Cargando…

I Am a Compassionate Conservation Welfare Scientist: Considering the Theoretical and Practical Differences Between Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The well-being of individual wild animals is threatened in many ways, including by activities aiming to conserve species, ecosystems and biodiversity, i.e., conservation activities. Scientists working in two related disciplines, Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare, ar...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Beausoleil, Ngaio J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7070475/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32041150
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani10020257
_version_ 1783505983914377216
author Beausoleil, Ngaio J.
author_facet Beausoleil, Ngaio J.
author_sort Beausoleil, Ngaio J.
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: The well-being of individual wild animals is threatened in many ways, including by activities aiming to conserve species, ecosystems and biodiversity, i.e., conservation activities. Scientists working in two related disciplines, Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare, are attentive to the well-being of individual wild animals. The purpose of this essay is to highlight the commonalities between these disciplines and to consider key differences, in order to stimulate discussion among interested parties and use our collective expertise and energy to best effect. An emerging scenario, the use of genetic technologies for control of introduced animals, is used to explore the ways each discipline might respond to novel conservation-related threats to wild animal well-being. ABSTRACT: Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare are two disciplines whose practitioners advocate consideration of individual wild animals within conservation practice and policy. However, they are not, as is sometimes suggested, the same. Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare are based on different underpinning ethics, which sometimes leads to conflicting views about the kinds of conservation activities and decisions that are acceptable. Key differences between the disciplines appear to relate to their views about which wild animals can experience harms, the kinds of harms they can experience and how we can know about and confidently evidence those harms. Conservation Welfare scientists seek to engage with conservation scientists with the aim of facilitating ongoing incremental improvements in all aspects of conservation, i.e., minimizing harms to animals. In contrast, it is currently unclear how the tenets of Compassionate Conservation can be used to guide decision-making in complex or novel situations. Thus, Conservation Welfare may offer modern conservationists a more palatable approach to integrating evidence-based consideration of individual sentient animals into conservation practice and policy.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7070475
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-70704752020-03-19 I Am a Compassionate Conservation Welfare Scientist: Considering the Theoretical and Practical Differences Between Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare Beausoleil, Ngaio J. Animals (Basel) Opinion SIMPLE SUMMARY: The well-being of individual wild animals is threatened in many ways, including by activities aiming to conserve species, ecosystems and biodiversity, i.e., conservation activities. Scientists working in two related disciplines, Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare, are attentive to the well-being of individual wild animals. The purpose of this essay is to highlight the commonalities between these disciplines and to consider key differences, in order to stimulate discussion among interested parties and use our collective expertise and energy to best effect. An emerging scenario, the use of genetic technologies for control of introduced animals, is used to explore the ways each discipline might respond to novel conservation-related threats to wild animal well-being. ABSTRACT: Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare are two disciplines whose practitioners advocate consideration of individual wild animals within conservation practice and policy. However, they are not, as is sometimes suggested, the same. Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare are based on different underpinning ethics, which sometimes leads to conflicting views about the kinds of conservation activities and decisions that are acceptable. Key differences between the disciplines appear to relate to their views about which wild animals can experience harms, the kinds of harms they can experience and how we can know about and confidently evidence those harms. Conservation Welfare scientists seek to engage with conservation scientists with the aim of facilitating ongoing incremental improvements in all aspects of conservation, i.e., minimizing harms to animals. In contrast, it is currently unclear how the tenets of Compassionate Conservation can be used to guide decision-making in complex or novel situations. Thus, Conservation Welfare may offer modern conservationists a more palatable approach to integrating evidence-based consideration of individual sentient animals into conservation practice and policy. MDPI 2020-02-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7070475/ /pubmed/32041150 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani10020257 Text en © 2020 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Opinion
Beausoleil, Ngaio J.
I Am a Compassionate Conservation Welfare Scientist: Considering the Theoretical and Practical Differences Between Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare
title I Am a Compassionate Conservation Welfare Scientist: Considering the Theoretical and Practical Differences Between Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare
title_full I Am a Compassionate Conservation Welfare Scientist: Considering the Theoretical and Practical Differences Between Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare
title_fullStr I Am a Compassionate Conservation Welfare Scientist: Considering the Theoretical and Practical Differences Between Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare
title_full_unstemmed I Am a Compassionate Conservation Welfare Scientist: Considering the Theoretical and Practical Differences Between Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare
title_short I Am a Compassionate Conservation Welfare Scientist: Considering the Theoretical and Practical Differences Between Compassionate Conservation and Conservation Welfare
title_sort i am a compassionate conservation welfare scientist: considering the theoretical and practical differences between compassionate conservation and conservation welfare
topic Opinion
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7070475/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32041150
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani10020257
work_keys_str_mv AT beausoleilngaioj iamacompassionateconservationwelfarescientistconsideringthetheoreticalandpracticaldifferencesbetweencompassionateconservationandconservationwelfare