2010 Articles

Must Biodiversity Hot-Spots Be Social Not-Spots? Win-Win Ecology as Sustainable Social Policy

Geisler, Charles

Reconciliation ecology, a family of socially inclusive conservation strategies that depart from traditional protected area management, is on trial. Skeptics find it problematic for a range of reasons, faulting it for lack of evidence and calling it a "bio-diversion" from the agenda of strict protected area expansion. The present paper has a dual agenda. Building on the work of Michael Rosenzweig and fortifying it with new information from different world regions, I write in support of re-embedding conservation in human-dominated landscapes. Simultaneously, I suggest that current protected areas yield conservation refugees, environmental backlash, and set-backs to sustainability efforts.