Chapter 10 - Looking Ahead: New Perspectives and Best Practices Related to Wildlife Corridors

Summary

This chapter brings together the concepts, philosophies, and case examples throughout the book to consider a working set of best practices and new theoretical directions for wildlife corridor and connectivity projects. As we consider the theories and illustrative examples that this book has outlined, it is clear that connectivity projects are highly context-dependent in terms of the landscapes, communities, and stakeholders involved. Even so, as I hope the explorations in this book have shown, it is possible to identify a productive path forward for corridor projects—namely, one that privileges coexistence and engages more directly with theories and practices that involve compassionate conservation, empathy, and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK).

In the Introduction, I acknowledged that wildlife corridors can be defined in different ways depending on the context, may occur naturally or be human-made, and can happen at different levels of scale. On the whole, wildlife corridors “provide continuous habitat for species to move on their own, [and] are a reasonable and effective means for ensuring connectivity in the landscape.” I acknowledged that this book does not necessarily advocate for perfect, tidy corridor projects; rather, by being mindful of approaches informed by compassionate conservation, empathy, and TEK, we can conceptualize and implement corridor projects that engage more holistically with landscapes, wildlife, and people and better foster coexistence and connectivity.

An approach informed by compassionate conservation understands that the lives of all beings, human and nonhuman, matter in decisions about wildlife conservation and policy; moreover, when it comes to humans making decisions about the lives of nonhuman animals, a compassionate conservation approach would advocate for an approach to corridors that values all nonhuman animals—not just more well-known megafauna or keystone species; finally, it advocates that, whenever feasible, corridor and conservation projects employ solutions that proceed with as minimal disturbance to the natural landscape as possible. Ideas about empathy and TEK are implicitly aligned with such an approach and understand living beings, including humans, as needing to coexist with one another and with their environment. Entangled empathy similarly focuses on another's experiential well-being in the world and tends to be action-oriented and interested in what seems to be the best, or most compassionate choice, in helping to pursue or participate in another's well-being.