Editing Nature conservation (section)

== Practice ==
[[File:Daintree Rainforest.JPG|thumb|[[Daintree Rainforest]] in [[Queensland]], Australia]]
Distinct trends exist regarding conservation development. The need for conserving land has only recently intensified during what some scholars refer to as the [[Capitalocene]] epoch. This era marks the beginning of [[colonialism]], [[globalization]], and the [[Industrial Revolution]] that has led to global land change as well as [[climate change]].

While many countries' efforts to preserve [[species]] and their [[habitats]] have been government-led, those in the North Western Europe tended to arise out of the middle-class and aristocratic interest in [[natural history]], expressed at the level of the individual and the national, regional or local [[learned society]]. Thus countries like Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, etc. had what would be called [[non-governmental organization]]s – in the shape of the [[Royal Society for the Protection of Birds]], [[National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty|National Trust]] and County Naturalists' Trusts (dating back to 1889, 1895, and 1912 respectively) Natuurmonumenten, Provincial Conservation Trusts for each Dutch province, Vogelbescherming, etc. – a long time before there were [[national parks]] and [[national nature reserve]]s.<ref name=Webb>{{Citation | author1=Webb, L. J. (Leonard James) | author-link=Leonard Webb (academic) | title=Nature protection in Europe | year=1970 | publication-date=1968 | publisher=Wildlife Preservation Society of Australia | isbn=978-0-909971-01-4}}</ref> This in part reflects the absence of wilderness areas in heavily cultivated Europe, as well as a longstanding interest in [[laissez-faire]] government in some countries, like the UK, leaving it as no coincidence that [[John Muir]], the Scottish-born founder of the National Park movement (and hence of government-sponsored conservation) did his sterling work in the US, where he was the motor force behind the establishment of such national parks as [[Yosemite]] and [[Yellowstone]]. Nowadays, officially more than 10 percent of the world is legally protected in some way or the other, and in practice, private fundraising is insufficient to pay for the effective management of so much land with protective status.

Protected areas in developing countries, where probably as many as 70–80 percent of the species of the world live, still enjoy very little effective management and protection. Some countries, such as Mexico, have non-profit civil organizations and landowners dedicated to protecting vast private property, such is the case of Hacienda Chichen's Maya Jungle Reserve and Bird Refuge in [[Chichen Itza]], [[Yucatán (state)|Yucatán]].<ref>[http://www.haciendachichen.com/eco-design.htm Haciendachichen.com], "The Importance of Eco-Design"</ref> The Adopt A Ranger Foundation has calculated that worldwide about 140,000 rangers are needed for the protected areas in developing and transition countries. There are no data on how many rangers are employed at the moment, but probably less than half the protected areas in developing and transition countries have any rangers at all and those that have them are at least 50% short. This means that there would be a worldwide ranger deficit of 105,000 rangers in the developing and transition countries.{{Cn|date=October 2022}}

The terms ''conservation'' and ''preservation'' are frequently conflated outside the academic, scientific, and professional kinds of literature. The United States' [[National Park Service]] offers the following explanation of the important ways in which these two terms represent very different conceptions of [[environmental protection]] [[Environmental ethics|ethics]]:

{{quote|Conservation and preservation are closely linked and may indeed seem to mean the same thing. Both terms involve a degree of protection, but how that protection is carried out is the key difference. Conservation is generally associated with the protection of natural resources, while preservation is associated with the protection of buildings, objects, and landscapes. Put simply, ''conservation seeks the proper use of nature, while preservation seeks protection of nature from use''.|United States National Park Service<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nps.gov/teachers/classrooms/conservation-preservation-and-the-national-park-service.htm | title=Conservation, Preservation, and the National Park Service - Teachers (U.S. National Park Service) }}</ref>}}

During the [[environmentalism|environmental movement]] of the early 20th century, two opposing factions emerged: conservationists and preservationists. Conservationists sought to regulate human use while preservationists sought to eliminate [[Human impact on the environment|human impact]] altogether."<ref>[http://www.nps.gov/klgo/learn/education/classrooms/conservation-vs-preservation.htm National Park Service: Conservation versus preservation]</ref>

C. Anne Claus presents a distinction for conservation practices.<ref name=":0">{{cite book |last1=Claus |first1=C. Anne |title=Drawing the sea near : satoumi and coral reef conservation in Okinawa |date=2020 |location=Minneapolis |isbn=978-1-5179-0662-7}}</ref> Claus divides conservation into conservation-far and conservation-near. Conservation-far is the means of protecting nature by separating it and safeguarding it from humans.<ref name=":0" /> Means of doing this include the creation of preserves or national parks. They are meant to keep the flora and fauna away from human influence and have become a staple method in the west. Conservation-near however is conservation via connection. The method of reconnecting people to nature through traditions and beliefs to foster a desire to protect nature.<ref name=":0" /> The basis is that instead of forcing compliance to separate from nature onto the people, instead conservationists work with locals and their traditions to find conservation efforts that work for all.<ref name=":0" /> 

===Evidence-based conservation ===
{{Main|Evidence-based conservation}}
Evidence-based conservation is the application of evidence in conservation management actions and policy making. It is defined as systematically assessing scientific information from published, [[peer-review]]ed publications and texts, practitioners' experiences, independent expert assessment, and local and [[indigenous (ecology)|indigenous]] knowledge on a specific conservation topic.  This includes assessing the current effectiveness of different management interventions, threats and emerging problems, and economic factors.<ref>{{cite web |title = The Basics|publisher = Conservation Evidence|url=http://www.conservationevidence.com/faq/index |access-date = 7 March 2015}}</ref>

[[Evidence-based]] conservation was organized based on the observations that [[decision making]] in conservation was based on [[:wikt:intuition|intuition]] and/or practitioner experience often disregarding other forms of evidence of successes and failures (e.g. scientific information). This has led to costly and poor outcomes.<ref name=Sutherland>{{cite journal|last1=Sutherland|first1=William J|last2=Pullin|first2=Andrew S.|last3=Dolman|first3=Paul M.|last4=Knight|first4=Teri M.|title=The need for evidence-based conservation|journal=Trends in Ecology and Evolution|date=June 2004|volume=19|issue=6|pages=305–308|doi=10.1016/j.tree.2004.03.018|pmid=16701275}}</ref> Evidence-based conservation provides access to information that will support decision making through an evidence-based framework of "what works" in conservation.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Sutherland|first1=William J.|title= Evidence-based Conservation|journal= Conservation in Practice|date=July 2003|volume=4|issue=3|pages=39–42|doi=10.1111/j.1526-4629.2003.tb00068.x}}</ref>

The evidence-based approach to conservation is based on evidence-based practice which started in [[Evidence-based medicine|medicine]] and later spread to [[Evidence Based Nursing|nursing]], [[Evidence based education|education]],<ref>[[David G. Hebert]], (2022), [https://cjee.lakeheadu.ca/article/view/1708/1061 "Nature Conservation and Music Sustainability: Fields with Shared Concerns"], ''Canadian Journal of Environmental Education'', 25, p.175–189.</ref> [[psychology]], and other fields. It is part of the larger movement towards [[evidence-based practices]].