Conservation Research and Practice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives - 4 ECTS

The aim of the course is to introduce students to the broad ranges of approaches to the practice and policy of biodiversity conservation present in different chair groups across the university. While many of us are centrally concerned to research and support conservation, we do so from quite diverse perspectives, and currently there is very little dialogue or direct cooperation across the different silos. This course is intended to help bridge these divides by integrating perspectives from a wide variety of different disciplines in a coherent curriculum. Cross-fertilization of different lecturers but also students from different backgrounds and fields will provide the basis for a fruitful dialogue concerning similarities and differences among different approaches that students can use as a platform upon which to build their own research plans. The course will be organized around different disciplinary interventions concerning the same set of central questions:

1. What are the main objectives of conservation research and practice?
2. What main theoretical frameworks guide this research? How do these relate to objectives?
3. What research methods are employed? How do these relate to both objectives and theoretical frameworks?  

General information:

Dates:	6-12 May, 2026
Contact person content:	Robert Fletcher
Contact person logistics	Marcella Haan
Lecturers from:	BHE, DEC, FEM, FNP, GEO, SDC, WEC
Credits:	4 ECTS
Venue:	Wageningen Campus

Learning outcomes:

After successful completion, participants are expected to be able to:

• Conceptualize the overarching landscape of global conservation policy and practice
• Understand the similarities and differences among various approaches to biodiversity conservation across different research fields
• Describe the connections between different disciplinary perspectives and methods
• Apply specific concepts and methods to empirical case research

Assessment:

Daily short reflection essays (50%) applying the skills obtained

Sessions:

Session 1	6 May	09.00-12.00
Session 2	6 May	14.00-17.00
Session 3	7 May	09.00-12.00
Session 4	7 May	14.00-17.00
Session 5	8 May	09.00-12.00
Session 6	8 May	14.00-17.00
Session 7	11 May	09.00-12.00
Session 8	11 May	14.00-17.00
Session 9	12 May	09.00-12.00
Session 10	12 May	14.00-17.00

Course Schedule:

Session 1:  Course Introduction & Toward democratic conservation: People, preferences and principles

FEM (Douglas Sheil)

6 May; 9:00-12:00

Session 2:  Conservation conflicts between values, discourses and strategies

FNP (Georg Winkel)

6 May; 14:00-17:00;

Conservation efforts frequently involve diverse societal groups and policy actors, often involving competing interests, worldviews, and values, leading to conservation controversies. This lecture first introduces different theoretical perspectives on conservation conflicts. Next, we focus on the importance of paradigms and discourses in conservation policy and highlight the diversity of strategies employed in conservation policy controversies. Lastly, we will explore the importance of understanding individuals and how values, norms, and attitudes shape conservation conflicts and prospects for conflict mitigation.

Session 3:  Area-based conservation in the Anthropocene: a social-ecological approach

WEC (Arash Ghoddousi, Femke Brokhuis, Dominic Martin)

7 May; 9:00-12:00; 

Protected areas are the cornerstone of conservation efforts worldwide and there are calls for expanding their numbers and extent to 30% of the Earth’s surface. However, it is little known on the effectiveness of protected areas in delivering their intended outcomes. While many protected areas for example are known to reduce deforestation rate, their impacts on other threats such as illegal hunting are less documented. Moreover, the performance of protected areas in terms of their social outcomes is less studied. In this session, we will use a social-ecological lens to look into different outcomes of protected areas and how these social-, ecological and social-ecological interaction outcomes could be assessed. We then proceed with a Serious Game exercise, trying to better understand the complexities of conservation and development goals in shared landscapes.

Session 4:  tba

FNP (Bas Verschuuren, Jelle Behagel)

7 May; 14:00-17:00;

Session 5:  The value of planetary commons in terms of wilderness conservation

Cultural Geography Group (GEO) (Edward H. Huijbens)

8 May; 9:00-12:00;

This session will develop a critique on the ways in which tourism commodifies nature and turns conservation spaces and species into spectacles to be consumed. The research and approach to practices of conservation presented as alternative, outlines ways to apprehend and makes sense of places as part and parcel of planetary commons. Drawing on aesthetics and post-structural geographic thought, the session will illustrate its argument through the Arctic and Antarctic wilderness and apprehension of ice. The session will equip students to make sense of people’s place on a planetary scene of current conservation challenges.

Session 6: Guided group discussion

Multiple instructors

8 May; 9:00-12:00;

Saturday, 9 May: Field Excursion (Hoge Veluwe)

Session 7:  The role of animal behaviour in mitigating wildlife conservation challenges

BHE (Marc Naguib, Lysanne Snijders)

11 May; 9:00-12:00;

This session will highlight how insight into animal behaviour can facilitate a better understanding of anthropogenic impacts on wildlife, while also offering relevant short-term indicators to monitor threats and intervention tools to mitigate conservation challenges. We will highlight three themes: environmental change, reintroductions and human-wildlife impact.

Lecture 8:  Conservation politics and social justice

SDC (Esther Marijnen and Robert Fletcher)

11 May; 14:00-17:00;

This session highlights the importance of attention to political economy and social justice in conservation practice, as well as research. We start the session with situating mainstream conservation in a capitalist framework, and the critiques on this from a political economy perspective. We will also discuss the importance to analyse contemporary conservation interventions from a longer historical perspective, to interrogate the continuing impact of coloniality (and racism). We will approach these critiques from both a macro and micro perspective. We finish by discussing possible alternatives to capitalist and colonial conservation, and the role of us, as conservation researchers, in such endeavours.

Session 9: Community-based forest management and conservation

DEC (Erwin Bulte)

12 May; 9:00-12:00;

This session evaluates the scope for forest and biodiversity conservation by decentralizing resource management to local communities. We briefly discuss the theory supporting community-based forest management from an economics perspective, and evaluate the conservation and livelihoods implications of the Ethiopian policy shift away from centralized towards decentralized forest management.

Session 10:  Course Conclusion: Challenges and Opportunities for Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Multiple instructors

12 May; 14:00-17:00;

In this final session we will engage in a collective reflection on the different perspectives and approaches introduced in the course, in order to clarify the synergies and tensions among them, and hence both the challenges and opportunities of developing truly interdisciplinary research concerning conservation policy and practice.

Target group and min/max number of participants:

PhD students from a variety of different fields, Min: 10 students, Max: 25 students.

Course fee:

WGS PhDs with an approved TSP	300 euro
a) All other PhD candidates b) Postdocs and staff of the above mentioned Graduate Schools	640 euro
All others	900 euro

Cancellation conditions:

The participants can cancel their registration free of charge 1 month before the course starts. A cancellation fee of 100% applies if a participant cancels his/her registration less than 1 week prior to the start of the course.

The organisers have the right to cancel the course no later than one month before the planned course start date in the case that the number of registrations does not reach the minimum.

The participants will be notified of any changes at their e-mail addresses.