Sandbrook Chris
United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, 219 Huntingdon Road, Cambridge, CB3 0DL, UK.
Ambio. 2015 Nov;44 Suppl 4(Suppl 4):636-47. doi: 10.1007/s13280-015-0714-0.
Unmanned aerial vehicles, or 'drones', appear to offer a flexible, accurate and affordable solution to some of the technical challenges of nature conservation monitoring and law enforcement. However, little attention has been given to their possible social impacts. In this paper, I review the possible social impacts of using drones for conservation, including on safety, privacy, psychological wellbeing, data security and the wider understanding of conservation problems. I argue that negative social impacts are probable under some circumstances and should be of concern for conservation for two reasons: (1) because conservation should follow good ethical practice; and (2) because negative social impacts could undermine conservation effectiveness in the long term. The paper concludes with a call for empirical research to establish whether the identified social risks of drones occur in reality and how they could be mitigated, and for self-regulation of drone use by the conservation sector to ensure good ethical practice and minimise the risk of unintended consequences.
无人驾驶飞行器，即“无人机”，似乎为自然保护监测和执法中的一些技术挑战提供了一种灵活、准确且经济实惠的解决方案。然而，人们很少关注它们可能产生的社会影响。在本文中，我回顾了使用无人机进行保护工作可能产生的社会影响，包括对安全、隐私、心理健康、数据安全以及对保护问题更广泛理解的影响。我认为，在某些情况下可能会产生负面社会影响，保护工作应关注这一点，原因有二：（1）因为保护工作应遵循良好的道德规范；（2）因为负面社会影响从长远来看可能会削弱保护效果。本文最后呼吁进行实证研究，以确定已识别出的无人机社会风险是否实际存在以及如何减轻这些风险，并呼吁保护部门对无人机的使用进行自我监管，以确保良好的道德规范并将意外后果的风险降至最低。
