term ... As a scientist I’d have to say that’s a Noah’s ark approach. For this individual, as for several other scientists interviewed, intensive captive breeding raised a number of questions about how science is perceived, reported and valued both inside and beyond the scientific community. In particular, he was concerned that a fascination with technological solutions had obscured the need for a sober assessment of biodiversity conservation initiatives. Returning to the triage model, he argued that projects that involved ‘artificial insemination, helicopters in remote locations, possibly even cloning’ were equivalent to ‘the emergency room ... intensely dramatic’. He also acknowledged that such projects had the potential to advance knowledge through the development of techniques which were of intrinsic interest. Nonetheless, he concluded that such projects were similar to lavishing attention and money on animals damaged in road accidents‘rarely do they have any real conservation benefit’. Another interviewee observed that critically endangered species had typically ceased to play a functional role in the broader ecosystem and that any project must be evaluated from an ecological perspective. Arguing that the potoroo ought to survive ‘on its own merits’, he emphasised that even though most of the current wave of extinctions are anthropogenic, it was important for scientists not to give in to the temptation to ‘play God’. Noting that there was extreme uncertainty over whether many currently rare species were already close to ‘the end of their evolutionary career’, or were newly emerging, this scientist argued that the best approach was to try to preserve habitat. He also pointed out the dangers of captive breeding for genetically altering species. In doing so, he noted both the irony of needing to intensively manage species that come to epitomise wilderness and the need to preserve the potential for long-term evolutionary processes as part of a commitment to biodiversity conservation. Other scientists voiced concerns that conservation decisions have frequently been based on value judgments that privilege rare and/or charismatic species rather than on scientific information. In doing so, they also noted that endangered species lists tend to be weighted towards mammals, birds and vascular plants rather than other taxa, such as invertebrates, which make up the majority of animal life forms. For one man, such lists reflected the research interests, networks and spheres of influence of scientists working on particular threatened taxa rather than a rational assessment of the conservation status and risk of the species in question. Indeed, the advocacy of single-species recovery projects over strategies aimed at maximising biodiversity more generally was described by several interviewees as ‘elitist’ or ‘~pecies-ist’.~ Yet, as Yearley (1993: 66) has observed, it is difficult to convince the general public that species such as spiders and centipedes are as worthy of conservation as brightly coloured birds or appealing mammals. During the public debate in March 2003, one of Possingham’s colleagues raised several arguments as to why it might be appropriate to consider emphasising species such as the potoroo. First, as mammals and birds tend to galvanise people’s interest, they make valuable ‘icon’ species around which habitat and reserves that benefit a much larger range of species can be developed. Second, he asked the audience to consider whether Australians had a ‘custodial responsibility’ to small mammals given that Australia has already lost a large number of species since European settlement, with many more at risk of extinction.
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Nonetheless, he emphasised that given the magnitude of the task of arresting the rate of biodiversity loss, the best strategy may be to attempt to minimise the risk to all species while also concentrating extra attention on a few species he described as ‘iconic’ or ‘culturally important’. He added that this might mean recognising that others would probably become extinct, even with expensive captive breeding efforts. He concluded with the observation that: ‘community passion and community involvement is a valuable resource that should be weighed up against other priorities and resources ...[as] we need to wrestle with the moral, cultural and technical dimensions of what we should save’. For some interviewees, the triage proposition offered conservation biology a statistical rigour and objectivity that they felt had long been lacking. However, several scientists, while agreeing with Possingham’s basic premise, expressed concern given the lack of information available on many species and their ecological relationships. Another man, interviewed in October 2002, also agreed with the rationale behind triage. However, he expressed concern that adopting this approach, or even simply not presenting a united front as scientists, would see less, rather than more, respect and resources being directed towards environmental issues: ‘People will be very quick to say, look, even the boffins can’t agree!’. A similarly ironic sentiment, with a similarly self-deprecating reference to scientists as boffins, was expressed by one of the scientists during the public debate: ‘If we look at history, to care about any species is a revolution in thinking and we don’t want any boffins to upset this by suggesting that we are caring for the wrong things!’. For others, Possingham’s public advocacy of triage caused considerable reflection on their identities as scientists and their motivations for engaging in threatened species conservation. For one: As a scientist, I know that triage makes sense. I’m sure that [naming two other scientists] are fully in support of it. They’re such realists. But for me it’s just-I suppose I’ve always believed, sort of like a tenet of my faith as a Conservation biologist if you like, [laughs] that you just don’t let things go extinct. You’re in there fighting to try and save them!
Other interviewees also made a distinction between their identity as a scientist and their role as a conservation biologist or, as one described it, ‘as a research scientist with a conservationist ethic’. For this man, the realisation that this distinction was imposed by those outside of conservation biology preceded the triage debate, while he was at university: I was looking at doing honours and I wanted to do something for threatened species-that’s why I became a scientist in the first place. And this is going back quite a long time now but I remember several of the senior academics telling me to do something else, and one in particular telling me, very seriously, that conservation biology was just an excuse for bad science.
He suggested that the ‘bad science’ label was being applied because of the moral positioning of conservation biology and the wariness with which he felt many scientists viewed attempts to connect values to scientific investigations. While he observed that increasing numbers of universities are offering units or degree courses in conservation biology, he was concerned that the culture of scientists, in some faculties and government departments at least, inhibited students and those like himself from expressing ‘a real love of nature’. Other interviewees antagonistic towards the triage model described themselves as ‘field scientists’ or, in one instance, as ‘a field biologist at heart’. In doing so, they drew a contrast between themselves and those they portrayed as ‘armchair scientists’ more devoted to ‘computer generated models’ than to a physically present nature. In expanding on this
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distinction, these individuals emphasised the practicality of their everyday engagements with nature and the centrality of their field experience in shaping their ~ ie w p o in t.During ~ a conference break, one described his feelings of empathy for a species to which he had devoted a considerable portion of his research life. He contrasted this with the lack of intimacy that he felt characterised the positions of many of those who he referred to interchangeably as ‘urban academics’ and ‘armchair scientists’. Similarly, for Noss (1 996: 2), the empathy gained during field research was central to the identity of conservation biologists and to the integrity of the discipline. Indeed, in calling for those involved in teaching conservation biology to resist the trend towards statistical modelling over field training, Noss argues that it is precisely the ‘long-term emotional investment in wild-places’ that makes scientists trusted advocates for the environment. Yet, to describe those advocating triage as untrustworthy or uncaring would be to draw a spurious distinction-in conversation and on walks through the bush it was apparent that they too were driven by a deep passion both for ‘wild-places’ and for biodiversity conservation.
Conservation biology and the value of environmental anthropology In presenting these varying positions on triage, I do not wish to overstate the significance of the disagreements. Although a small number of scientists interviewed were strident in their opposition to the triage argument, others emphasised the closeness and supportiveness of the conservation biology community in Australia. Nonetheless, I argue that such debates offer anthropologists valuable opportunities to observe the workings of science, and the construction and assertion of particular scientific identities as being rational. Analysis of the intersections between scientific knowledge and practice, the politics of decision making, and the moral issues raised by debates over ecological triage extends Yearley’s (1993) account of how science is used strategically in the service of conservation. For Yearley, as for Milton (1997), conservation organisations draw on scientific sources in order to lend authority to arguments predicated on a moral view of nature, and threatened species, as being intrinsically worthy of Conservation. The case study presented here, however, highlights the limitations of an approach that seeks to maintain a commitment to the conservation of critically endangered species through recourse to scientific arguments. This, in turn,highlights the philosophical tension inherent within conservation biology over what constitutes good, or rational science. On this latter theme, Milton (2002) has noted the need for scientists and social scientists alike to recognise emotional responses to nature as a valid basis for decision making. For Milton (2002: v), the opposition between emotion and rationality is a spurious one which has served ‘to exclude from public decision making the kinds of emotional attachments that support more environmentally sensitive ways of living’. Such concerns have not been confined to the social sciences. As sociologist Rik Scarce (2000) noted in his study of salmon biologists, there has been a significant change in the way that some scientists influenced by the discipline of conservation biology have sought to define their position towards their subject. Indeed, a reading of the journal Conservation Biology demonstrates widespread recognition of the important role of values, emotional engagements, or reverence, as a basis for advocating biodiversity conservation (Christie 2002; Orr 2002, 2003; Webb 2005). Thus, Harding (2003: 651) calls for scientists to continue to ‘reflect critically on our own scientific epistemology’ and to be more accepting of the spiritual and moral bases for engaging in conservation. Similarly, Tracy and Brussard (1 996: 9 18), like Milton (2002), question the opposition between emotions and rationality, arguing: ‘it is
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certainly a myth that scientists are generally dispassionate practitioners of a valueless enterprise. The vast majority of those who call themselves conservation biologists were attracted to their field out of a love of nature and its components’. However it is also true, as several interviewees in my fieldwork and in Eisenhart’s (1996) study noted, that such values were not always easy to acknowledge. As Webb (2005: 276) observed: ’we have an emotional tie to natural places and species: we value them for just being. And yet many of us have been acculturated to present only utilitarian arguments for their preservation’. Certainly, an emphasis on utilitarian arguments is strongly present in Possingham’s papers (2001, 2002). Indeed, in advancing them he suggests that they remain the strongest arguments that scientists and environmentalists possess in seeking to have funds committed for biodiversity conservation. Yet for Collar (2003: 265), the tendency for ‘institutional tacticians’ to advance utilitarian arguments is ultimately defeatist in that it fails to acknowledge the real value and moral significance of biodiversity and of people’s motivations to conserve it. In part, the debates and ambiguities described above hinge on the values implicit in terms such as biodiversity and highlight the challenge of drawing on such value-laden terms in formulating normative goals for conservation (Callicott, Crowder and Mumford 1999; Freyfogle and Newton 2002; Yearley 2002; Newton and Freyfogle 2005). Such debates, in turn, suggest broader concerns over decision making processes within science, what constitutes good science and what is an appropriate expenditure of limited resources. In this paper I have avoided representing the arguments against ecological triage simply as the resistance offered by an outmoded, or irrational, view of science. Instead I have argued that these arguments are consistent with the ethos of the discipline of conservation biology. Nonetheless, to suggest that an emotional basis for engaging with these debates, or one arising out of an ethical position that claims a duty of care for all species, is a superior approach to a ‘rationalist’ or triage position ignores the hard decisions that conservation biologists and the broader community are likely to face in the future. Rather, I have attempted to suggest that those on both sides of the debate demonstrate an ethical concern for ‘nature’ and for the practice of responsible science. I have also suggested, following on from Milton (2002) and McCoy (1996), that there are several competing, and overlapping, rationalities at work in this as in so many environmental issues. As Milton (1997) has pointed out, activities aimed at social and environmental reform should not be expected to be consistent, and conservation biology has, from its inception, been both a reformist activity and a science. Consequently, debates over the management of threatened species serve to challenge many certainties about the role of science in conservation and, in some cases, scientists’ own sense of identity. In doing so, these debates highlight the co-production of knowledge and identity (Roepstorff and Bubandt 2003) and the social production of scientists within institutions and in the field (Eisenhart 1996; Noss 1996). For Berglund (2001), these issues also suggest the need to question the rationalities of modernity and to explore the networks that underpin the workings of both science and environmentalism. Similarly, Milton (1997) and Flyvbjerg (1998: 2) remind us that those in the social sciences have a role to critically examine the way that rationality and modernity operate, and are understood to operate, in real world settings. But Berglund, like Collar (2003) and Whitton et al. (2001), also warns that environmentalism can quickly become self-defeating if, through recourse to scientific arguments, it loses its focus on achieving social transformation.
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Such issues pose several challenges, and indicate several opportunities, for environmental anthropologists as students of, and potentially advocates for, environmentalism (Milton 1993). The debates described above also raise further questions about the culture and practice of science, public understandings of science, and the role of science and rationality as a basis for asserting environmentalist positions. As a recent editorial in Conservation Biology argues, there is an urgent need for social scientists to engage with those from other disciplines in contributing to discussions over conservation priorities and to developing a common language (Mascia er al. 2003). Anthropologists, as practitioners and as advocates, can usefully problematise the language, practice and rationalities of science, and the uses to which science is put. Anthropologists are also well positioned to inform scientific decision making by identifying the sorts of species and landscapes that are considered ‘culturally significant’ and to argue for broader interpretations of value that include emotional and spiritual dimensions. Yet, to be effective, anthropologists will also need to be able to demonstrate their familiarity with scientific discourse and the practice of science. I argue that the varied responses described above suggest a need for further nuanced ethnographic accounts of the culture and influence of science and its intersection between environmental decision making, values, advocacy and emotion.
Acknowledgements Thanks are due to the many and varied members of the conservation and scientific community who provided assistance and support for this research. The views represented in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the individuals working with Gilbert’s potoroo. Thanks also to Jane Mulcock, Celmara Pocock, Beverley McNamarra and three reviewers for comments and encouragement.
Notes 1. Threatened Species Day, on 7 September each year, marks the anniversary of the death of the last officially recorded thylacine (Thyracinus qnocephalus), commonly known as the Tasmanian Tiger, at a Hobart zoo in 1936. 2. The potoroo may have been noted by Europeans prior to being collected by Gilbert but was not described in the scientific literature. They were certainly known to the indigenous Noongar people of the area who Gilbert records as spearing them ‘in great numbers’ (Friend n.d.). 3. The charge of species-ism was also leveled at Birds Australia and CALM following
announcements of a proposed cull of native, but non-local, corellas in Perth, Western Australia. Kay Milton (2000: 229-246) tracks a similar conflict over the management of hybridising ruddy ducks in Europe. These issues highlight contests over what aspects of biodiversity are, or should be, privileged in a highly modified environment and who should be the arbitrator of such decisions. 4. This emphasis on practical engagement in and with nature that provides a foundation for a respectful attitude toward nature and a right to advocate a certain position is also present in the discourses of loggers (see Peace 1996; Trigger 1999).
References Albany Advertiser, 1994a. Management is the key. Albany Advertiser, 13 December, p. 6. Albany Advertiser, 1994b. Threat of federal action in bay issue. Albany Advertiser, 13 December, p. 8. Albany Advertiser, 1995. Survival chance for our rarest mammal. Albany Advertiser, August 29, p. I .
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