Conservation scientists, policy makers and practitioners are grappling with how to conserve biodiversity in an era of rapid global change. Thus far, most responses to this challenge have taken an adaptation approach—improving the capacity of a system to withstand change/changing management actions, but seeking to maintain current objectives. In other words, doing things differently (adapting practice) with goal of keeping things (species, ecosystems) more or less the same. While the need for an alternative, approach has been evident for decades, only recently has transformation—actively facilitating the transition to new, no-analogue, social-ecological conditions—emerged as a potential approach within dominant conservation discourse.

Transformation in conservation remains controversial. At the heart of the matter is that it brings to the fore difficult trade-offs associated with diverse perspectives about fundamental questions including why biodiversity is important, what the goals of conservation ought to be, how it should be done, and by whom.

The SES group has been studying the evolution (and sometimes entrenchment) of these ideas and their implications for different social groups, species and ecosystems, for over a decade. Our approach is rooted in the perspective that the core of this challenge is not (solely) ecological, rather its contours are value-based and governance driven.

Photo: Sarah Dickson-Hoyle

Current projects:

Novel Environmental Interventions in the Anthropocene (2017-2021) | SSHRC Insight Grant. Principal Investigator. Collaborators: Terre Satterfield, Robert Kozak, Robin Gregory, Stephen Garnett, Kerstin Zander

Assessing Climate Adaptation in Applied Conservation – 10-year Evaluation (2019-2021). Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Wildlife Conservation Society | Principal Investigator. Collaborators: Lauren Oakes, Molly Cross, Guillaume Peterson St-Laurent.

Key outputs:

Peterson St-Laurent, Oakes, L., Cross, M. and Hagerman, S. R–R–T (resistance–resilience–transformation) typology reveals differential conservation approaches across ecosystems and time. 2020. Nature Communications Biology.

Garnett, S., Zander, K., Hagerman S., Satterfield, T. and J. Meyerhoff. 2017.
Social preferences for adaptation measures to conserve Australian birds threatened by climate change.
Oryx. 52: 325-335.

Hagerman, S. 2016. Governing adaptation across scales: Hotspots and hesitancy in Pacific Northwest forests. Land Use Policy 52: 306-315.

Hagerman, S., and T. Satterfield. 2014. Agreed, but not preferred: Expert views on taboo options for biodiversity conservation given climate change. Ecological Applications. 24: 548-559.

Hagerman, S., and T. Satterfield. 2013. Entangled judgments: Expert preferences for adapting biodiversity conservation to climate change. Journal of Environmental Management. 129: 555-563.

Hagerman, S. Dowlatabadi, H., Satterfield, T. and T. McDaniels. 2010. Expert views on biodiversity conservation in an era of climate change. Global Environmental Change. 20: 192-207.

Hagerman, S., Dowlatabadi, H., Chan, K.M.A. and T. Satterfield. 2010. Integrative propositions for adapting conservation policy to the impacts of climate change. Global Environmental Change. 20: 351-362.