Geography of conservation spending, biodiversity, and culture

T.R. McClanahan, P.S. Rankin

We examined the associations between geography, biodiversity, national spending on conservation, governance and cultural traits. Cultural traits and social metrics of modernization correlate positively with national spending on conservation. Further, we show the global distribution of this spending culture is poorly aligned with the distribution of biodiversity. Specifically, biodiversity increases towards the tropics where cultures tend to spend less on conservation, and have higher collectivism, formalized and hierarchical leadership, and weaker governance. Consequently, nations lacking social traits frequently associated with modernization, environmentalism, and conservation spending have the largest component of the Earth's biodiversity. This has significant implications for setting policies and priorities for resource management given that biological diversity is rapidly disappearing and cultural traits change slowly. Therefore, we suggest that natural resource management adapt to and utilize characteristics of existing social organization rather than wait for or promote social values associated with conservation spending. Supporting bio-cultural traditions, engaging leaders to increase conservation commitments, cross-national efforts that complement attributes of cultures, and avoiding interference with nature may work best to conserve nature in collective and hierarchical societies. Spending in modernized nations may be a symbolic response to a symptom of economic development and environmental degradation, and must therefore, be accountable for conservation impact. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.