Transparency About Values and Assertions of Fact in Natural Resource Management

Abstract

Worldwide, unsustainable use of nature threatens many ecosystems and the services they provide for a broad diversity of life, including humans. Yet, governments commonly claim that the best available science supports their policies governing extraction of natural resources. We confront this apparent paradox by assessing the complexity of the intersections among value judgments, fact claims, and scientifically verified facts. Science can only describe how nature works and predict the likely outcomes of our actions, whereas values influence which actions or objectives society ought to pursue. In the context of natural resource management, particularly of fisheries and wildlife, governments typically set population targets or use quotas. Although these are fundamentally value judgments about how much of a resource a group of people can extract, quotas are often justified as numerical guidance derived from abstracted, mathematical, or theoretical models of extraction. We confront such justifications by examining failures in transparency about value judgments, which may accompany unsupported assertions articulated as factual claims. We illustrate this with two examples. Our first case concerns protection and human use of habitats harboring the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina), revealing how biologists and policy scholars have argued for divergent roles of scientists within policy debates, and how debates between scientists engaged in policy-relevant research reveal undisclosed value judgments about communication of science beyond its role as a source of description (observation, measurement, analysis, and inference). Our second case concerns protection and use of endangered gray wolves (Canis lupus) and shows how undisclosed value judgments distorted the science behind a government policy. Finally, we draw from the literature of multiple disciplines and wildlife systems to recommend several improvements to the standards of transparency in applied research in natural resource management. These recommendations will help to prevent value-based distortions of science that can result in unsustainable uses and eventual extinctions of populations. We describe methods for communicating about values that avoid commingling factual claims and discuss approaches to communicating science that do not perpetuate the misconception that science alone can dictate policy without consideration of values. Our remedies can improve transparency in both expert and public debate about preserving and using natural resources, and thereby help prevent non-human population declines worldwide.

Quantifying the effects of delisting wolves after the first state began lethal management

“…Proponents for such point to the 1999 population goal for wolves of 350 individuals in late winter. We have shown that number is a value judgment by a few individuals not a scientifically sound target (Treves et al, 2021). Therefore, the adequacy of state regulatory mechanisms seems fragile, for reasons detailed in SM1 for those interested in policy background.…”

“…Proponents of wolf-killing argued that the state population goal of 350 wolves demands such swift reductions (Material S1), but evidence suggests that goal is a value judgment by a few individuals that was treated as if it were an output of a scientific model (Treves et al, 2021). Moreover, the model used suffers from scientific flaws, so its assumptions and predictions are dubious (Treves et al, 2021). Nevertheless, the goal was reaffirmed in February 2021 (Material S1).…”

Uncertainty and precaution in hunting wolves twice in a year

“…Second, little information is available about reproduction for our study period. Wolf reproduction data is generally difficult to collect and the state census method used tends to confound pack size with past reproduction [ 46 , 47 ]. Third, we could not be confident about the legal quota when we analyzed data in Fall 2021 nor does anyone know the eventual death toll.…”

“…Although the prior literature would seem to guide decision-makers in Wisconsin to choose a Fall 2021 wolfs-hunt quota that would not change the population, the wide variation in estimates above and the novelty of a second wolf-hunt in a single year produces new and greater uncertainties than the literature addresses. Also, in a series of papers on wolf science and policy in Wisconsin, we have shown how omissions of a history of methodological changes in censuses, censoring the information available in the disappearances of marked wolves, and a lack of alternative management scenarios altogether could both distort wolf policy and mire the science in uncertainties due to methods [ 23 , 33 , 37 – 46 ].…”

Guidelines to Facilitate Human-Wildlife Interactions in Conservation Translocations

“…Even when effects are positive, planners must inform stakeholders about potential benefits. Transparency and sharing of information can work towards establishing the project as a "trusted messenger" (Vance-Borland and Holley, 2011;Treves et al, 2021) and consequently allow the project to foster its network towards the conservation goals.…”