Values and conservation at Higher Level: The same statement as SL, with different real cases: Bialowieza Forest, the northern white rhino, Mumbai's leopards, Loliondo and Australia's Indigenous Protected Areas, the Maasai Mara, the monarch butterfly. HL adds the ethics (HL.c: deep and light green, duties and results), the law (HL.a) and who pays (HL.b).
Practise this as you read
- Discuss how ethical beliefs lead to different conservation approaches.
- Evaluate a strategy for fairness as well as for the species it saves.
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Values decide the strategy: Environmental perspectives and value systems can impact the choice of conservation strategies selected by a society. Different people protect nature for different reasons, so they choose different ways of doing it.
The points to remember
- A society's environmental value system (from 1.1) shapes which conservation strategies it chooses.
- Intrinsic value: nature matters for its own sake. Instrumental value: it matters for what it gives people.
- Ecocentric: intrinsic value, so low-intervention, in situ strategies: large reserves, wilderness, rewilding.
- Anthropocentric: manage nature for people, so sustainable use, laws, community management, ecotourism.
- Technocentric: science can fix it, so zoos, captive breeding, seed and gene banks, genetic technology.
- Real societies mix views, and people with different views conflict when priorities differ.
Remember it as: Leave it, manage it, fix it.
| Perspective | Values nature for | Favours | Real example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ecocentric | Its own sake | in situ strict reserves | Bialowieza's strict reserve, left untouched since 1921 |
| Anthropocentric | What it gives people | Laws, sustainable use, ecotourism | Rwanda's gorilla permits fund the park |
| Technocentric | Resources science can save | ex situ frozen cells, IVF | San Diego's Frozen Zoo stores cells of over 1000 species |
Real example: in Poland's Bialowieza Forest, part of the forest has been left untouched since 1921. In 2017 the government logged other parts to fight a bark beetle outbreak; scientists and campaigners, who value the forest for itself, protested, and in 2018 the EU court ruled the logging illegal.
At HL: the ethics behind the values: Deep green ethics gives nature intrinsic value (leave it); light green values it for people (use it wisely). Consequentialism backs whatever saves most species; deontology sees a duty not to let species die out; virtue ethics asks what a good steward would do.
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Each approach has strengths and limits. An evaluation needs both, with a real example.
Strengths and limits of each approach
- In situ, low intervention (ecocentric): protects whole ecosystems and many species at once, cheaply per species.
- ...but it needs large areas, can clash with local livelihoods, and is too slow for species nearly gone.
- Sustainable use and ecotourism (anthropocentric): pays for itself and wins local support.
- ...but it favours charismatic species and depends on markets and tourists.
- Ex situ science (technocentric): a last resort that stores genetic diversity.
- ...but it is expensive, keeps small populations, and does not fix habitat loss.
Ecocentric: leave it
- Bialowieza keeps processes no manager could copy.
- Timber jobs and income are lost.
Anthropocentric: manage it
- Gorilla permits fund protection.
- Visitors can pass on human diseases.
Technocentric: fix it
- IVF may create new northern white rhinos.
- Very costly, and no habitat is restored.
Real example: only two northern white rhinos are left, both female. Scientists have made embryos in a lab from their eggs and frozen sperm, to be carried by southern white rhinos: a technocentric rescue that costs millions, while the poaching that caused the loss goes on.
A mixed approach: Many real strategies mix views: breed a species ex situ, then return it to a protected habitat in situ. That combination often works best.
The success of conservation and regeneration depends on a diversity of approaches, not one.
What success depends on
- Community support: people living beside wildlife must gain from it, or at least not lose.
- Adequate funding: rangers, land and monitoring cost money for decades.
- Education and awareness: people protect what they understand and value.
- Appropriate legislation: laws that fit local needs, and are enforced.
- Scientific research: knowing a species' needs, numbers and threats.
- A diversity of approaches together works better than any one alone.
Community support is hardest to win where a protected predator kills farm animals. These methods encourage farmers to support it:
Winning over farmers who lose animals to predators
- Compensation for animals killed by the predator.
- Education on the predator's role, e.g. wolves keep deer and boar in check.
- Subsidies or grants for strong fences and night enclosures.
- Demonstration projects on guard dogs, electric fences and shepherds.
- Volunteers who help farmers protect their livestock.
Real example: leopards live in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, inside Mumbai, India, a city of over 20 million. Since 2011 an education campaign has taught people living beside the park how to stay safe, and attacks on people have fallen.
Answers that do not score: 'Use fences' only protects the livestock, it does not win support for the predator. 'Move the wolves elsewhere' and 'ban farmers from killing wolves' are not ways to encourage support.
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Conservation can help or harm the people who live beside nature. Who pays, and who gains, affects whether it succeeds.
Environmental justice
- Environmental justice: the costs and benefits of conservation are shared fairly, and affected people have a say.
- Fortress conservation fenced people out of new parks, often indigenous peoples.
- Evicted people lose homes, food and culture, and may turn against the park.
- Community-based conservation gives local people rights, income and decisions.
- Fair schemes win support, so they tend to last longer.
Unjust: fenced out
- 2022: Maasai in Loliondo, Tanzania, were forced off 1500 km2 of grazing land.
- The land became a game reserve for hunting tourism.
- Protesters were injured.
Just: people in charge
- Australia: Aboriginal owners manage Indigenous Protected Areas.
- They make up about half of the national reserve system.
- Rangers use traditional fire management.
Real example: Indigenous Protected Areas are declared by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on their own land. They protect the land while providing jobs as rangers, a fairer model than removing people.
Ecotourism is an anthropocentric strategy: wildlife is protected because people pay to see it. A paper may ask you to evaluate its role.
Ecotourism: for and against
- For: tourists pay, funding parks, rangers and research.
- For: local jobs and ownership make living wildlife worth more than poaching or clearing.
- For: visitors learn and support conservation; flagship species attract money.
- Against: disturbance, trampling, roads, hotels, waste and pollution.
- Against: profits may leak to foreign firms; flights add carbon.
- Against: dependence on tourists: income can collapse, as in 2020.
Real example: Kenya's Maasai Mara earns large sums from safari tourists, much of it shared with Maasai landowners in conservancies. But crowds of vehicles at river crossings disturb the wildebeest migration, and when tourism stopped in 2020 incomes collapsed.
Remember it as: It pays, but it treads.
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Conservation happens at every scale. A paper may ask whether local or international involvement matters more.
Local and international involvement
- International bodies (IUCN, CITES, CBD, WWF, UNESCO) bring money, expertise and rules that cross borders.
- They tackle what no country can alone: trade, migratory species, global targets.
- But they can be slow, top-down, and depend on each country to enforce them.
- Local people bring knowledge, long-term presence and legitimacy, at low cost.
- But they may lack money and expertise, and cannot stop global threats alone.
- The strongest cases combine both.
Real example: the monarch butterfly winters in Mexican mountain forests. UNESCO named them a World Heritage Site in 2008 and WWF funded payments to local communities who guard the forest; illegal logging in the core fell almost to zero by 2012.
Weigh, then judge: Give strengths and limits of both scales with a named case each, then say which matters more for this species or place, and why.
How this comes up: Paper 2 Section B (c) [9]: how values or ethics shape conservation, the role of ecotourism, or local against international involvement, marked in bands. Paper 1: one way to win farmers' support for a predator [1].
Some people value wild nature for itself; others value it for the benefits it brings to people.
To what extent do ethical beliefs about nature, rather than cost, decide how a society conserves biodiversity?
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Name the value, then the strategy: Each paragraph: which view, which strategy it leads to, a real case, and one strength or limit.