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Ghettoization in Conservation Biology: How Interdisciplinary Is Our Teaching?

Conservation biology is a “crisis discipline” that developed in direct response to the loss of biological diversity with the specific objective of ameliorating that loss (Soulé 1985). Success in this field must be measured not simply by the quality or quantity of scientific work produced, but also by the degree to which it meets the objective of conserving diversity (Orr 1994 a ; Whitten et al. 2001). Solutions to many environmental problems are fundamentally linked to social, political, and economic forces. Thus, advocacy, communication, and connections to other disciplines are central to conservation biology and should be linked fundamentally to its scientific mission (Cannon et al. 1996). Conservation biologists need the skills to meet the mission-oriented demands of this field. They must be trained as scientists who can work within the context of social changes in economics, politics, and demographics and should be attentive to community concerns (Whitten et al. 2001). The skills required to do this include the ability to think critically, communicate orally and in writing, participate in group decision-making, advocate for conservation, translate science to the lay public, and work within political, social, economic, and cultural contexts (Cannon et al. 1996; Brewer 2001). Brewer (2001) urges us to teach conservation biology as a “metadiscipline” that integrates social sciences, humanities, and law to help our students learn to make defensible, scientific judgments that can contribute to social decisions. We call this way of teaching interdisciplinary. Simply collecting more data will not solve environmental problems. To guide the social, economic, and political change required to prevent extinction and habitat loss, conservation biologists must integrate knowledge from different disciplines and make their results accessible to decision-makers (Brewer 2001). How wide is the gap between what we argue are essential elements of training for conservation biologists and the availability of such training at the undergraduate level? We determined whether the treatment of conservation biology in existing textbooks and courses is interdisciplinary and whether it provides the mission-oriented skills outlined above. We also examined the degree to which social concerns are integrated throughout the courses and course books versus the degree to which these concerns are “added on” or “ghettoized,” meaning that important themes are restricted to a few lectures or chapters rather than being integrated throughout a course (Hall 1988; Stone 1996; Hall 2000).