2021 personal communication

Intended consequences statement

Phelan, R., Baumgartner, B., Brand, S., Brister, E., Burgiel, S. W., Charo, R. A., … Robbins, P. (2021, April).

By: R. Phelan*, B. Baumgartner*, S. Brand*, E. Brister*, S. Burgiel*, R. Charo*, I. Coche, A. Cofrancesco* ...

co-author countries: Australia 🇦🇺 France 🇫🇷 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 🇬🇧 New Zealand 🇳🇿 United States of America 🇺🇸
Source: Web Of Science
Added: March 29, 2021

As the biodiversity crisis accelerates, the stakes are higher for threatened plants and animals. Rebuilding the health of our planet will require addressing underlying threats at many scales, including habitat loss and climate change. Conservation interventions such as habitat protection, management, restoration, predator control, translocation, genetic rescue, and biological control have the potential to help threatened or endangered species avert extinction. These existing, well-tested methods can be complemented and augmented by more frequent and faster adoption of new technologies, such as powerful new genetic tools. In addition, synthetic biology might offer solutions to currently intractable conservation problems. We believe that conservation needs to be bold and clear-eyed in this moment of great urgency. Proposed efforts to mitigate conservation threats often raise concerns about potentially harmful unintended consequences. For some highly documented strategies based on conservation principles, such as biological control, conservation translocations, and restoration of natural fire regimes, evidence to date suggests that careful planning produces the intended consequences while avoiding adverse unintended consequences. For example, better identification and mitigation of risks has resulted in no severe, negative, unintended consequences for conservation translocations and biological control releases over the last 30 years in the United States (Novak et al., 2021). This progress, especially after the well-publicized harmful interventions from the early history of the field, has been made by improving conservation intervention techniques, scientific understanding of dynamic interactions in complex ecosystems, and early stakeholder engagement. The substantial history of intervention should encourage us to thoughtfully pursue novel approaches to conservation as the technology advances, focusing on the future we want, rather than being daunted by the future we fear. In June 2020, Revive & Restore convened a group of 57 conservationists, wildlife biologists, restoration specialists, conservation geneticists, ethicists, and social scientists to propose a new framework for the future of conservation, focused on intended consequences. There was broad consensus that developing and employing what might be considered controversial genetic technologies will require a commitment to responsible decision-making that respects the diversity of perspectives, interests, and values among different stakeholders. To encourage working confidently with emerging tools and technologies, we propose a framework that increases inclusivity and embraces conservation innovation. These initial points of agreement, along with an evolving code of practice, can help guide future conservation interventions and inspire confidence in our ability to design for and achieve intended consequences. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, CSIRO, NatureScot, Imperial College London, San Diego Zoo Global, and National Invasive Species Council. The workshop that inspired this statement was supported by Revive & Restore, University of Wisconsin-Madison, The Nature Conservancy of California, Gerry Ohrstrom, and Amy and Mark Tercek. We would like to thank the editor and an anonymous reviewer who read early versions and gave constructive feedback that improved this statement. The authors have no conflict of interest to declare. All authors have contributed and have given final approval of the version to be published. No data were collected for this article. No data were collected for this article.