Conservation is now big business, consuming millions of rands every year. But can those who contribute the money be sure it is delivering benefits?
It is a question that hung over the largest-ever gathering of conservationists in the United Kingdom last year. One of the delegates attending the annual general meeting of the UK’s Society for Conservation told me: “If we put our hands on our hearts, we know that many [conservation] projects fail.”
The planet’s six billion humans consume 40% of all the production of the Earth’s plants, leaving just 60% for other species. Moreover, 25% of all mammals are threatened with extinction and half the world’s fisheries are over-fished.
Conservation faces a huge challenge, and needs funding to match. The Global Environment Facility, established after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, has dished out $1-billion for biodiversity projects and a similar amount to tackle climate change. But is the money well spent?
Conservationists must adopt critical measures of success. A business can prove success by a growth in profits; a conservation body should be measuring its success by an increase in the number of cheetahs in Africa or golden eagles in the Scottish skies, and asking which actions are most cost-effective. But this approach is barely happening.
The difficulties lie in monitoring the ebb and flow of animal populations, which is a costly, long-term commitment. It is far easier for a conservation body to report instead on its own output – number of reports written, seminars held and so forth.
Furthermore, conservation bodies are chasing limited pots of money and are often reluctant to publicise projects that fail, even if the wider cause of conservation would benefit from such an analysis.
It is time for conservationists to adopt a more evidence-based approach. For example, do the perennial “red lists” of threatened creatures actually enhance those creatures’ prospects? Probably, if only because they alert the world to the fact that the species are in trouble. But the point has never been conclusively proven.
Also, it is time to analyse whether conservation in the developing world is better served by educating local people so they no longer need to harvest medicinal plants, or by making it worth people’s while not to harass wildlife. All of these avenues have been tried, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
In Britain, the situation is not necessarily any better. Paul Dolman of the University of East Anglia recently interviewed site managers responsible for nearly half the Norfolk Broads National Park. More than 50% of their actions were based solely on common sense and personal experience. “In public health, such an approach would be regarded as scandalous,” says Dolman.
Thirty years ago, the medical world realised that the procedures and therapies in common use were not always the most effective. It took another 15 years to erect the edifice of sound, evidence-based medicine: double-blind trials, documentation of tests that fail as well as those that succeed. Conservationists should follow suit.
The World Wide Fund for Nature is at least beginning to adopt target-driven programmes, including the development of a worldwide network of nature reserves. Much else in conservation – signing treaties, mutual back-slapping at the World Summit in Johannesburg – is rightly considered to be mere milestones en route to the target.
If reaching such targets means jettisoning long-cherished practices, then so be it. The future of the world is more important than a few ruffled feathers.
Michael Brooke teaches conservation biology and is curator of birds in Cambridge University’s department of zoology