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Time for some #conservation #pessimism! And shameless self promotion. Reviewing the last 20 years of biodiversity and conservation research ( https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12720),">https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/... we found that scientists simply aren& #39;t studying the topics that can best help solve the #biodiversity crisis 1/
Most papers study the state of biodiversity (it& #39;s all going horribly wrong) or the mechanism that& #39;s directly causing the declines (e.g. deforestation) the two light reds in this figure). But we& #39;re not developing an in-depth understanding of the ultimate drivers of #extinctions 2/
So we have LOADS of studies saying "everything is dying" or "everything is dying because we& #39;re cutting down trees", but very few asking "why are people cutting down trees" 3/
Even more worrying, we& #39;re putting very little effort into trying to find solutions to the #extinction crisis. The vast majority of papers just describe threats (grey bars), a small number propose responses and some test them, but very few design or propose them (darker blues) 4/
So we& #39;re unlikely to really move conservation science forward in the most useful, important ways 5/
This is important because reviewing a couple of #conservationsuccess stories we found that moving through a progressively deeper understanding of threats, and designing, implementing, and testing responses is a great way to solve problems: 6/
For South Asian vultures and #diclofenac, whooping cranes, and procellariiformes birds ( #albatrosses etc) caught as bycatch, we& #39;ve started with monitoring then developed a deeper understanding of threats before implementing and testing responses 7/
And while these species aren& #39;t out of the woods yet, they& #39;re doing better: this approach seems to work! 8/
So, our challenge to #biodiversity and #conservation and #environmental researchers and funders is to look at where in this framework your research sits and ask "is this the place where I can do the most good?" 9/
Sometimes the answer will be looking at direct threats, but often it& #39;ll be doing tricky, interdisciplinary research that won& #39;t get published in Science or Nature, but will actually help us to solve environmental problems 10/
OK, preaching over!
Might be of interest to @ConservEvidence @d_christianrose @Bill_Sutherland @Natures_Voice? Work was done @SRILeeds @SEELeeds @brenucsb @Princeton @CamZoology @cambridge_uccri 11/11
Might be of interest to @ConservEvidence @d_christianrose @Bill_Sutherland @Natures_Voice? Work was done @SRILeeds @SEELeeds @brenucsb @Princeton @CamZoology @cambridge_uccri 11/11
