Centre d'Étude de la Forêt, Département de biologie, Pavillon Alexandre-Vachon, 1045 Avenue de la Médecine, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada.
Centre d'Étude de la Forêt, Département des Sciences du bois et de la forêt, Pavillon Abitibi-Price, 2405 Rue de la Terrasse, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada.
Sci Total Environ. 2023 Nov 1;897:165433. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165433. Epub 2023 Jul 14.
Conflicts between economic development and conservation are increasingly hampering efforts to restore imperiled wildlife populations. Public opinion can influence how these conflicts translate into conservation actions, encouraging stakeholders to express their views through various public channels. The outcome of these campaigns typically remains unknown. Via an online survey, we collected to the opinion of 1000 citizens of Québec, Canada, regarding the ongoing conflict between logging and the conservation of at-risk caribou populations (Rangifer tarandus). We found that people expect conservation actions that are sufficient to recover caribou populations, even if millions of government investment are required and jobs are lost in the process. When respondents learned that academic caribou researchers indicated that the two management strategies being studied by government would be insufficient for population recovery, one-third withdrew their support for either strategy. Age, gender and education all explain variation in public opinion, but it was the region of residence that most consistently explained variation in opinion. Residents of caribou-inhabited regions were less concerned about caribou conservation and more supportive of forestry than residents of other regions, reflecting regional differences in expected economic impacts of conservation, not negative interactions with caribou. In fact, most people supported strong conservation actions for the recovery of caribou populations, regardless of their socio-demographics. Our analysis provides general insights into how public opinion on the trade-off between conservation and economy is influenced by socio-demographics and scientific conclusions. We found that current government conservation actions (or lack thereof) are not in line with mainstream public opinion. Moreover, we show that making species at-risk lists does not ensure that the species will benefit from strong conservation actions without lengthy delays, even for a high-profile, flagship species like caribou. This observation echoes concerns about the fate of less charismatic, at-risk species, and thus about future biodiversity conservation efforts.
经济发展与保护之间的冲突日益阻碍了拯救濒危野生动物种群的努力。公众意见可以影响这些冲突如何转化为保护行动，鼓励利益相关者通过各种公共渠道表达自己的观点。这些运动的结果通常是未知的。通过在线调查，我们收集了 1000 名加拿大魁北克省公民对正在进行的伐木和受威胁的北美驯鹿（Rangifer tarandus）种群保护之间冲突的看法。我们发现，人们期望采取足够的保护行动来恢复驯鹿种群，即使需要政府投资数百万美元，并且在此过程中会失去工作。当受访者了解到学术驯鹿研究人员表示，政府正在研究的两种管理策略不足以实现种群恢复时，三分之一的人撤回了对任何一种策略的支持。年龄、性别和教育程度都可以解释公众意见的差异，但居住地是最能始终如一地解释意见差异的因素。居住在驯鹿栖息地的居民对驯鹿保护的关注较少，对林业的支持多于其他地区的居民，这反映了保护对经济的预期影响在不同地区存在差异，而不是与驯鹿的负面互动。事实上，大多数人支持采取强有力的保护行动来恢复驯鹿种群，无论其社会人口统计学特征如何。我们的分析提供了一般的见解，即公众对保护与经济权衡的看法是如何受到社会人口统计学和科学结论的影响的。我们发现，当前政府的保护行动（或缺乏行动）与主流公众意见不一致。此外，我们表明，即使对于像北美驯鹿这样的高知名度、旗舰物种，制定濒危物种名单并不能确保该物种会受益于强有力的保护行动，而不会出现长时间的延迟。这一观察结果呼应了人们对较不具魅力的濒危物种命运的担忧，以及对未来生物多样性保护努力的担忧。
