The SWCS view

Excerpt

BETTER teamwork among professional conservationists is requisite to sustainable natural resource use. But how open are we to the views of those who are not members of our professional fraternities?

As professionals, most of us received rigorous training in college. We were schooled in the analytical methods of our discipline and the fine points of professional behavior. We left this academic world with the impression or conviction that answers to technical questions within our field of expertise are discovered mainly through the application of our analytical methods. For confirmation of truth we now turn to our professional peers. The public—citizens who are affected by our results—has no particular role in this process.

While this system seems to work in the area of research, indications are that it does not work as well in the area of resource management. Take, for example, some of the problems confronting farmers in the 1970s and 1980s. During the 1970s, farmers were counselled by economists and extensionists to expand their operations to increase profitability through economies of scale. For a time, farmland responded much like production-line equipment, yielding more profit per unit of input. “Bigger is better” was …