Value Plurality among Conservation Professionals

Abstract

Abstract: Debate on the values that underpin conservation science is rarely based on empirical analysis of the values conservation professionals actually hold . We used Q methodology to investigate the values held by international conservation professionals who attended the annual Student Conference in Conservation Science at the University of Cambridge (U . K . ) in 2008 and 2009 . The methodology offers a quantitative means of examining human subjectivity . It differs from standard opinion surveys in that individual respondents record the way they feel about statements relative to other statements , which forces them to focus their attention on the issues they believe are most important . The analysis extracts the diverse viewpoints of the respondents , and factor analysis is used to reduce the viewpoints to a smaller set of factors that reflect shared ways of thinking . The junior conservation professionals attending the conference did not share a unifying set of core values; rather , they held a complex series of ideas and a plurality of opinions about conservation and how it should be pursued . This diversity of values empirically challenges recent proposals for conservation professionals to unite behind a single philosophy . Attempts to forge an artificial consensus may be counterproductive to the overall goals conservation professionals are pursuing .