Abstract
There are currently many controversies over the process of wildlife conservation, mainly focused on determining which forms of human-wildlife relationship should be endorsed by society. These differences often lead to legal discussions between lawmakers and stakeholders as result of misinterpretation of law. In this study, we examine the dominant conservation ideologies underpinning institutionalized wildlife conservation by exploring the moral basis underlying a broad range of national and international legislation. We used a teleological interpretative approach to explore the implicit and explicit intentions of legislative instruments. We found that a shift from a human-nature dualism to an integration paradigm occurred in the legal frameworks during the last 20-30 years. A desire to improve the status of threatened species or ecosystems was clearly expressed in all legislation. However, the widespread mention of consumptive values seems to indicate no principled opposition between the notions of conservation and of sustainable use. We identified three different groups of legislation: (1) a small group containing largely protectionist instruments, (2) a group based on the main European nature conservation texts and, (3) a cluster incorporating almost all the post-Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) legislation from around the world. The CBD was found to have had a major impact on the shaping of the modern legal instruments, reconciling the eco- and anthropocentric values at the heart of modern legal thinking. Overall, the dominant legal ideology seems to aim for a compromise between the interests of society and wildlife, allowing its sustainable use and steering for shared space.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Batavia C, Nelson MP (2017) For goodness sake! What is intrinsic value and why should we care? Biol Conserv 209:366–376
Bowman M, Davies P, Redgwell C (2010) Lyster’s international wildlife law. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Carter NH, Linnell JDC (2016) Co-adaptation is key to coexisting with large carnivores. Trends Ecol Evol 31:575–578
Chan KM et al (2016) Opinion: why protect nature? Rethinking values and the environment. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 113:1462–1465
Chandra A, Idrisova A (2011) Convention on biological diversity: a review of national challenges and opportunities for implementation. Biodiv Conserv 20:3295–3316
Chapron G, Epstein Y, Trouwborst A, López-Bao JV (2017) Bolster legal boundaries to stay within planetary boundaries. Nat Ecol Evol 1(3):86
Dickson P, Adams WM (2009) Science and uncertainty in South Africa’s elephant culling debate. Environ Plan C 27:110–123
Ellis J (2011) General principles and comparative law. Eur J Int Law 22:949–971
Fennelly N (1996) Legal interpretation at the European Court of Justice. Fordham Int Law J 20:656
Gagnon-Légaré A, Prestre PL (2014) Explaining variations in the subnational implementation of global agreements: the case of Ecuador and the convention on biological diversity. J Environ Develop 23:220–246
Hiedanpää J, Bromley DW (2011) The harmonization game: reasons and rules in European biodiversity policy. Environ Policy Gov 21:99–111
Jantz SM et al (2015) Future habitat loss and extinctions driven by land-use change in biodiversity hotspots under four scenarios of climate-change mitigation. Conserv Biol 29:1122–1131
Kaufmann D, Kraay A, Mastruzzi M (2011) The worldwide governance indicators: methodology and analytical issues. Hague J Rule Law 3:220–246
Lenaerts L, Gutiérrez-Fons JA (2013) To say what the law of the EU is: methods of interpretation and the European Court of Justice Colum J Eur L 20:3
Linnell JDC et al (2015) Framing the relationship between people and nature in the context of European conservation. Conserv Biol 29:978–985
Lute ML et al (2018) Conservation professionals agree on challenges to coexisting with large carnivores but not on solution. Biol Conserv 218:223–232
Macdonald DW, Jacobsen KS, Burnham D, Johnson PJ, Loveridge AJ (2016a) Cecil: a moment or a movement? Analysis of media coverage of the death of a lion, Panthera leo. Animals 6:26
Macdonald DW, Johnson PJ, Loveridge AJ, Burnham D, Dickman AJ (2016b) Conservation or the moral high ground: siding with Bentham or Kant. Conserv Lett 9:307–308
Mace GM (2014) Whose conservation? Science 345:1558–1560
Mathews F (2016) From biodiversity-based conservation to an ethic of bio-proportionality. Biol Conserv 200:140–148
Minnis DL (1998) Wildlife policy-making by the electorate: an overview of citizen-sponsored ballot measures on hunting and trapping. Wildl Soc Bull 1973–2006(26):75–83
Mitchell SM, Ring JJ, Spellan MK (2013) Domestic legal traditions and states’ human rights practices. J Peace Res. 50:189–202
Morishita J (2006) Multiple analysis of the whaling issue: understanding the dispute by a matrix. Marine Policy 30:802–808
Nelson MP, Vucetich JA, Chapron G (2016) Emotions and the ethics of consequence in conservation decisions: lessons from Cecil the Lion. Conserv Lett 9:302–306
Newbold T et al (2015) Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity. Nature 520:45
Olson ER et al (2015) Pendulum swings in wolf management led to conflict, illegal kills, and a legislated wolf hunt. Conserv Lett 8:351–360
Pimm SL et al (2014) The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection. Science 344:1246752
Redpath SM et al (2013) Understanding and managing conservation conflicts. Trends Ecol Evol 28:100–109
Redpath SM et al (2017) Don’t forget to look down–collaborative approaches to predator conservation. Biol Rev 92:2157–2163
Schroeder D, Pisupati B (2010) Ethics, justice and the convention on biological diversity. University of Central Lancashire, Preston
Seddon PJ, Griffiths CJ, Soorae PS, Armstrong DP (2014) Reversing defaunation: restoring species in a changing world. Science 345:406–412
Singleton BE (2016) Clumsiness and elegance in environmental management: applying cultural theory to the history of whaling. Environ Politics 25:414–433
Suggit AJ et al (2018) Extinction risk from climate change is reduced by microclimatic buffering. Nat Clim Change 8(8):713
Trouwborst A, Redpath S, Gutiérrez R, Wood K, Young J (2015) Law and conservation conflicts conflicts in conservation: navigating towards solutions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 108–118
Trouwborst A et al (2017a) International wildlife law: understanding and enhancing its role in conservation. Bioscience 67:784–790
Trouwborst A, Boitani L, Linnell JD (2017b) Interpreting ‘favourable conservation status’ for large carnivores in Europe: how many are needed and how many are wanted? Biodiv and Conserv 26:37–61
Urban MC (2015) Accelerating extinction risk from climate change. Science 348:571–573
Veríssimo D, Campbell B (2015) Understanding stakeholder conflict between conservation and hunting in Malta. Biol Conserv 191:812–818
Vucetich JA, Bruskotter JT, Nelson MP, Peterson RO, Bump JK (2017) Evaluating the principles of wildlife conservation: a case study of wolf (Canis lupus) hunting in Michigan, United States. J Mammal 98:53–64
Willett P (1988) Recent trends in hierarchic document clustering: a critical review. Inf Process Manag 24:577–597
Acknowledgements
We thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. The involvement of JDCL and BPK was funded by the Research Council of Norway (Grant 251112); AT was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (Grant 452-13-014).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Communicated by Dirk Sven Schmeller.
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This article belongs to the Topical Collection: Biodiversity legal instruments and regulations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cretois, B., Linnell, J.D.C., Kaltenborn, B.P. et al. What form of human-wildlife coexistence is mandated by legislation? A comparative analysis of international and national instruments. Biodivers Conserv 28, 1729–1741 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-019-01751-6
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-019-01751-6