Digital technology and the conservation of nature.
Digital technology is changing nature conservation in increasingly profound ways. We describe this impact and its significance through the concept of 'digital conservation', which we found to comprise five pivotal dimensions: data on nature, data on people, data integration and analysis, communication and experience, and participatory governance. Examining digital innovation in nature conservation and addressing how its development, implementation and diffusion may be steered, we warn against hypes, techno-fix thinking, good news narratives and unverified assumptions. We identify a need for rigorous evaluation, more comprehensive consideration of social exclusion, frameworks for regulation and increased multi-sector as well as multi-discipline awareness and cooperation. Along the way, digital technology may best be reconceptualised by conservationists from something that is either good or bad, to a dual-faced force in need of guidance.
Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 3, 6700 AA, Wageningen, the Netherlands. koen.arts@wur.nl.|Centro de Pesquisa do Pantanal, Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso, Cuiabá, CEP: 78.068-360, Brazil. koen.arts@wur.nl.
Koen
K
Arts
Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability (ACES), School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB24 3UU, UK.
René
R
van der Wal
Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge, CB2 3EN, UK.
William M
WM
Adams
D003142:Communication; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D033181:Information Dissemination; D020407:Internet; D013672:Technology
Biodiversity; Digital conservation; Information and Communication Technology (ICT); Innovation; Nature conservation; The Information Age