In 2018, we organised the Conservation Science course for the third time. Over the last three years, we’ve written many blog posts about conservation hot topics (the decline of the Greater-Sage Grouse, rewilding in North America and the problems with palm oil), we’ve told you about some of the activities we do, from using cereal to test island biogeography theory to introducing the students to peer review with our fictional  journal AQMCS (Advanced Quantitative Methods in Conservation Science). You know we like discussing conservation evidence, putting it to a quantitative test with code, and that we really enjoy seeing conservation in action during our fieldtrip to the Cairngorms.

But do you really know what kind of conservationists we are?

Thanks to The Future of Conservation survey, you can not only find out what kind of conservationists we are, but also how our views change with time. The survey is a collaborative project between Chris Sandbrook (UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, and University of Cambridge), George Holmes (University of Leeds), Janet Fisher (University of Edinburgh) and Rogelio Luque-Lora (University of Cambridge).

You can take the survey online at http://futureconservation.org/

The purpose of this project is to explore the views of conservationists on a range of issues, as a way of informing debates on the future of conservation. Recent debates about the future of conservation have been dominated by a few high-profile individuals, whose views seem to fit fairly neatly into polarised positions. In this survey, we are exploring the range of views that exist within the conservation movement globally, and how this varies by key demographic characteristics such as age, gender, geography and educational background. (The Future of Conservation website, 2017)

In the Conservation Science course, we introduce the Conservation Debate in our very first session, where we discuss Kareiva’s and Soulé’s papers about what conservation science is or isn’t. This year, we all completed the survey prior to the first session. Most of us fell within the Critical Social Science and New Conservation categories. Three months went by. After many thought-provoking discussions and activities, we took the survey again. So how did our results change?

Going through 11 weeks of lectures and activities has not markedly shifted the kinds of conservationists we are, but we have perhaps moved a bit more towards the center, the middle ground between People and Nature. Our infographic below shows exactly how people’s views changed.

You can take the survey online at http://futureconservation.org/

One person went from Traditional Conservation to Critical Social Science and the rest of the movement was between our most popular categories, Critical Social Science and New Conservation. Perhaps reading and critically discussing lots of papers shifted us more towards the Critical Social Scientist category?

We found taking the survey, and especially taking it twice, quite interesting. In conservation, we often here that if only people had more information about a conservation issue, their views would change. People do what they do, or think what they think, because sometimes they don’t know differently. But is that really the case?

Our 2017 Conservation Science cohort is far from representative, and presumably people enrolled in the course already cared a lot about conservation to begin with. But overall, for us, knowing more and thinking more about Conservation Science, didn’t make a huge difference to who we are as conservationists – or at least in this survey.

Perhaps we can revisit the Future of Conservation again with the 2018 course next autumn and see if these results are repeated!

By Gergana and Isla

The Conservation Science course has a strong focus on the development of practical skills with real world application. The field trip to the Cairngorms provides undergraduates to see conservation in action and to talk to conservation practitioners in Scotland. This year, we got the chance to do that even before the field trip!

Earlier in October, we (students, tutors and Isla) attended the Spotlight on Scotland’s Biodiversity conference at the Royal Society of Edinburgh. For the students, it was their first ever conference, and it certainly was inspiring to see them chat to speakers and engage with wide-ranging conservation topics – from policy, natural capital, agri-environment management, peatland restoration all the way to the conservation action plan of the Scottish wildcat.

Knowledge made useful

Great presentation from Izzy from ReRoute

Contributions of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh to biodiversity research

We are thankful to the organisers for bringing together young people with established scientists and people working at the science-policy interface! Many jolly discussions followed, inspired by the talks we saw and the conversations we had with the speakers.

Here we have collated our highlights from the conference.

Claudia, Undergraduate and student on the Conservation Science course
I was slightly nervous on attending my first conference ever but it turned out to be a wonderfully educative environment without the pressure of being assessed on any of the information given. The speakers presented innovative ideas and areas of research which helped stimulate and develop my interests in conservation. I particularly enjoyed talking with the speakers after the presentations who were all very approachable, effectively decreasing the “student-teacher generation gap”. The absolute highlight was talking to the lovely ladies representing Scottish Wildcat Action, who patiently answered all our burning questions and encouraged us to stay in touch.

Fiona, Undergraduate and student on the CS course 
I had never attended a conference before so was slightly apprehensive as to whether I would “fit in”. But after the first set lectures and getting to chat to the speakers I felt at ease and really enjoyed the enthusiastic and welcoming environment. I particularly appreciated how approachable the speakers were afterwards, which has encouraged me to be more proactive in contacting others outside of university settings. The highlight on the second day was definitely the presentations involving the ReRoute group, and the stimulating discussion which followed about the future of conservation. I left feeling optimistic and encouraged to engage more in events such as this.

Jack, Undergraduate and student on the CS course
Having never attended a scientific conference before it was really enlightening to have my first experience of the scientific community outside a typical university setting.  I was amazed to discover how much conservation work is going on right here in Scotland.  At first it was rather daunting to even think of asking a question for fear of seeming silly, or taking time away from someone more qualified, in front of so many academics.  Towards the end of the conference however, I had lost that, thanks to the encouragement of the staff and speakers at the event as they were all very approachable and enthusiastic.  A big thanks to Gergana for organising the booking for everyone and guiding us through our first (of hopefully many) conferences.

Gergana, PhD student and tutor on the Conservation Science course
Topics I found particularly interesting include whether conservation should be focused on species-specific measures or broader ecosystem functionality, as well as the effect of climate change on species richness-oriented conservation. For example, should one of conservation’s goals be to maintain and/or increase biodiversity (most often quantified through species richness)? Climate change might make Scotland more biodiverse, but we probably wouldn’t be calling that a conservation success story! Eladio Fernandez-Galiano from the Council of Europe brought up the issue of Scotland potentially losing the species that make Scottish nature Scottish. Invasive species also made an appearance among talks, and it was intriguing to ponder whether species, colonising a certain area due to climate change and range shifts, should be classified as native or invasive. A particularly strong point of the conference for me were the three presentations delivered by pupils, part of the Scottish Natural Heritage’s ReRoute programme, and researchers and academics. It was fantastic to hear about young people’s views on conservation directly from them, and what excellent speakers they were – their presentations were clear, well-organised, and they answered questions from the audience like pros!

Mariana, PhD student and tutor on the Conservation Science course
I thought that the conference was a great success overall since it managed to bring together different audiences including academics, practitioners and policy-makers. It’s initiatives like this that are able to bridge the science/policy interface effectively, which is often a difficult task. It was very interesting to hear about the wide range of initiatives that are currently in place in order to tackle biodiversity loss – from local green spaces to ex-situ conservation and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) targets. Finally, emphasis was placed on looking ahead and finding solutions in light of the current major threats to biodiversity, acknowledging the good progress made in Scotland but identifying the challenges and finding solutions – which is what it should all be about!

Isla Myers-Smith, Course organiser for the Conservation Science honours course
As course organiser for the Conservation Science course, I was really excited that our students got the opportunity to participate in the Spotlight on Scotland’s Biodiversity Conference.  It was really great to chat to the students about their first conference experience afterwards and to see how inspired those students now are about future careers in conservation.  It can be a really important moment, the first time you get to network with professionals in your field or ask a question of a renowned scientist.  Sometimes as a regular conference goer, I forget about how both intimidating and exciting conferences can be and how important it is to work up the confidence to ask a question of the speaker.  By bringing early career and senior scientists together – the Spotlight on Scotland’s Biodiversity Conference provided this first networking opportunity for some of the 2017 Conservation Science students – an experience that hopefully they will remember when it is them who are the senior scientists in the room.

This week we were focusing on the reasons behind conserving biodiversity. The first part of the session consisted of a lecture on the concepts of values and ethics, and their role in conservation. We defined a value as a “general basis for an estimation of worth” and talked about the different types of values, mainly distinguishing between “non-use” and “use”. “Use” values include both direct benefits provided by ecosystems, such as food, fuel and other goods for consumption, and indirect benefits from ecosystem services. “Non-use” values consist of existence, aesthetic, bequest and intrinsic values. Aesthetic values relate to the happiness and pleasure experienced by people as a result of natural beauty. Bequest values represent the benefits gained by future generation from the preservation of current ecosystems. Existence values refer to the satisfaction derived from knowing that a species exists in the wild, even though we are unlikely to ever see it. They differ from intrinsic values, which are independent of humans and are the value of an organism in itself. Each species has a right to exist, so all individuals, populations and ecosystems have the same intrinsic value.

After the lecture we split into small discussion groups to talk about this week’s papers. The three papers exposed contrasting opinions on the criteria that should be considered when prioritising areas to conserve. One paper (Vucetich et al., 2014) was defending the idea that nature possesses intrinsic value, and suggesting this should be the underlying reason for conservation. On the other hand, instrumental values are thought to be more efficient and practical, since they can be categorised and prioritised when making decisions (Justus et al., 2008). The idea of triage was introduced, which proposed a system of prioritising conservation effort and allocating resources. Four parameters were considered in the triage process: values, biodiversity benefit, probability of success and costs (Bottrill et al., 2008). Despite the fact that this system provides useful tools to maximise resources, it has been argued that its use accepts the inevitability of extinction and may lead to the disappearance of endangered species. The general consensus was that since only limited resources are available, intrinsic values cannot be applied to conservation plans. Because everything has the same intrinsic value and therefore everything has the right to be conserved, it is necessary to accept compromises when prioritising conservation efforts.

For the last part of the session each discussion group had to give a two-minute presentation in the style of a Dragon’s Den pitch, aiming to convince the audience that their chosen species had the right to be conserved. This exercise helped us understand the process undertaken by conservationists when trying to obtain the economical and public support to preserve a species. We discussed how different approaches are taken depending on the audience. Different aspects of the benefits derived from maintaining the species were highlighted including economical, ethical and emotional perspectives.

The session emphasised the fact that conservation spans many disciplines and takes into consideration social and economic factors. The multi-faceted nature of conservation makes it essential to have a universal system to allow the prioritisation of resource allocation.

By Izzy and Eleonora

The second session of Conservation Science opened with a discussion on the total number of species on Earth. Suggestions varied from 1.5 million to 30 million, with students then asked to vote on the answers. There was a 50:50 split between the two options, but it was revealed that, in fact, everyone was right! There are 1.5 million named species, and estimates of anything from 3 to 30 million total.

We then discussed how to define biodiversity and looked at ways in which it could be measured – namely species richness, evenness and heterogeneity. We established that diversity can come in numerous different shapes and forms, from genetic, functional, and ecosystem diversity, and can be measured across different scales, which brought us onto a revision of the topic of alpha, beta and gamma diversity. With all the definitions and classifications of biodiversity revised, Isla proceeded to look at patterns and gradients of biodiversity, such as the classic example of the latitudinal biodiversity gradient.

Isla’s lecture moved on to the question of ‘what is biodiversity science?’. After defining conservation, we looked at biodiversity and ecosystem function research and the discussed what the biggest threats to biodiversity are – just “humans” was not deemed to be an acceptable answer! The class settled on land use change being the greatest threat to biodiversity, as well as climate change and invasive species. Interestingly, however, over-exploitation was not really mentioned, despite it being the second biggest threat (Pereira et al., 2012). Our homework was to contemplate whether there is a biodiversity crisis ready for Aidan’s lecture next week.

The class then voted against a break (!) and moved on to the tutorials.

It was in the tutorials that we really got a chance to dig into the subject matter, and discuss some of the questions that are still plaguing conservation scientists today. We were given a set of papers to read covering the Living Planet Index, value metrics used to measure biodiversity change, and the question of how best to allocate resources globally towards conservation efforts. The topic my tutorial group focused on the most was the controversy between hot- and coldspots; hot and coldspots are areas of ecosystems that deserve resource allocation. Hotspots tend to focus on findings areas with the highest density of biodiversity based on metrics like vascular plant richness, whereas as focusing on coldspots means allocating just enough resources to an ecosystem to ensure its functionality, but then protecting it beyond that is inefficient. The fundamental axioms that divide these two distinct methods lead us to a discussion about what types of biodiversity there were beyond that of species, and turns out it’s quite a lot!

Once the tutorial had ended, we gathered back together to answer a very important question in biodiversity science: Is there a difference in the biodiversity of Pokémon between Kings Buildings and Central campus? Some very enthusiastic Pokémon GO users in the class had spent the week collecting Pokémon throughout the two campuses so that we could apply some of the formulas used by actual biodiversity scientists in R. We found that the diversity of Pokémon was higher in Kings using Shannon’s Index, but that the answer wasn’t quite as straightforward as we had initially supposed; sampling effort was nearly twice as high in Kings than Central, skewing our data. After playing around with the data to get more nuanced answers, we briefly spoke about people’s ideas for their opinion pieces and called it a day.

By Josie and Nick

What is Conservation Science?

It was the first session of the 2016 Conservation Science course at the University of Edinburgh.  We had a full room and an enthusiastic group of students for our introductory lectures on what is “Conservation Science” and what are some examples of conservation success stories and some of the challenges of conservation in the real world.

The Mauritian Kestral © Nick Garbutt / naturepl.com

Wildlife Protection Areas in Tanzaniahttp://www.twma.co.tz/wma/map

For our tutorial discussions we tackled the questions:

1. What is conservation as a field?
2. How do we identify with the big issues in conservation?
3. Is conservation a key issue for society as a whole?

We read the papers:

Soulé, Michael E. “What is conservation biology? A new synthetic discipline addresses the dynamics and problems of perturbed species, communities, and ecosystems.” BioScience 35.11 (1985): 727-734.
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/11/727.extract

Kareiva, Peter, and Michelle Marvier. “What is conservation science?.” BioScience 62.11 (2012): 962-969.
http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/62/11/962.short

Soule, M. The “new conservation.” Conservation Biology (2013) 27:895-897.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12147/abstract

Our take-home message in my tutorial group was that there are many complexities in this field that relates biology to real-world decisions and management of ecosystems.  That we agreed with some points that both Soulé and Kareiva and Marvier made and that we also with agreed with neither on some other issues.  One of the subjects at the heart of our discussion was the role of scientists as advocates and how evidence-based scientific research can be translated into recommendations for policy makers and management. We think that this issue, in particular, might come up again in future discussions in the course.

We are looking forward to next week when we will discuss how we define, monitor and calculate biodiversity change and how this information is summarized for policy makers.  We are also stoked to get out side and begin some data collection using our newly developed Diversity of Pokémon Protocol!  Perhaps we can discover how biodiversity of Pokémon vary across campuses of the University of Edinburgh.

Pikachu a creature based on the alpine-living and cold-loving Pika that is potentially threatened by climate change.

By Isla