How to Make Conservation the People’s Choice

Join Science & the City as we host Peter Kareiva for a talk about his new book, Conservation Science: Balancing the Needs of People and Nature and for a lecture on how to move conservation from a special interest to the people's choice.

As chief scientist and science director at the Nature Conservancy, Dr. Kareiva holds the views that: 1) conservation commonly employs strategies without adequate critical self-scrutiny, and minimal evaluation of what really works, or what might be unintended consequences of good ideas, and 2) Conservation will fail unless it is better connected to people.  

Dr. Kareiva is involved in several projects aimed at asking whether conservation strategies are indeed delivering what they promise to deliver: Are easements well-designed? Does land acquisition create leverage or simply drive up prices making future conservation purchases more difficult? Do projects that claim to improve the environment and help poverty alleviation actually do so? Can protected areas hope to succeed in the face of ever-growing pressure from nearby urbanization?

He says the obvious connection between conservation and people comes from the benefits nature provides people - everything from clean water and flood control, to fiber from forests, and fish from aquatic ecosystems. The scientific and practical challenge lies in developing credible tools that allow routine consideration of nature's assets (or ecosystem services) in a way that informs the choices we make everyday at the scale of local communities and regions, all the way up to nations and global agreements. This line of inquiry is being conducted as part of a pioneering collaboration between WWF, Stanford University and The Nature Conservancy in the form of the Natural Capital Project.

Reception and book signing to follow.