Is new language – or a new attitude – needed for innovations that integrate conservation and development?

Abstract

Most of the articles in this issue (and all of the short notes and summaries) grapple with topics related to the challenges of protecting, managing and restoring biodiversity in already highly modified landscapes of southern Australia. There is one exception – the comment piece by Stuart Blanch on future directions for the less modified Northern Australia. Blanch's article takes as its springboard the familiar proposition that any further development in the northern half of Australia must learn from the history of land-use decision-making in the southern half, which has resulted in severe degradation of rivers, soils and biodiversity. The article's exposition of real possibilities for integrating conservation with low-impact developments is convincing and even exciting. I wonder, however, whether Australia is able to rise to the occasion and turn talk into action. The fact that a vital organization such as the World Wild Fund for Nature is grappling with these issues in an intellectually and practically rigorous way gives rise to some optimism, because such non-governmental organizations are essential as advocates, facilitators and watchdogs. What gives rise to some pessimism, however, is the fact that the very term ‘conservation’ (except of the lightest green) is still the subject of deep suspicion in Australia. The reasons for this are complex, but it is true to say that there is a deep assumption in our psyche that ‘development’ per se is somehow intrinsically beneficial to society, and that to question this rigorously is somehow ‘radical’. Recently, for example, I heard Australia's new federal Minister for the Environment (previously an independent conservation advocate) referring to Australia's north as ‘not undeveloped, but underdeveloped’– giving the impression that development per se is somehow needed by the country itself. It made me wonder whether this is the language that emerges where we accept that development has a primary place in a nation's psych, and conservation has a secondary place. It raised the question of whether a new language is needed for conservation. Has the word ‘conservation’ itself become politically too risky? The term ‘conservation’ is, pretty well by definition, conservative rather than radical. ‘Conservation’ (not to be confused with ‘preservation’ which is what you do to fruit, paintings and old monuments to stop change) recognizes the dynamic processes of ecosystems and potential for much of them to accommodate some utilization by humans within the resilience boundaries of those ecosystems (such as outlined in Kanowski et al., Nakamura et al., Lada, MacNally, Januchowski et al., and Nevill, this issue). The term ‘development’, on the other hand, implies a change to the status quo, and so should be considered more radical, worthy of automatic questioning. That is not to say that all developments are damaging. Some developments can provide solutions to already existing damage (which perhaps may have been what the Minister was referring to).The language of conservation and development has already been revised by the invention of the term ‘ecologically sustainable development’ (ESD) which is defined in Australia's National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development (Ecologically Sustainable Development Steering Committee 1992) as ‘using, conserving and enhancing the community's resources so that ecological processes, on which life depends, are maintained, and the total quality of life, now and in the future, can be increased’. As such, both conservation and development concepts are embedded in ESD principles. But in practice, each development proposal needs to be examined to see whether conservation and development can be compatibly combined or one or other should prevail. I suggest then, that it is not a new set of words we need, but a new attitude to rigorous dialogue, sharpened by the type of urgency that comes from knowing we have made enough mistakes already and have little if any leeway left to meet our intergenerational obligations under ESD principles. After all, the need for conservation will grow larger, not smaller, as the future unfolds. It is sensible for us to allow our instinct for conservation to have a primary place in our psyche and to be particularly cautious of further environmental damage, particularly when important public good assets are at risk. Polarization between ‘development’ and ‘conservation’ leads only to further polarization – whereas resolution (such as those suggested in so many of the articles in this issue) can be possible with rigorous dialogue, calmed by some confidence that those with a genuine and mutual commitment to common values will work hard enough to find the necessary ecologically sustainable solutions.