Seeing and Doing Conservation Differently

Introduction

This article discusses changing interpretations of landscape aesthetics to explore concepts of wilderness and its lingering relationship to contemporary biodiversity conservation practices. Before embarking on a detailed discussion of landscape aesthetics and its relationship to conservation it is worth reflecting on the problems that have beset the implementation of conservation in the Global South. The problems of designing just and effective conservation strategies have been discussed widely by scholars, practitioners, and activists. Of particular concern has been how to overcome the social justice problems of “fortress conservation,” which largely excluded and disadvantaged local populations, who were seen as a threat. Different models of community conservation have been presented as socially and politically acceptable responses to this dilemma; however, these approaches, despite their procommunity rhetoric, have achieved indifferent results in terms of both social and environmental outcomes.

This article begins with the assumption that there is a link between what we appreciate in nature ¹ and the material benefits we expect to gain from land use or conservation. This relationship is rarely explicitly elaborated, and nearly always assumed; however, there is little doubt that the materiality of politics mediates the passage from perspective/appreciation to the formalized protection of valued “nature” objects. I will mainly focus this discussion around nature aesthetics and its relationship to biodiversity conservation. The central theoretical questions in pursuit of this then is, what should count as an appropriate appreciation of “nature” (Rueger, 2007) and how has this perspective been applied to nature conservation? Or taken differently, what is a “legitimate” way of appreciating and conserving “nature”? Legitimate, both in the sense of what are the bases underpinning different constructions of nature and how do these different interpretations relate to contests over nature protection and use.

The discussion that follows draws out some historical and contemporary influences around the shifting notions of landscape aesthetics, wilderness, and power to generate insights into why the practice of conservation in Global South settings has been so problematic. Examples of conservation initiatives in Zanzibar are used to illustrate how ecological and wilderness notions of landscape aesthetics still influence contemporary conservation policy and land use. Finally, thoughts are discussed about how conservation policy and practice could be reformed, so it is better able to respond to changing local contexts.

Contested Views Over the Aesthetics of Nature

Although it is acknowledged that there are antecedent influences, this account of landscape aesthetics begins during the time spanning the romantic movement, industrial revolution, and colonial expansion, when the ideals of the enlightenment were perhaps at their most crude and powerful, but perhaps paradoxically, at their most vulnerable.

Artistic movements have historically been important to “resolving” the “problem” of how different landscapes are to be perceived. This view advocated that beautiful nature should look like art and could be ascertained using the same reasoning (Rueger, 2007). This perspective, called “picturesque aesthetics” has encouraged “us” to look for or appreciate the scenically interesting or beautiful parts of nature (Saito, 1998). The picturesque aesthetic has received criticism for being inappropriate because it reifies and commodifies landscape as a two-dimensional scene ready for consumption (van Eeden, 2004), or as Tuan (1989) puts it, as a surface-level reaction driven by sensory stimulation of agreeable forms and color or how they appear. In agreement, others argue that the scenic as a way of seeing or interpreting nature only offers a theoretically “thin” elaboration of aesthetics that does not explicitly elicit views about the underpinning basis of aesthetic judgments, whether they are values, knowledge, or ideological views. In agreement, Benediktsson (2007) contends that scenic approaches are simplistic and, problematically, exclude the embodied, materialistic, and everyday experience of landscape/nature.

Taking another perspective, Carlson (2004) and Parsons (2002) argue that nature “should” be appreciated through a rational understanding of science and natural history and experience. This position gives central place to conservation scientists to decide the aesthetic (read ecological) worth of different landscapes. It is a normative position arguing that landscape appreciation should be informed by scientific (ecological/biodiversity) information about its constituent parts (Parsons, 2002). In debates about ecological aesthetics, this is termed the “cognitive thesis.” It follows then that those who are ecologically literate (in a scientific sense) would be in an advantaged societal position to make aesthetic judgments about nature protection. According to the cognitive thesis, science offers the most “truthful” way of understanding nature. Important sociological and epistemological debates about socioeconomic and politicocultural forces that privilege scientific knowledge over other forms of knowledge are generally sidestepped in this discussion. Arguably (natural) science already dominates aesthetic conservation agendas as scenic values have been subsumed within biodiversity protection reasoning. Biodiversity protection has become the dominant argument for protecting nature exercised by powerful conservation organizations with global reach, such as WWF and Conservation International, among many others. An obvious question to ask, particularly in relation to developing countries is, “Whose aesthetics count?” This question is particularly relevant to explore in the context of Carlson’s scientific (only) arguments to interpret and inform nature aesthetics. This position excludes possibilities to value and draw on local culturally embedded knowledge and experience that are not considered to be scientific. Such contextual “knowledges” may take the form of lived participatory experience (and its offshoot, folk-biological knowledge) that has evolved from coping with a particular landscape—it is embodied knowledge. Given this, exclusion of the possibility of other landscape knowledge perspectives seems to be problematic on epistemological, social justice, and conservation grounds. Practically, incorporating local knowledges as well as forging equitable partnerships are strategies that are more likely to serve conservation interests by leading to better understandings of how to reduce conflicts by designing contextualized policies that would work to mitigate the material costs of conservation projects on local populations (Kabiri, 2010; Metcalfe & Kepe, 2008).

Developing a substantive theory of aesthetics is deemed important by some in order to further our understanding of human/nature relations. To this end, the term ecological aesthetics has been developed by Carlson (2004) as a means to merge the irrational (or subjective) with the rational (objective), that is, the aesthetics of beauty with the rationality of science (biodiversity). This position has its roots in Leopold’s land ethic, which saw beauty in preserving the biotic community (Baird, 1989; Callicott, 1989).

Benediktsson (2007) argues, with social justice issues in mind, that some scholars have undervalued or not given adequate credence to the potential of a pluralistic aesthetics. This position posits that we should not privilege science (biodiversity) as a preferred or superior form of appreciating nature’s values but rather emphasize democratic processes of engagement among different knowledge perspectives to settle questions of nature conservation. This view is tolerant of different ways of appreciating nature and acknowledges the relationship between power and knowledge in terms of how some discourses are privileged over others. That said, some form of knowledge valuation involving political mediation is still required if the process is seeking to preference protection of one landscape over another. In a similar manner to Benediktsson (2007), except without the emphasis on process, others such as Berleant (1992) argue for a unifying approach that sees a “subjective beauty” and an “objective utility” combine to make up a perception that is formed by cultural knowledge (including scientific) and experience. Whose knowledge wins out where there is conflict? How are stand-offs over values and interests resolved except through political processes? In these situations trade-offs occur and it is more likely that power defines what is (more) acceptable as knowledge (Fletcher, 1992), thereby providing an unobtrusive means to shape and set expert-based conservation agendas (Saunders, 2011). Alternatively, avoiding conservation interventions where habitats or species are threatened with extinction would not seem to be a reasonable or prudent approach either.

Carlson (2004) sees ecological aesthetics or scientific cognitvism as a means to formalize and to make more tangible the link between aesthetics, nature, and science. Carlson’s central point is that the actual process of perceiving nature will be “enhanced” or at least transformed by having an “understanding of ‘natural’ processes.” Others, such as Budd (2002) and Brady (2002), are quick to dismiss this argument. Budd questions the view that a deeper scientific understanding of nature, provided by biological or ecological knowledge, translates a priori to a deeper aesthetic understanding of nature. He argues that such knowledge may or may not aid or enhance aesthetic appreciation. Moreover, that one can still have a profound and “true” aesthetic experience with nature, while not fully appreciating the ecological processes and interactions that science tells us are underpinning them. Budd’s essential position that it is only knowledge that connects to an aesthetic experience is valid to consider, whether it be scientific or other types of knowledge.

Aesthetic views about nature are not views from nowhere. Nor are they apolitical. They are constructed by our particular emotional response and cultural/scientific knowledge, lived experience, mediated through our sensory experience and motivated by our interests. There appears to be common view that those who prefer a cognitive perception of nature inevitably privilege science as a superior form of knowledge production. Although as Parsons (2002) points out, separating cognition from emotion is problematic and probably illusory in terms of how we view landscapes.

Lived-in experience provides a “dwelling-in” view, which may be essential to understanding how landscape exists for those who live there (Ingold, 1993). This material culture perspective has several dimensions of importance, not least being that understanding how the production of this more socialized nature may be vital to furthering conservation concerns. “Natural” landscapes have been influenced and formed for thousands of years by the productive practices of their human inhabitants (Berkes, Colding, & Folke, 2000). Recent developments in “new” ecology suggest that some ecosystems valued by conservation biologists rely on ongoing human “disturbance” (usually through modes of production) to maintain their biodiversity and landscape qualities (Leach & Mearns, 1996). This view indicates that understanding historical and contemporary cultural and material relationships of landscapes is likely to be vital in informing their evolutionary potential and conservation requirements.

The discussion above suggests that landscapes are constituted differently depending on one’s vantage point (including experiences, “knowledges,” and interests) and that several perspectives may be important to realizing competing land use objectives. So there are contested and multiple layers of meaning attributed to landscapes that manifest as politicized agendas that lay claim to territorial representation and control or, alternatively, are just part of one’s everyday living experience. That is not say that landscape is merely discursive; undeniably, landscape possesses “real” physical qualities; however, constructions of it are mediated through social, cultural, economic, and political processes.

The scientific-only position denies or devalues the myriad other “lived-in” experiences and cultural “knowledges” that influence cognitive responses to nature and may even limit societal responses to conservation. Privileging of scientifically constructed aesthetic nature over other “knowledges” or emotional responses has already led to the privileging of aesthetic forms in nature as valued by science. In line with this claim, wilderness as scenic beauty has largely been aligned with, or subsumed by, biodiversity as idealized natural beauty. Science has largely informed this agenda, although as the next section discusses it also has deep roots in colonial expansion.

I have argued in this section that in some ways an ecological aesthetic has already overtaken scenic qualities as the predominant driver and rationale for appreciating and preserving nature. In this regard, science has played a vital, if at times limited, role in highlighting ecological concerns that threaten the viability of our collective future. However, the implications of application of scientifically constructed imperatives with their biophysical emphasis on “ecology” and biodiversity are technocratic and have generally been unable to deal with socioenvironmental issues or concerns or outright ignored them.

The Aesthetics of Wilderness: A Potted History

The concept of wilderness has historically played a central role in the discussion about nature aesthetics and conservation. It has philosophical, political, cultural, and social justice dimension that need to be discussed in order to ascertain its origins, complexity, and scope. Wilderness is commonly understood as “a place, which remains largely unmanaged and unmodified by human beings” (Cafaro, 2001, p. 2) or as others put it, “an original state of nature” (Bryant & Goodman, 2004). Such places have been seen as a refuge from modernizing human activity.

During the 18th century, while picturesque aesthetics was being developed, a counteraesthetic that sought to value “wild nature” or a scenic wilderness was also being played out (Nash, 1982). The stimulus for the idealization of wild nature (a.k.a. wilderness) is said to have been in response to the expansion of industrialization and the enclosure movement and their implications (Draper, 2002). Somewhat paradoxically, the tools of modernization (particularly the institutions of science and politics) supported by the raison d’etre of instrumental rationality have provided the means enabling the domination and control of “nature” through regulated zones of “primeval nature.”

While these conditions gave birth to Western conceptions of wilderness some commentators have suggested that the concept of the “sublime” ² provided much of the conceptual basis of imperial discourses toward nature in Africa (Wittenberg, 2004), where much of the tension between the enactment of wilderness and people has occurred over the past 200 years. This asserts that the “gaze” from the North selectively essentialized African landscapes (using keystones components such as charismatic mega-fauna) as sublime (understood as a powerful, majestic, almost fearful aesthetic experience; Ivanhoe, 2008). This had the effect of romanticizing those living “traditionally” as part of this nature in contrast to “rational,” modern, rural populations who were to be excluded. The following quote is taken from Wolmer (2005, p. 263; from Foreword to The Low Veld, Col. J. Stevenson Hamilton; Cassell, 1929) characterizes this romanticized, sublime perception:

The lowveld came to be valued as a particularly authentic, unalienated wilderness experience. General Smuts epitomised this romanticised, sublime, even sexualised, perception when he wrote: Wild Africa makes a very subtle appeal to our emotions, and fortunately for us much of Africa remains wild. Civilization has barely touched it at a few selected points, and in the course of the ages the contacts of Africa with civilization have never been permanent or long-lived. After a casual acquaintance with her sister continents she has always shaken herself free and returned to her wild ways. By turns gentle and soothing, hard and cruel, always baffling, mocking, and yet binding, the Spirit of the Wild is essentially feminine. Those who would successfully woo her must possess qualities of mind and body not given to all. Moral and physical weaknesses are sternly punished by her, and, like all else worthy of achievement, her conquest takes time and demands perseverance; but, once fairly won, she holds her successful suitor in thrall so fast that he remains her lover until he dies.

In the East African context it is conjectured that during colonial times (and perhaps even now) Europeans perceived much of the continent as a “lost Eden” where they could rediscover a harmony with nature perceived as no longer available in the despoiled metropolises of industrializing Europe (Wolmer, 2005). It is argued that this imagery then motivated an emotional response to protect it for the purposes of the European imagination (as well as for the more material pursuits of hunting and colonial exploitation of course). The essentialism, inherent in this terra nullius view, lies in stark contrast to the productive, complex, and changing landscapes in which people had to live and use (Draper, 2002). This imagery did not fit and could not fit the picturesque landscape of Europe, ³ so one reaction was to frame it as the exotic “Other.” The reinforcing relationship highlighted here between the wilderness imagery of colonial Africa and aspects of colonial conservation and land use policies highlights the danger of embedding, in unequal power relations, abstract cultural concepts (such as “the sublime wilderness” in this case) that bear little or no relationship to the landscapes being invoked (such as the long-settled and productively used East African savanna). That said, the imaging of Africa as wilderness inevitably leading to preservationist initiatives should not be seen as a monolithic occurrence. As Wolmer notes, wilderness has either been seen as something to be tamed—transformed into the picturesque (conjured) or something to be revered and maintained in its subliminal awfulness (conserved). Either way skewed power relations were invoked through various means in pursuit of colonial ambitions (Kabiri, 2010).

Normatively, in a policy sense, wilderness is invoked by preservationist/ conservationists as means to secure wild nature (the sublime and premodern) and more recently biodiversity (the scientific or ecological) in protected areas that seek to formally exclude (selective) locally consumptive human activities. A WWF website excerpt concerning coastal East Africa promotes this message when its states, “Over the past 50 years, human activity has significantly altered this once pristine paradise” (WWF, n.d.).

Notwithstanding the influence of the sublime, colonial landscapes were never seen as merely something for pleasurable contemplation. It has been suggested that landscape has acted as a metaphor through which colonial and national identities were constructed (Brück, 2007)—certainly taming the wilderness (to conform to the picturesque) has been a very important part of building white national identity in places such as South Africa and Zimbabwe (Alexander, McGregor, & Ranger, 2000). To varying degrees, culturally, all things African were condemned as colonial powers sought to remake Africans in their own images (Boahen, 1987, p. 60).

Many of these “wild places” were conceived and “administered” at a distance by central, remote agencies consisting of colonial experts in forestry, irrigation, soil sciences, and wildlife; however, these measures were also introduced and enforced through the governance of indirect rule (Neumann, 1998). In Tanzania, this necessitated the British concocting a tribal and legal system (Native Authorities) based on race and ethnicity to administer tasks across a wide range of functions, including aspects of forestry and wildlife management to enact social control (Goldstein, 2005). Advocates of “peopleless” wilderness landscapes are by no means resigned to colonial history; they have also asserted their presence in relatively recent times. Bernard Grzimak, president of the Frankfurt Zoological Society in the 1960s and 1970s, emphasizes this view: “A National Park . . . must remain a primordial wilderness to be effective. No men, not even native ones, should live inside its borders” (Adams & McShane, 1992, p. xvi). It has been reiterated even more recently among parts of the “Back to the Barriers” movement (see Hutton, Adams, & Murombedzi, 2005).

Comer (1997) advises that wilderness, in contemporary “deep ecology” discourse, is a nonhuman, extra-industrial, spiritual topography of humbling otherness, where biodiversity and the sacred coexist, and a reminder that humankind is not all-powerful. This view emphasizes the wild beauty and psychospiritual benefits of wilderness landscapes (Trudgill, 2001). The deep ecology movement has been accused of being insensitive to current and past social justice concerns (Bookchin, 1987; Guha, 1989). In the United States, Africa, Australia, and elsewhere advocates using the wilderness lever have been accused of erasure of the “first peoples” history in seeking to promote images that that exclude stories of how the “peopleless” landscapes were constructed and enacted through evictions and social control of settlement (Sarkar, 1999).

In trying to operationalize conceptions of wilderness, the “objective” definition offered above has temporal and spatial dimensions. In that, it infers wilderness exists in places where human occupation or activity has been “negligible” or even nonexistent. Much ambiguity exists about what is actually meant by this. Interpretations of wilderness range from particular places where no humans have ever existed, to where people have left the land “untrammeled,” to places devoid of modern mechanization (Rolston, 1998, 2001; Sutter, 2009). Extreme conceptions of wilderness seems rather problematic given that human activity has had an impact throughout the world and has been integral to producing many if not all sociocultural landscapes that are now commonly regarded as wilderness (e.g., “firestick farming” in the woodlands of Australia). Furthermore, in such landscapes it is not uncommon for current conservation managers to (try and) simulate past sociocultural practices (often drawing on inadequate scientific understandings) to achieve desired “disturbance” regimes.

Acts of wilderness preservation may acknowledge past occupation or activity in a territory but may seek to “create” (note: not recreate) spaces (through wilderness practices) that meet the definition offered above by contemporary exclusion of undesired human presence (such as in the United States, Australia, and East Africa). This type of scenario has been problematized by commentators (see Cronon, 1996; Guha, 1989) for viewing wilderness as more as a state of mind than any objective reality. Both historical and contemporary wilderness practices have been concerned with protecting nature from the destructive forces of modernization. Commentators like Guha and Cronan have argued, in pursuing this agenda, those affected by acts of wilderness practice have not been seen as environmentalists. If recognized at all by states, they have been viewed as marginal subjects, resisting the forces that promote the broader good. As Sutter (2009) points out, this way of framing social contests over nature, aside from raising serious social justice concerns, removes the possibility of learning from “other” materially oriented environmental traditions. Sutter further argues that the formation of contemporary notions of wilderness were not rooted in principles of preservation, as argued by some other critics discussed above, but in the politics of pragmatism that sought to establish nature sanctuaries from excesses of a burgeoning consumer culture (read automobiles) in the United States in the interwar period. This alternative conceptualization of wilderness, which adopts a more pragmatic approach to concrete material realities (rather than a mere principled stance), has the potential to support a more contextualized approach to conservation (Minteer, Corley, & Manning, 2004). Although this is slowly being recognized with the rise of social conservation, arguably, notions of wilderness as spaces of primordial authenticity still pervade international conservation agendas.

The Contemporary Relationship Between Nature Aesthetics and Biodiversity Conservation

Biodiversity is the dominant scientific concept that captures the entire gamut of the biological hierarchy from molecules to ecosystems as well acting as a neologism to replace an entire lexicon of previously used terms such as “natural variety,” ecosystems, endangered species, and wilderness, among others (Nieminen, 2000; Oksanen, 2004). It includes the diversity of all living organisms and their interactions. The scope of its ambit are so sweeping that applying positivistic methodologies to its measurement are fraught with problems (Brown, 1998). At its most basic, notions of biodiversity knowledge have a commonsense element in that we can all recognize different types of species (cat vs. dog) and even landscapes (tropical forest vs. desert; Oksanen, 2004). However, this elemental understanding does not enable us to access the underlying ecological processes at work in each type of landscape.

Carlson (2004) suggests that we should harness “our” ecological knowledge to enhance our landscape aesthetics view. This line of argument seeks to increase the “legitimacy” or credibility of landscape aesthetics and thereby give greater power in the current political climate to influence public policy about land use. That is, we should use ecological (read) biodiversity knowledge to give (a) meaning to a landscape aesthetic experience. Arguably in contemporary conservation discourse, (visually oriented) landscape aesthetics has been largely marginalized; however, linking it to biodiversity (as it was linked previously to wilderness) would give its proponents the authority to more effectively participate in nature and conservation politics. The question of what would be an adequate level of knowledge to inform an aesthetic experience is fraught with problems. Ecological knowledge or appreciation of biodiversity values and processes is also to a degree place specific; for example, knowledge of tropical ecological systems does not necessarily enable a sound understanding of the workings of an ecosystem in sub arctic or arid dryland environments.

Much of the discussion in landscape studies is about connecting ecological knowledge to an appreciation of aesthetics, but the converse also occurs where visual devices devoid of explicit scientific content have been employed in support of conservation goals. All we have to do is think of the numerous images of endangered species or “unspoiled” nature (e.g., tropical forests) used as metonyms for biodiversity and wildness in conservation campaigns by NGOs, ecotourism advertisements, or in television documentaries (Foale & Macintyre, 2005). Foale and Macintyre argue that such images invite us to escape the bleakness and drudgery of “our” everyday lives in the industrialized North and bath in an offer of untrammeled, pristine beauty. Preservation of the images becomes the paramount goal of some conservation projects. This certainly links pleasing unspoiled (by modernization) scenery with the hotspots of biodiversity (and thus conservation) such as tropical forests and coral reefs. Conservation NGOs frequently employ images of charismatic (usually cute, often juvenile) fauna (Garland, 2008). For instance, WWF’s panda is one of the foremost conservation symbols in the world. These symbols are used to emotively win public opinion and to mobilize resources for conservation practice. This strategy using a visual recipe has been used to engender emotional and aesthetic appeal for a range of different conservation objectives: in general (e.g., WWF’s Giant Panda—Ailuropoda melanoleuca), for a specific conservation project (such as the Dugong—Dugong dugon) at the Sanganeb Atoll and Dungonab Bay National Parks in the Red Sea of Sudan), and for a type of habitat (such as the large blue butterfly—Maculinea arion) in dryland grasslands in the United Kingdom.

Science and Representations in the Service of “New” Conservation in Zanzibar

The different perspectives about what landscape aesthetics entails provides pointers to various interests and power dynamics of those involved in conservation governance of resources in the tropics. Revealing the genealogy of the role of landscape aesthetics in creating images and enclosures of “wilderness” in colonial East Africa is illuminating when examining the influences involved in conservation efforts today in Zanzibar. This section takes up two examples, mangroves (tropical forests) and monkeys (charismatic species), to show how a rather “limited” landscape aesthetic conception is invoked either overtly or implicitly in the service of concrete conservation policy. Both of these “conservation objects have attracted social conservation projects” that accept the notion that conservation and development are mutually interdependent and must be linked in conservation planning (Neumann, 1997). Despite this, local perspectives and interests have been still been largely marginalized and conservation goals jeopardized. As the previous discussion shows the lingering influence of wilderness perspectives and the predominance of biodiversity science as a arbiter of conservation values dominates the conservation agenda. The examples discussed below also consider how practical conservation tools could be used to forge more equitable relationships with locals that reflect a more embodied landscape aesthetic.

Conclusion

This article argues that a more productive, just, and arguably historically “truer” approach would continue to see humans as an essential part of nature. This would lead to an acknowledgment that perceptions of nature are influenced by the observer’s situated perspective; therefore, although large tracts of lowly populated nature exist, our relationship with it is culturally and politically mediated. That is not to say that biodiversity conservation is a worthless exercise that is always implemented hegemonically or repressively, but to advocate a perspective that provides a historical and contemporary human context, which would better serve both conservation and development agendas and enrich aesthetic experiences of “nature.” Separating knowledge from power—say science from politics in conservation agendas—is problematic as the red colobus example above shows. Colonial science and, to some extent, contemporary conservation biology demonstrate that ignoring the political and cultural dimensions of knowledge production can result in a chimera of neutrality that enables it to be “unproblematically” employed. That is to say, that power–knowledge relations in such projects can intertwine and act in tandem uncritically. In these situations “local knowledge” derived from context can easily be discredited as impartial if it conflicts with conservation goals. As Agrawal (1995) argues perhaps the use of anthropological methods to weigh and value the differing logics and epistemologies of local “knowledges” could help “even up” the power politics of conservation interventions. To complement this, a landscape aesthetic that reveals historical context and that provides a platform for negotiation of pluralistic interests and perceptions would be well worth pursuing. Furthermore, an embodied landscape aesthetic ethic would complement and support valuation approaches that have the potential to capture a wider range of conservation costs that are invariably borne by local communities.

This endeavor could be given practical expression by engaging in approaches to conversation that take greater account of subgroup- and individual-level experiences of landscape and responses to it. Benediktsson’s (2007) proposal for a more democratic engagement among different knowledge/experience perspectives offers more inclusive possibilities for conservation practice. This view rejects the “objectivist” and technical notions of biodiversity science as the only legitimate paradigm to drive and inform conservation. The important challenge for conservation scientists and practitioners is to acknowledge the limitations of their own ethical, knowledge, and aesthetic preferences and interests. In this way there would be more possibilities in conservation practice to integrate the engaged and immediate experiences and connections of subcommunities and individuals that involve a wider range of cognitive, ethical, cultural, socioeconomic, and personal dimensions. This should include a role for social scientists, not just to socially engineer biodiversity conservation solutions but to help elucidate nuanced understandings of social relations and place and how these relations are shaped and constrained by multiscaled institutionalized interactions. Through such a process there would the potential to be more cognizant and reflective of the particularity and dynamism of the interconnectedness of place and people. In enacting the pluralistic process described above, a wider range of losses and gains associated with conservation projects would be revealed (e.g., through environmental valuation processes), thus supporting a recent call by McShane et al.’s (2011) for conservation to be more explicit and honest about the trade-offs inherent in conservation projects. This approach would not resolve all the hard choices, particularly with the uncertainty posed by localized climate change effects, but it would support greater opportunities to realize more just, adaptive, and effective conservation outcomes.