Conservation Science and Practice

We agree with Laurance et al. (2012) that conservation can gain when scientists and practitioners share perspectives. We suggest, however, that they already do. Individuals move between research and practitioner organisations, including parks agencies and NGOs. Members of practitioner organisations publish science in top-tier research journals. Members of research organisations also act as practitioners, through advisory boards, government submissions, public media, and paid or free consultancies. We suggest, however, that the roles of science and practice nonetheless remain distinct. There are differences of degree, between basic and applied science; and differences in method, between formal hypothesis testing and informal accumulation of expertise. Conservation practitioners rely routinely on bodies of knowledge in both natural and social sciences. These, however, are not conservation science specifically: they are much broader fields, such as biology, economics, politics and psychology. We suggest that these fields grow faster, more reliably and more evenly, if their research priorities are set by the underlying structure of science, rather than its immediate conservation applications. Scientists also study conservation practice, including cross-disciplinary aspects, and we agree that this is