Conservation and the social sciences revisited

Abstract

The concept of a biodiversity crisis emerged in the 1980s to reflect the severe, ongoing losses of plants, animals, and habitats. Conservation biologists, such as Soulé (1985), acknowledged that human activities affect the planet and that the biological sciences would need other approaches, including social sciences, to curb the crisis. Forty years later, the world's premier international conservation society—the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB)—still centers biology in its name and practices in ways that may dissuade some from joining (Winkler-Schor et al., 2024). While the social sciences have gained increasing prominence in the SCB and conservation literature (Selinske et al., 2018; Wallen & Landon, 2020), the need for conservation social science (CSS) insights has grown greater amid additional threats, such as climate change, conflicts over land rights, cultural homogenization, and rapidly advancing technologies (Miller et al., 2023; Sandbrook et al., 2021; World Bank, 2014).

Twenty years ago, Mascia et al. (2003) called attention to the slow uptake of CSS contributions and set an agenda for integrating them into SCB, conservation organizations, and academia. Consequently, the SCB's Social Science Working Group (SSWG) was established in 2003. We (the 2022–2023 SSWG Board of Directors) commemorate SSWG's founding by outlining its achievements over the last 2 decades. Work remains to truly honor human contributions to conservation policy and practice. Thus, we emphasize the continued relevance of CSS in bringing about more effective, just, and enduring conservation efforts consistent with the Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) 2030 targets and 2050 vision of more inclusive conservation (CBD, 2022; Pascual et al., 2023).

The SSWG has developed into a global network and crucial hub for the continued mainstreaming of CSS under the leadership of a 12-person, member-elected, volunteer-run board of directors. The SSWG is SCB's largest working group, with 500–700 members representing over 60 countries, 4500 social media followers, and a 1400-subscriber listserv. Since 2003, SSWG has connected over 1000 people in structured and informal networking opportunities, and, since 2020, it has facilitated over 155 mentor–mentee pairings to support students, early career conservationists, and conservationists from underrepresented identities and geographies (see SSWG Annual Reports in Supporting Information).

The SSWG has improved the reach and practice of CSS through regular input, advocacy, training, and leadership. Regarding input and advocacy, SSWG Board members have served as SCB-related conference organizers, reviewed conference abstracts, nominated keynote speakers, and promoted CSS content online. Regarding training, SSWG has facilitated professional development and standards of practice via workshops and short courses at SCB congresses and through online offerings, such as a student and early-career SSWG Twitter Conference and globally accessible webinars. Our members, past and present, have outlined and encouraged standards for evaluating CSS methods (e.g., for data collection and uses [Sandbrook et al., 2021]) and publications (e.g., Teel et al., 2018). Regarding leadership, SSWG alum have served as SCB president, on the society's board of governors, as section or region officers, and as editors for SCB-affiliated journals. Additionally, SSWG alum have risen to leadership roles in academia and international organizations (e.g., the Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, World Wide Fund for Nature, Rights and Resources International) and initiated and cultivated CSS programs therein.

We regard the first generation of the SSWG as successful at initially defining the CSS field, establishing an interdisciplinary and global epistemic CSS community, legitimizing and mainstreaming the social sciences within SCB, elevating standards for CSS research and practice, and applying CSS insights to conservation practice and policy.

The social sciences provide the capacity to understand and honor human livelihoods, cultures, and lived experiences and the interconnections between biodiversity and humans in ways other fields cannot (Miller et al., 2023). The social sciences are uniquely positioned to inform and critique conservation decisions (Sandbrook et al., 2013) and help evaluate personal and professional ethical dilemmas related to those decisions (Brittain et al., 2020; Fair et al., 2022). To that end, we highlight 2 core ways (among many) in which the SSWG and CSS can further contribute: mainstreaming CSS beyond SCB and amplifying marginalized voices with collaborative social science approaches.

In revisiting the call for an inclusive conservation society and reflecting on SSWG's first 20 years, we sought to advance previous calls to apply social science insights in conservation. For a generation now, SSWG has built a community of professionals working to mainstream CSS in its parent professional society and applying those insights across conservation contexts. More work is needed to fully honor the disciplinary contributions of the social sciences to conservation and to support CSS use worldwide while respecting the rights and needs of different groups of people. An inclusive professional society that effectively employs principles and practices from various sciences and traditions can better address the biodiversity crisis and emergent conservation challenges that arise from rapidly changing conditions.