‘Conservation’ Paradox: Where are the vegan conservationists?

Traditional conservation, a field charged with protecting wildlife, is mostly motivated by figuring out what it is worth to humans and how to get the most value out of it. For example, there is an implicit relationship between farmed animals and supporting wild lives. Agriculture – of which 80% of land is devoted to animal exploitation – drives historic rates of habitat loss and extinction. By fighting to end the power of this industry and the raising of animals for human purposes, veganism can offer powerful and interconnected insights to conservation that will benefit both domesticated and wild lives.

MICHAEL BURROWS: The scientists, government officials, and activists that make up the fields of conservation and wildlife management govern many important aspects of our society’s relationship with the natural world – yet vegan ethics are virtually nowhere to be seen. There is much need for vegans to engage with our relationship with wild lands and the animals living on them, because the principles that vegans live by could push conservation in a new and more principled direction. By influencing them with the ethical principles that vegans live by, we can help advocate for an end to the needless slaughter that defines conservation and wildlife management throughout this country…

The anthropocentrism of modern conservation may surprise few vegans, but this fundamental paradox – that a field charged with protecting wildlife is mostly motivated by figuring out what it is worth to us and how to get the most value out of it – underpins our society’s relationship with the natural world, and is profoundly connected to the crisis we have inflicted on the biosphere…

Anthropocentrism – that is, the idea that humans are more valuable than any other beings and that non-humans are primarily valuable in their ability to serve human interests – guides conservation and wildlife management decisions. The privileging of humans over other species comes as no surprise to most vegans, who are used to observing widespread dismissal of the well-being of other beings.

While exploitation of wild land and wild lives is nothing new to human society, in the United States these tendencies are articulated as the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (NAM), and the perspective is generally adopted by the many state and federal agencies responsible for protecting wildlife. The NAM centers the role of hunters, fishers, and trappers in governing our relationship to nature, with the connection between hunting and conservation presented without evidence or even much debate. Less than 4 percent of the U.S. population hunts, so a very small and well-organized group of people with very specific (and to vegans, contrary) interests is routinely empowered to make decisions about countless present and future lives.

The NAM also calls for scientific management of wildlife, and to many in the public the notion of ‘following the science’ is somewhat soothing. Sadly, calls for scientific management of wildlife tend to lead us in the same direction as entrusting conservation to hunters, fishers, and trappers. Even with the best intentions, the values held by scientists guide the questions that they ask, the techniques they use, and their interpretation of results (even though researchers tend to be blind to those biases). As a result, even a scientific approach will default to the interests and biases of humans, with the cost to non-humans rarely even accounted for, much less treated with any seriousness. By ignoring the values that go into making the science, we ensure that the violent status quo will remain unchallenged…

So what has mainstream conservation brought us? At its worst, conservation has delivered countless variations of mass slaughter. The conservation world’s vision of sustainability plays out at the expense of coyotes in Maine, where under the auspices of maintaining a sustainable deer population (for hunters to exploit) and protecting domesticated animals used in animal agriculture (for humans to eat, and which coyotes rarely kill) the year round hunting of coyotes remains unchallenged…

All of these outcomes are underpinned by a very simple question – what can we humans get out of nature? This question might seem crass, so it’s often posed through the lens of neoclassical economic theory, which reduces the role of nature to “ecosystem services” (that is, any positive benefit that wildlife or ecosystems provide to people). Through this lens, concepts like maintaining a sustainable population might be deemed important, if doing so meets some set of human needs. Still, the individual lives within that population remain broadly ignorable, as long as the population itself continues at levels considered acceptable to human observers…

Vegan principles offer powerful and interconnected insights to conservation. First, there is an implicit relationship between farmed animals and supporting wild lives. For example, agriculture – of which 80% of land is devoted to animal exploitation – drives historic rates of habitat loss and extinction; furthermore, animal agriculture has been broadly committed to the extermination of carnivores. Fighting to end the power of this industry and the raising of animals for human purposes will benefit both domesticated and wild lives. Second, conservation is oriented around concepts like population sustainability, ecosystems, and biodiversity, while vegans tend to be more concerned with individual lives. Conservationist concepts are also important in emphasizing the interconnectivity of individual lives, but the emphasis on the collective ignores that animals think, feel, and value life – facts that are scientifically demonstrated, but of little interest to the conservation community. Third, vegans are primarily motivated by ending animal suffering, of which harmful or lethal conservation interventions are an enormous source. At its very best, conservation entertains ideas of making wild animals suffer less as we shape their homes to our interests. As vegans, we must fight to inflict no suffering at all…

Some emerging paradigms of conservation make considerable steps toward correcting for the historical failings of traditional conservationism, and their key principles offer structure to vegan conservationism. Compassionate conservation foregrounds compassion toward nonhuman animals in all conservation decisions, primarily by extending personhood to all sentient beings, leading to such principles as “First Do No Harm” (borrowed from the Hippocratic oath) and “Peaceful Coexistence”. Compassionate conservation is a notable departure from traditional conservation in its increased consideration and recognition of individual animals, rather than only the ecosystems or collectives centered by traditional conservation. SOURCE..,

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