Mixed-methods research in medical education: Lessons from a meta-study of methodological practice.

In the field of conservation, generally defined as the protection, preservation, sustainable management, or restoration of natural environments and the ecological communities that inhabit them (), the embedded legacies of oppressive practices and paradigms are increasingly acknowledged. The “Yellowstone Model” (also known as “fortress conservation”) was first developed in North America over a century ago, and expanded to colonial Africa, Australia, Latin America, and Asia as a paradigm for protected area creation and governance. It has been critiqued for driving the dispossession of Indigenous peoples (IP) from their ancestral homelands, interrupting important socio-ecological relationships, and perpetuating problematic narratives of “wild” nature separated from humanity (, ). The paradigm was frequently employed in the service of colonial projects (, ), and often carried out through land seizure, assertion of federal control, and creation of recreational spaces for upper class white settlers (). Proponents often explicitly embraced notions of a “natural” racial hierarchy and linked conservation to this worldview (, ). Likewise, foundational paradigms for state-sponsored and commercial environmental management (by which we mean governance and management of terrestrial or aquatic ecosystems for specific objectives such as timber, wildlife, fisheries, or water supply provisioning) have been criticized for attempting to radically simplify complex ecosystems and, like fortress conservation, for legitimating the exclusion of people and their longstanding ties to place (). These models became internationally dominant archetypes of conservation and environmental management, which today are frequently coupled endeavors. Many scholars, governments, and nongovernmental organizations involved in conservation and environmental management today share concerns about past injustices and the loss of nature’s benefits for Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC) and are actively reshaping current thought and practice. Several thoughtfully conceived community-based and human rights-based approaches give greater salience, respect, and agency to IPLC. Yet, their implementation in policy and practice is highly uneven geographically and institutionally, and some efforts have proven too incremental, partial, or superficial to safeguard both environmental and human well-being (, ). Outcomes are often undermined by overt and latent power dynamics that were inadequately addressed (). As a result, many conservation interventions still regularly reify rather than redress the legacies of mindsets and practices that result in social injustices—often with questionable benefits for biodiversity (–). There remains a pressing need to facilitate the proactive detection of shortcomings and articulate a positive vision for what conservation and environmental management grounded in an ethic of justice might look like. Toward this endeavor, we present a diagnosis of the problem based on four intersecting dimensions of oppression: 1) the physical or material manifestations of interventions; 2) the knowledge practices and assumptions that inform and underpin decision-making; 3) the modes of governance associated with conservation and environmental practice; and 4) the forms of relational praxis implicitly and explicitly endorsed and/or imposed in environmental management. These dimensions form a framework for both assessing current practices and planning anti-oppressive conservation. The framework was developed through extended conversations among a multidisciplinary group affiliated with the Center for Integrative Conservation Research at the University of Georgia, with diverse identities (settler and Indigenous, global North and South) and experiences as conservation and environmental researchers and practitioners. We draw predominantly from political ecology and Indigenous scholarship, while recognizing that diverse scholarly fields—from ecofeminism to queer and trans ecology and ecological economics—can also highlight relevant dynamics (–). In discussing the dimensions of oppression as recurring patterns, we make some generalizations about groups aligned with Western conservation traditions that wield authority, and about marginalized groups that experience oppression. However, we respectfully acknowledge the diversity and uniqueness of the peoples, places, and philosophical traditions that are subjected to these dimensions, and the varying degrees to which different conservation actors may embody, perpetuate, or counteract them. While we highlight Indigenous experiences, our framework has broad applicability wherever environmental management affects populations with intimate ties to place.