Nature conservation encompasses a wide range of missions, goals, and activities, often entailing uncertain costs, benefits, and trade-offs. Given this diversity and complexity, how do practitioners decide which approaches to take? Our talk will explore how these decisions can be influenced by practitioners’ experiences, expertise, background, and worldviews, alongside other factors. We will share real-world examples of reflexivity – the process of examining ourselves in relation to our actions and interactions with others – in conservation practice. We hope to demonstrate that reflexivity may a) be common in conservation practice, b) help manage conservation more adaptively and transformatively, and c) encompass diverse themes. But, d) it can also carry limitations, dangers, and costs. In doing so, we aim to encourage conservation practitioners to actively explore how their personal characteristics influence how and why they do conservation. Ultimately, institutionalised alongside informal reflexivity in conservation practice might help reach the vision of people living in harmony with nature.
Speakers
- Dr. Mirjam Hazenbbosch, University of Oxford
- Thomas Pienkowski, University of Oxford
- Fleur Nash, University of Cambridge
