Cautioning against the overemphasis of normative constructs in conservation decision making.

Questions around how we should conserve nature and rectify our global impacts are increasingly leading to dissonance and confusion in conservation planning and action. In part, this may be due to the rapid and far-reaching changes taking place that together can overwhelm policy makers, conservation practitioners, and the public. While science can assist in unravelling the nature of these changes, conservation decisions rely heavily on social norms, expressed in the form of normative constructs such as tragedy and invasive, to order actions and garner a clear conservation mandate. Shaped by values, normative constructs are vital in the decision-making process as they aid in the interpretation of science and motivate practitioners. The challenge, however, is to be cognizant of the roles of norms and ethical theories in decision-making; overemphasis of normative constructs may also obfuscate ethical theories and prevent rigorous analysis and logical argument. To explore this, we utilized the ethics-based tool of argument analysis to assess the justifications for a controversial conservation intervention, the Pelorus Island Goat Control Program. We examine the composition of key arguments to show how overreliance on normative constructs can obscure scientific integrity and lead to fundamental flaws in logic. This case demonstrates how the same constructs that drive biodiversity conservation can also drive poor decision-making, spur public backlash, and justify harm over care. We provide a toolkit that clarifies the role of values, norms and ethics in conservation decision-making. The toolkit includes checkpoints for evaluating rigor of decision-making and recommendations on key decision-making attributes to help caution against the power of normative constructs and improve the success of conservation objectives in the 21st century. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.