Elsevier

Biological Conservation

Volume 153, September 2012, Pages 201-210
Biological Conservation

Conservation science relevant to action: A research agenda identified and prioritized by practitioners

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2012.05.007Get rights and content

Abstract

A wide gap between research and practice hinders the implementation of biodiversity conservation recommendations. As subjects studied by conservation scientists might bear little relevance for implementation, surveys have identified and framed research questions relevant to conservation in practice. No attempts to prioritize these questions have yet been published, although it would provide invaluable information for steering practice-oriented research. We surveyed Swiss conservation practitioners with the aim of identifying and prioritizing their needs in terms of useful scientific information. A first inductive survey of a selected subgroup generated a list of relevant research questions that were reformulated to be generalizable to all main Swiss ecosystems. The resulting compiled questionnaire was submitted through an online platform to all officially registered practitioners who were asked to rate the importance to their own field of expertise of each question, to nominate possibly omitted, subsidiary questions and to specify “hot topics” typically relevant to their field. Most respondents operated in several ecosystems, which facilitated the identification of general and ecosystem-related research priorities. Generally, questions related to economic, societal and stakeholder conflicts were found to be more important than conceptual questions. Questions concerning single-species were rated higher than ecosystem-related questions. Subsidiary questions and hot topics were subsumed and integrated into a final catalogue of research questions. By identifying and framing scientific questions of both general practical relevance and specific regional importance, this study provides a practice-oriented research agenda and a basis for developing conjoint activities with the intention to bridge the gap between conservation science and action.

Highlights

► We surveyed conservation practitioners to identify and prioritize their research needs. ► We adopted a two-step-approach to uncouple identification from prioritization. ► We identified both general and ecosystem-specific research priorities. ► Each question was supplemented with a list of concrete research topics. ► The resulting research agenda allows targeting limited resources in applied research.

Introduction

Despite the commitment of most governments to reduce the rate of ecosystem degradation and species loss, the world is facing a historically unprecedented biodiversity crisis. The failure to reach the Biodiversity Convention countdown targets by 2010 can only exacerbate the contention that conventional conservation biology is ineffective for saving, promoting or restoring biodiversity (Possingham, 2000, Whitten et al., 2001). Much criticism is directed towards the great divide that exists between “scientific publications and public actions” in this field (Arlettaz et al., 2010), with the discipline of conservation biology having largely failed to produce results that are practical and applicable in reality (Balmford and Cowling, 2006, Knight et al., 2006, Knight et al., 2008). Although the quantity of publications in the field of conservation biology and restoration ecology is steadily growing (Arlettaz and Mathevet, 2010, Fazey et al., 2005), research continues to contribute only marginally to concrete management of species and ecosystems (Hulme, 2011, Pullin et al., 2004).

Several factors have been postulated to explain what hinders the spread of a real culture of evidence-based conservation and the translation of scientific results into applicable guidelines (e.g. Roux et al., 2006). Although there is consensus within the scientific community that it is the responsibility of scientists to “advise as objectively as possible on where uncertainty is greatest, and where knowledge is sufficient to act” (Morton et al., 2009), many conservation scientists are not seriously committed to implementation, so their management recommendations lack applicability and tend to neglect crucial economic or societal constraints (Arlettaz et al., 2010, Knight et al., 2008). Furthermore, scientific information does not flow efficiently to practitioners and policy-makers who often have limited access to peer-reviewed literature and also lack the time to read scientific papers (Pullin et al., 2004). Practitioners and policy-makers are also often insufficiently motivated to commit resources to gathering scientific information because of their perception that conservation scientists omit genuinely relevant subjects (Fazey et al., 2005). One solution could be to better package the output of scientific conservation research via more effective communication media, such as through internet platforms for evidence based conservation, that provide information in a condensed and synthesised way, such as systematic reviews or meta-analyses (Keene and Pullin, 2011, Pullin et al., 2004, Pullin and Stewart, 2006, Sutherland et al., 2004). This information flow remains unidirectional, however, which has recently led to a series of initiatives (reviewed in Sutherland et al. (2011)) that have aimed to identify research questions of particular relevance to conservation practitioners and policy-makers, with the hope of redirecting research activities to enhance the applicability of scientific results.

Sutherland et al. (2006) conducted the first of what have come to be known as “100 questions exercises” (Cooke et al., 2010) to identify the issues deemed by practitioners and policy-makers in the UK to be most important for environmental protection. In that study, policy makers and practitioners from 37 organizations and academia were asked to select, from a list of 2291 questions supplied by 761 researchers, the 100 most relevant. The resulting paper has received broad interest among governmental agencies and NGOs. In a second study, Sutherland et al. (2009) repeated the process with senior representatives from the world’s major conservation organizations, professional scientific societies and universities, with the intention of establishing an agenda of research questions that would have the greatest positive impact on conservation practice worldwide. Inspired by Sutherland et al. (2006), several studies have followed that have narrowed, rather than broadened, their focus and conducted regional and topical 100 questions exercises (e.g. Morton et al., 2009, Pretty et al., 2010, Rudd et al., 2010). Similarly to Sutherland et al., 2006, Sutherland et al., 2009, all these studies deliberately avoided rating or ranking the importance of the questions because the authors considered that this would have influenced the formulation towards broad and all-embracing questions, which are typically perceived to be more important (Sutherland et al., 2006, Sutherland et al., 2011). A further reason was that they expected rating or ranking to be strongly dependent on, and probably biased towards the specific expertise and interest of the respondent (Sutherland et al., 2011). However, in view of the limited available financial and time resources in conservation practice, the additional identification of priorities, particularly when specified in relation to an ecosystem type or research field, can yield helpful information for the generation of national or regional research agendas and decisions on the allocation of funding.

The objective of the present study was to use a bottom up approach asking practitioners and policy-makers to nominate the research questions that should be most urgently investigated in order to deliver evidence-based guidance for practice. As one of the first attempts to both identify and prioritize (i.e. rate and rank) the expectations of conservation practitioners towards science, we conducted a nation-wide survey of Swiss practitioners including policy-makers working in federal or cantonal administration (in the following subsumed as “practitioners”). Despite its small size Switzerland is characterized by a wide range of ecosystem types (due to very contrasted topography) and a high human population density, which makes it fairly representative in the Central European context – not necessarily with regard to political framework conditions, but with regard to the conservation-related problems faced in a broad variety of ecosystems. By considering questions of both overall relevance and specific regional concerns, we aimed first at recognizing general biodiversity conservation research needs, while at the same time generating a concrete research agenda, aligned with the needs of practice, that will eventually provide Swiss conservation practitioners with more useful information to optimize conservation and restoration action and to influence policy makers in their field.

Section snippets

Research strategy

One of the main limitations of the studies of Sutherland et al., 2006, Sutherland et al., 2009 and Pretty et al. (2010) was the difficulty of ranking the questions without affecting, and probably biasing, the formulation process (Sutherland et al., 2011). As a solution to this problem we adopted a two-step strategy. In a first preliminary survey, a small group of conservation practitioners deemed to encompass all main professional activities in the field was invited to formulate a pool of

Respondents

From the 584 practitioners who were invited, 190 (32.5%) commenced the online questionnaire and, of these, 145 (24.8% of the invited practitioners) completed it fully. The 45 participants (23.7% of those who started) who did not finish the questionnaire evaluated an average of 10 questions (min.: 1, max.: 36) and were discarded from the analyses.

The reasons offered by the remainder for not responding were: too busy (n = 53); too many such solicitations that cause too much trouble (n = 12); wanted

Discussion

There are recurrent and increasingly insistent calls to effectively bridge the divide that exists between conservation research and action (Arlettaz et al., 2010), particularly with regard to establishing a new culture of communication and collaboration between researchers and practitioners (Knight et al., 2008, Roux et al., 2006). A first step towards ameliorating the situation is to create a structure of bidirectional knowledge transfer between researchers and practitioners in order to

Acknowledgements

We thank Patrick Patthey and Olivier Roth for translating the questionnaire. Daniela Pauli (Forum Biodiversity Switzerland) and Christoph Erdin (Association of Environmental Practitioners of Switzerland) provided us with address databases. Empiricon AG Bern implemented the online questionnaire and provided assistance with data processing. We thank all Swiss conservation practitioners who supported this study by participating and providing valuable comments. The study was financially supported

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