Tragic trade‐offs accompany carnivore coexistence in the modern world

Jeremy T Bruskotter,John A Vucetich,Neil H Carter,Kelly A George,Sophie L Gilbert

doi:10.1111/conl.12841

Abstract

AbstractTwo vital policy aims—biodiversity conservation and food production—are increasingly in conflict. Efforts to evaluate trade‐offs between agriculture and conservation have shaped scholarly discourse around two broad strategies to agricultural production that seek to either “share” land with biodiversity or “spare” land from agriculture. However, efforts to negotiate these trade‐offs are challenged by rising concern for the welfare of individual animals, both wild and domestic. We use recent efforts to “coexist” with large carnivores to illustrate how sharing and sparing strategies both create tragic, and often unacknowledged trade‐offs between livestock production and carnivore conservation. We conclude the best means of conserving carnivores while feeding the world's growing population requires explicitly confronting and adjudicating ethical trade‐offs associated with sharing and sparing approaches. To accomplish this, we recommend engaging scholars trained in ethics and social justice and use of deliberative processes to synthesize disparate facts and competing values when evaluating trade‐offs.

Highlights

Scholars warn that viewing sparing and sharing as either– or approaches is unnecessary and unhelpful (Kremen & Merenlender, 2018)
We demonstrate that emerging and underappreciated ethical considerations are inherent to both sparing and sharing strategies. These considerations complicate efforts to negotiate the trade-off between agriculture and biodiversity, they indicate the need for scholars and policymakers to acknowledge and engage with a broader suite of trade-offs
The first consideration emerges from a tendency for agricultural intensification and land sparing approaches to result in various forms of land tenure insecurity, including forced resettlement and other injustices to already-marginalized human populations

Summary

EVALUATING TRADE-OFFS BETWEEN AGRICULTURE AND BIODIVERSITY: A ROLE FOR ETHICS?

Empirical efforts to evaluate sparing and sharing strategies attempt to clarify the trade-offs between two important aims: increasing agricultural output and conserving biodiversity. Both strategies are likely to have a variety of impacts on humans, animals, and the ecosystems that support them. We show how increased attention to animal welfare impacts the conservation of large, terrestrial carnivores These species engender chronic negative interactions with animal agriculture and tend to be a deep source of concern to animal welfare and conservation groups alike. We conclude that discourse surrounding land use and management would benefit from considering at least four broad policy aims: biodiversity conservation, food production, social justice, and animal welfare, as opposed to the traditional two (i.e., biodiversity conservation and food production)

RISING CONCERN FOR ANIMAL WELFARE AND CARNIVORE CONSERVATION

LAND SPARING AND SHARING BOTH CHALLENGE CARNIVORE COEXISTENCE

TOWARD A SOLUTION