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Public preferences for species conservation: choosing between lethal control, habitat protection and no action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2016

MICHELLE L. LUTE*
Affiliation:
School of Public & Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Bloomington, 1315 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47408, USA WildEarth Guardians, PO Box 7516, Missoula, MT 59807, USA
SHAHZEEN Z. ATTARI
Affiliation:
School of Public & Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Bloomington, 1315 East Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47408, USA
*
*Correspondence: Dr. Michelle L. Lute Tel: +1 406 848 4910 e-mail: michelle.lute@gmail.com
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Summary

Despite increasing support for conservation efforts, humans exert strong negative forces on nature and disagree over the management of these effects. Conflicts over conservation policy may reflect evolving opinions about how people ought to conserve species and whether to intervene in various processes. To understand public preferences for conservation in the USA, we measured support for various strategies in five case studies, where we pitted one species against another in simplified but realistic scenarios. Among our online convenience sample of 1040 participants, we found the majority of participants favoured habitat protection in all but one case, and there was little acceptance of lethal control across all cases. The results reveal that habitat protection preferences positively relate to considerations of moral principles and ecosystems and negatively relate to economic and practical considerations. Older, conservative and male participants were less likely to support habitat protection and more likely to support no action. The results suggest broad support for holistic nature conservation that benefits both people and nature and highlight areas where current wildlife management may not align with public preferences. Controversy may continue until wildlife management policies are consistent with societal values and address moral and ecosystem considerations at multiple levels.

Information

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Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2016 
Figure 0

Figure 1 Beliefs about general conservation policy (n = 1040). Participants were allowed to choose multiple response options in each category.

Figure 1

Figure 2 Response options for each case study (n = 1040).

Figure 2

Figure 3 Within-participant preferences for conservation strategy across all of the case studies.

Figure 3

Table 1 Pearson's correlations of uncertainty about species and policy choices (n = 1040). Significance levels are indicated: *p < 0.05 and **p < 0.01.

Figure 4

Table 2 Generalized ordered logistic regression (GOLR) predicting policy choices (n = 1024). GOLR separately tested the influence of intrinsic value attributions, the five considerations and the seven species characteristics (as independent variables using mean composite scores) on (1) habitat protection and (2) no action (as dependent variables in each GOLR using summative index scores ranging from 0 to 5) across all of the cases studied. For all of the variables that were not socio-demographic, the scale ranged from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree, or 1 = not at all important to 5 = very important. Significance levels are indicated: *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01 and ***p < 0.001.

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Appendix S1

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Supplementary material: File

Lute supplementary material

Appendix S2

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