What Role Does Knowledge of Wildlife Play in Providing Support for Species' Conservation?
Abstract
Conservation of biodiversity is a complex issue. Apart from the creation of nature reserves, there is a plethora of other factors that are part of this complex web. One such factor is the public knowledge of species. Since public funding is imperative for the conservation of species and creation of reserves for them it is important to determine the public's awareness of species and their knowledge about them. In the absence of such awareness and knowledge, it is possible that the public may misallocate their support. In other words, resources may be provided for species that do not need support urgently. We show how availability of balanced information about species helps the public to make rational decisions and to allocate support (e.g. monetary) to species that need it most. Other implications of a 'wildlife knowledgeable' public are also discussed.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/jssp.2005.47.51
Copyright: © 2005 Clevo Wilson and Clem Tisdell. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Keywords
- biodiversity
- conservation
- Australia's tropical wild life
- public knowledge
- balanced information