Una ciencia para la supervivencia valores y biologia de la conservacion: Values and conservation biology

Dwight Barry, Max Oelschlaeger

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

93 Scopus citations

Abstract

Practice of conservation biology that does not actively and continuously question the values that shape it is self-defeating: Conservation biology is inescapably normative. Advocacy for the preservation of biodiversity is part of the scientific practice of conservation biology. If the editorial policy of or the publications in Conservative Biology direct the discipline toward an 'objective, value-free' approach, then they do not educate and transform society but rather narrow the focus to the 'object of knowledge' (be this species, gene pools, landscape, or ecosystems). To pretend that the acquisition of 'positive knowledge' alone will avert mass extinctions is misguided. Conservation biologist should reflect on the constitutive values (especially contextual, but also methodological and bias) underlying their research programs and policy recommendation. Such reflection is itself an inherent element of scientific objectivity and takes into account the social nature of scientific knowledge. Without openly acknowledging a perspective, conservation biology could become merely a subdiscipline of biology, intellectually and functionally sterile and incapable of averting an anthropogenic mass extinction.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)905-911
Number of pages7
JournalConservation Biology
Volume10
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 1996

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
  • Ecology
  • Nature and Landscape Conservation

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Una ciencia para la supervivencia valores y biologia de la conservacion: Values and conservation biology'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this