Mapping the Conservation Landscape

: Before widespread, informed collaboration can take place in conservation there must be a process of understanding the different approaches employed by different conservation organizations to conserve biodiversity. To begin this process and to help build understanding and collaboration, we provide a conceptual map of 21 approaches currently being implemented by 13 conservation organizations. We examined each of these approaches according to (1) the nature of the conservation target—the object(s) of the conservation action; ( 2 ) whether the question addressed is where conservation should be done or how conservation should be done; ( 3 ) the scale ( both grain and extent ) of the approach; and (4 ) the principles that underlie the approach. These questions provide a good way of distinguishing between most of the approaches and reveal that there is less competition between them than is assumed. We conclude that only with explicit understanding can the conservation community and its supporters critically compare approaches and come to a consensus about a set of metrics for measuring and achieving global conservation. Resumen: Para que una colaboracion bien fundamentada pueda llevarse a cabo, debe haber un proceso de entendimiento de los distintos enfoques utilizadas por diferentes organizaciones de conservacion para preservar la biodiversidad. Para iniciar este proceso y ayudar a fomentar el conocimiento y la colaboracion, proveemos un mapa conceptual de 21 enfoques utilizados actualmente por 13 organizaciones conservacionistas. Examinamos cada uno de estos enfoques segun (1) la naturaleza del objetivo de conservacion—el ( los ) objetos( s ) de las actividades de conservacion; ( 2 ) la naturaleza de la pregunta a contestar, ya sea “donde se debe llevar a cabo la conservacion” o “como se debe llevar a cabo la conservacion”; ( 3 ) la escala ( tanto a nivel de detalle como extension ) del enfoque; (4 ) los principios que constituyen el fundamento del enfoque. Estas preguntas proveen una buena manera de diferenciar la mayoria de las metodologias y muestran que hay menos competencia entre los enfoques de lo que se cree. Concluimos que la comunidad conservacionista y sus seguidores solo podran comparar los diversos enfoques de manera criteriosa si tienen un entendimiento explicito de los mismos, y de esa manera, podra desarrollar, por consenso, una serie de variables para medir y lograr la conservacion a nivel global.

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