Spatial Strategies of Conservation

Geographers have had plenty to say about the spatial strategies of conservation. Their contributions can be loosely categorized into two main approaches. The first has origins in resource management and draws strongly from biogeography, while the second has origins in critical approaches to the study of human-environment relations (e.g., political ecology). While their differences and distinct contributions are outlined in this entry, it is clear that both groups agree that conservation is an inherently spatial process. The conservation of targeted flora and fauna as well as entire ecosystems is often accomplished through policies that are explicitly spatial: land use zoning, protected areas, buffer areas, and wildlife corridors. These strategies require the delineation of boundaries that separate the protected from the not protected. Furthermore, those conservation mechanisms that are not spatial in origin (e.g., pesticide bans, emissions restrictions, and carbon trading) have spatial outcomes; they take place somewhere (and not somewhere else), and they play a role in shaping the spatiality of related social and economic activities. The treatment of these geographies of conservation, however, differs substantially between the two approaches.

The resource management stream of geography concentrates its effort on how to address already accepted problems of conservation: how to prevent habitat fragmentation, protect biodiversity, and minimize damage to nature by people. To these ends, emphasis is often on how best to characterize the existing fragmentation using geographic information systems and remote sensing, as well as on the location and functionality of protected-area boundaries and buffer zones. For species-specific conservation, the concern is often with the spatial needs of a particular species and the extent and quality of their habitats. It is important to note that the spatial solutions to these conservation problems are largely territorial; that is, they support the creation of territories dedicated to conservation goals such as national parks, wildlife corridors, and ecological zones.

The single large or several small (SLOSS) debate, beginning in the 1970s and persisting in various permutations today, is indicative of this approach. The debate centers on whether, as a general rule in instances of habitat fragmentation, creation of SLOSS reserves is the best spatial strategy to ensure long-term biodiversity preservation. The answer to this question varies significantly depending on the particular set of circumstances and the ecosystem in question but almost always takes into account the species-area curve from the theory of island biogeography, the diversity of habitats available, and any edge effects that may help or hinder species diversity.

Geographers more closely associated with critical approaches to human-environment relations, such as in political ecology, question the spatial solutions offered by the resource management approach discussed above. They suggest that the delineation of boundaries separating biota that are to be targeted for conservation from biota that are not is a spatial reification of the nature-culture dichotomy and consequently fails to recognize nature as at least a partially social artifact, consistent with social construction of nature arguments. Furthermore, such strategies are deemed to perpetuate unnecessary violence against rural people, particularly indigenous peoples, by separating them from their livelihood. Much research has been conducted, for example, on the impacts of boundary delimitation, protected-area establishment, and conservation policy and their associated voluntary and involuntary displacement. Such critique has focused largely on conservation practices in the developing world, which are seen as coercive and motivated as much by political as by environmental goals.

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