Fresh Wind & Green Grass

Any strangers whom I met at the airport or plane would raise their eyebrows when I said, “Oh - I go there to research human-wildlife conflict”. Their face would even become more peculiar when I said, “My background is in psychology”. Then in the dead air of their confusion, I would explain that conservationists need more understanding of human psychology because, at the end of the day, humans hold an important key to biodiversity protection. This is not a “human-centrist heroism” idea; it is just a fact that we are the most responsible towards nowadays most biodiversity problems.

A vast number of climate scientists (97%) have agreed that human actions are the cause of climate change. This is a “very nice” sentence because, in my opinion, an excessive rate of human population growth is the major cause - but we are too much trying to avoid saying this in the name of “human rights”. Almost 50% of the world's forests have been cut because of our population and need growth. Bill Gates once argued (to be noted that I do not always agree with his opinion) saving the environment requires improvement in health and welfare - also controlling birth. Evidence shows that the increase in education access and the marrying age of women will help reduce the rate of birth problems.

If we can pull the string of the facts in the previous paragraph, can we say that supporting women’s achievement can save species? I would say yes. I have research that shows the significant difference between women's and men’s attitudes toward wildlife, and it has a correlation with their experience with nature. In most developing countries, there are clear gender roles that put men as the “face” of the family, so they would attend most the community meetings and discussions, whereas women will be only waiting at home, cooking dinner. This kind of limited access of women to information will definitely shape their attitudes and also behavior. This is only one example of how understanding biodiversity changes is not enough to solve it. We need to understand humans, and saying to understand them, equals understanding how to measure their opinions and behavior.

If you’re reading this and you have a background in social science and often feel disconnected from environmental issues, I think you need to dig more. Lots of environmental problems overlap with human rights problems - say indigenous people’s right to access clean water and open space. Climate change warms the earth, and mosquitoes will be able to access areas that they were unable to access before, spreading the disease more easily and demanding more healthy behavior across the world. People in Alaska are losing their land due to abrasion, causing people to get more distressed (people in colder places tend to be more frustrated, now add this), affecting their mental health. Climate injustice raises the gap between the rich and the pauper, where the latter are more prone to climate change than the privileged one, worsening the poverty issue.

Now if you’re reading this and you have a background in biology and often feel that your program needs no social context and understanding, I would say that is awesome because that is a very rare case. The number one problem of conservation is habitat change, and that is unavoidable because humans need more space. I have another research that proves how living in a dense area could make you become more egoistic and less careful about the environment. In psychology, we have ‘attention fatigue’ term to explain that when there is too much distraction, people will be very selective on the things that they want to focus on. When there are other things that are prioritized by these people, how would you make conservation one of their priorities if you don’t understand how they think?

In a world full of rapid changes, I think conservation should be more and more multidisciplinary. Biologists need to invite more social scientists, and likewise, social scientists need to be more open to conservation projects. We are facing the sixth extinction, and working multidisciplinary might hold the key to saving even our own species. For a long time, business frameworks have adapted this approach and see how they have gained profit with this thinking. It is time for conservationists to adapt the for-profit framework in an effort to protect what we have been exploiting in the name of profit for humankind.

Just a key for anyone who is now inspired to work with a multidisciplinary research team:

lower your ego.