Overview
Many authors have noted that most cases of Human-Wildlife Conflict (HWC) are not really conflicts between humans and wildlife, they are conflicts between groups of people about goals of management, the means to achieve those goals, or possibly deeper-rooted differences in values or morals (Madden and McQuinn 2014, Lute et al. 2016). Values are resistant to change, culturally shared, and generally formed early in life. Moral Foundations Theory (MFT; from Haidt and Joseph 2004) suggests that morals develop from different emphases of a limited set (commonly 5) of foundations such as care, authority, fairness, loyalty, and disgust (see Lute et al. 2016 for more on how MFT relates to HWC issues). As a manager, you must manage the participation of interested parties with different sets of values. This is especially difficult in that the strategies we employ to manage conflict should not, themselves, model or generate negative behaviors (e.g., “shoot, shovel, and shut-up”).
Literature Cited
Haidt, J., and C. Joseph. 2004. Intuitive ethics: how innately prepared intuitions generate culturally variable virtues. Daedalus 133(4):55-66.
Madden, F., and B. McQuinn. 2014. Conservation’s blind spot: the case for conflict transformation in wildlife conservation. Biological Conservation 178(2014):97-106.
Lute, M.L., C.D. Navarrete, M.P. Nelson, and M.L. Gore. 2016. Moral dimensions of human-wildlife conflict. Conservation Biology 30(6):1200-1211.
View rubric
Initial Post
For this discussion provide your thoughts on the following prompts, drawing heavily from the information in your assigned readings as well as literature beyond the assigned readings:
How can natural resource managers resolve apparent interested party conflict through behavior mediation? Address in your response how Moral Foundations Theory might influence this process of conflict resolution.
How can managers address conflict stemming from differences in deeply held values or morals? Inform your response with information from Madden and McQuinn (2014) and Lute et al (2016).
Mark as done.
Responses
Due Date: 3 AM ET, Monday
Please respond to three peers by offering insight or feedback on their discussion of behavior mediation and addressing moral/values-based conflict..
