Values and Their Potential Role in Grizzly Bear Conservation

Wild Lands Advocate article, August 2012, by Courtney Hughes. Hughes is a PhD student at the University of Alberta studying the influence and impacts of the social landscape on grizzly bear conservation in Alberta. Here she explores the nature of the term “Values” and how that word has different meanings to different people. Understanding and accounting for this disparity, she argues, is important for the success of long-term conservation of grizzly bears.

“I suggest that differing conceptions of ‘values’ must be considered in wildlife management. We need to identify and understand the basic human values, the wildlife value orientations, and the more specific functional, economic and sociocultural values Albertans hold towards grizzly bears.”