Social preferences for adaptation measures to
conserve Australian birds threatened by
climate change
STEPHEN T. GARNETT,KERSTIN K. ZANDER,SHANNON HAGERMAN
TERRE A. SATTERFIELD and J ÜRGEN MEYERHOFF
Abstract Debate about climate change adaptation for bio-
diversity, and the ethics and consequences of assisted colon-
ization in particular, has polarized professional opinion but
the views of the wider community are unknown. We tested
four hypotheses about the acceptability of adaptation strat-
egies among a sample of the Australian general public using
a combination of direct questions and a choice experiment.
We found that () among the % who wanted extinction
avoided, increased in situ management of wild populations
was preferred to captive breeding or assisted colonization,
() preferences for adaptation strategies were not explained
by gender, income, education or knowledge about birds, ()
genetically distinctive taxa were not actively preferred, ()
.% of respondents were content for conservation man-
agers to make decisions about strategies rather than local
communities or the general public. The results provide
Australian policy makers with a mandate to bolster efforts
to retain existing populations but suggest that assisted col-
onization and captive breeding could be accepted if
essential.
Keywords Assisted colonization, biodiversity, captive
breeding, choice experiment, climate change, threatened
species
The supplementary material for this article can be found at
https://doi.org/./S
Introduction
Many potential approaches to helping biodiversity
adapt to climate change are controversial (Tam &
McDaniels, ), with solutions as much values-based as
technical (Hewitt et al., ) and with pros and cons evident
in all options. Assisted colonization (also called assisted mi-
gration; Hewitt et al., ), in which climate-challenged
taxa are moved to places where the climate is predicted to
be more suitable, may also provide opportunities for inva-
sive species (Ricciardi & Simberloff, ). Adaptive intro-
gression, where new genes that could aid adaptation are
introduced to climate-affected populations (Hamilton &
Miller, ), can compromise species integrity (Gómez
et al., ). Captive breeding will inevitably cause loss of
genetic variability (Araki et al., ) even if current cap-
acity constraints (Alroy, ) can be overcome. Less intru-
sive approaches, such as intensified in-situ management of
sensitive species, are potentially only short-term invest-
ments given the inevitability of climate change (West
et al., ). Landscape corridors can aid the spread of in-
vasive species (Resasco et al., ).
This uncertainty about outcomes means policy makers
have little clear direction regarding how best to allocate
adaptation investment, or whether to invest at all. This is be-
cause it is unclear which, if any, potential adaptation action
has the strongest social licence to proceed (Klenk & Larson,
). As is evident from the broader climate change debate,
technical disagreements potentially create space for oppo-
nents of potential adaptation actions to delay changes by in-
creasing political risk (Ceccarelli, ). Thus, actions
lacking a social licence are unlikely to receive either author-
ization from the State or the public funding that will in most
cases be required to put them into effect (Burbidge et al.,
). Social responses to climate change adaptation are
both culturally contingent and malleable (Adger et al.,
); nonetheless, establishing the strength of public opin-
ion before any actions are decided can both inform policy
and enhance political confidence in the face of potential
opposition.
Some studies have gauged the opinion of conservation
scientists on climate change adaptation (Hagerman et al.,
; Hagerman & Satterfield, ; Hancock & Gallagher,
). Scientific knowledge is certainly essential to
understanding the technical feasibility of management.
However, in a democracy, the opinions of scientists about
public policy have no more legitimacy than those of lay
members of the public. There are many examples of envir-
onmental legislation that protects even obscure species,
STEPHEN T. GARNETT Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods,
Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Australia
KERSTIN K. ZANDER (Corresponding author) Northern Institute, Charles Darwin
University, Darwin, Australia. E-mail kerstin.zander@cdu.edu.au
SHANNON HAGERMAN Department of Forest Resources Management, University
of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
TERRE A. SATTERFIELD Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability,
University of British Columbia, Prince George, Canada
JÜRGEN MEYERHOFF Institute of Landscape Architecture and Environmental
Planning, Technische Univerität Berlin, Germany
Received May . Revision requested August .
Accepted September . First published online January .
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about which the public has little knowledge, including some
with substantial economic, social and political conse-
quences. Thus, policy makers need to understand public
opinion even where there is likely to be little understanding
of the positions held by conservation scientists or of the
technical matters relating to those positions.
Our main aim is to ascertain the current level of accept-
ance by the Australian public of proposed conservation ac-
tions that would help birds adapt to climate change. These
are based on realistic scenarios and associated actions that
emerged from an analysis of the effects of climate on all
Australian birds, which showed that for c. bird taxa
the climate where they currently live will be quite different
in years (Garnett et al., ). The proposed conservation
management actions were increased in situ conservation,
assisted colonization and the establishment of captive
populations (e.g. in zoos). Experts favour greater investment
in reducing threats in situ over assisted colonization
(Hancock & Gallagher, ), but no survey had been con-
ducted among the general public in Australia or elsewhere
to investigate whether they knew or cared about proposed
actions at this stage in the debate.
Also, because choices about which birds to conserve are
likely to be compounded by the attractiveness of the taxa
concerned, we tried to choose birds with a relatively low
public profile. We also chose a mixture of species and sub-
species with various levels of taxonomic distinctiveness (i.e.
the level of genetic relatedness to other bird taxa). Although
taxonomic distinctiveness was first suggested as the basis for
prioritizing the conservation of threatened birds . years
ago (Faith, ,; Garnett, ; Weitzman, ) and
has been used to choose between species for investment in
New Zealand (Joseph et al., ), no distinction is made in
legislation designed to conserve species in any nation exam-
ined (Garnett & Christidis, ). Also, there is no informa-
tion on whether taxonomic distinctiveness is understood or
used by the public in choosing among taxa to conserve.
We therefore endeavoured to understand the current
preferences of the Australian public in three states where ac-
tions that could help species adapt to climate change may
occur, with the objective of informing policy makers
about which could be socially acceptable.
Methods
Case study birds and survey instrument
To test preferences for management actions we conducted a
questionnaire survey of , members of the Australian
public living within the ranges of four bird taxa. Previous
modelling (Garnett et al., ) has suggested that much
of their habitat will be climatically unsuitable for these
birds by (Fig. ).
The first section of the questionnaire described the four
case study birds and potential adaptation strategies for se-
curing their future (Supplementary Material ). The bird
taxa were the rufous scrub-bird Atrichornis rufescens, one
of only two members of an ancient Australian passerine
bird family, the Atrichornithidae; the scrubtit Acanthornis
magna, one of two endemic monotypic Tasmanian species
but a member of a widespread family, the Acanthizidae; and
two subspecies of another member of the Acanthizidae,
the relatively common and widespread brown thornbill
Acanthiza pusilla, one from mainland Australia (A. pusilla
pusilla) and one from Tasmania (A. pusilla tasmanicus). By
areas in Tasmania will potentially have suitable climat-
ic characteristics for the scrub-bird and mainland subspe-
cies of thornbill, similar to where they currently occur,
and to which they could be moved. The scrub-bird has no
close relatives in Tasmania. The mainland subspecies of
brown thornbill would probably interbreed with individuals
of the Tasmanian subspecies, meaning neither population
would be the pure form. The scrubtit and the Tasmanian
thornbill subspecies have no prospective climate space in
Australia but adaptation options offered for all four taxa in-
cluded both intensive management within their current
range to help birds cope with climate change, and keeping
populations in zoos indefinitely. The status quo was to do
nothing, with the most likely consequence being eventual
extinction.
The background information was written in a way that
would avoid bias. For example, because we aimed to estab-
lish general principles for conservation preferences, rather
than specific advice on the case study birds, we described
the four taxa in bland descriptive language to reduce the
chances of charisma bias (Brambilla et al., ), providing
enough information for respondents to understand the like-
ly consequences of climate change but with no attempt to
emphasize their conservation merit. Thus we noted only
that two of the bird taxa were subspecies of the same species,
even though the scub-bird and scrubtit are more distinct
than the two thornbill subspecies. We felt that such differ-
ences could influence the preferences of respondents with
existing knowledge but that we could not have provided
that knowledge as part of the questionnaire without imply-
ing higher levels of distinctiveness had greater value.
To understand which, if any, management actions are
preferred as a means of assisting species to cope with climate
change we reviewed those recommended by Garnett et al.
() and chose the following: () increased in situ support
for wild populations in their current locations (‘in situ’de-
scribed as helping a species stay where it is), () assisted col-
onization (‘assisted colonization’described as moving a
taxon to Tasmania), and () the establishment of captive po-
pulations (‘captivity’described as keeping in a zoo).
Respondents were asked to choose their most preferred
management option out of three options in a choice set
326 Stephen T. Garnett et al.
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(see below). In this way they considered the importance to
them of both the bird type they wanted to see conserved and
the action they thought should be pursued. The acceptabil-
ity of other adaptation options, such as the creation of habi-
tat corridors, could not be tested because Tasmania is
separated from the mainland by a substantial water body.
This also prevented testing acceptability of natural climate
refugees (Lundhede et al., ), as none of the case study
taxa naturally cross marine barriers. Accounts of the alter-
native adaptation actions were described in plain language
that tried to avoid potentially value-laden words or phrases,
again to avoid bias as much as possible. We assumed all ap-
proaches were technically feasible and that the costs would
be met from government tax revenue, which is usually the
case for conservation in Australia, rather than from direct
personal donations.
Design of the choice experiment
In an online survey, respondents were presented with a
choice experiment, which systematically manipulates a set
of attributes within each choice; such choice or preference
elicitations are widely used to reveal preferences through re-
quested trade-offs that may not be evident from more direct
questions (Hensher et al., ). This means that, on the
basis of a combination of prior knowledge and the infor-
mation provided in the questionnaire, respondents choose
between options that involve trade-offs among a mix of de-
sirable and undesirable outcomes. The strength of feelings
about the different options is then revealed through analysis
of responses to a series of choice sets, in each of which the
costs and outcomes of attributes are varied. In this case re-
spondents were asked to choose the conservation option in
which they think the Australian Government should invest.
Each option involved a set of hypothetical conservation ac-
tions, one of which was the status quo, in which birds would
be left to cope with climate change without external assist-
ance. The remaining two offered alternative trade-offs be-
tween birds and management actions (Fig. ).
We used a Bayesian approach for the experimental de-
sign underlying the choice experiment. Each bird taxon re-
presented an attribute that could take two or three levels in
addition to the status quo option ‘Leave it to cope’. The le-
vels were ‘Help it stay where it is’and ‘Keep it in a zoo’for all
taxa. The management action ‘Move it to Tasmania’was
FIG. 1 Characteristics of four Australian bird taxa likely to be affected deleteriously by climate change, their current distributions in
comparison to modelled habitat suitability in and , and the options available for climate change adaptation. The projected
climate space in comprises areas with a climate resembling that currently occupied by the taxon (Garnett et al., ).
Conserving Australian birds 327
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possible for the two mainland taxa. To allocate attribute le-
vels to alternative choice sets a Bayesian d-efficient design
was optimized for a conditional logit model (Rose &
Bliemer, ) in a two-step procedure. Firstly, we created
a design using uniform priors for which the interval bound-
aries were taken from previous studies. This design was used
for the first respondents. Secondly, after obtaining the
data, conditional logit models were estimated and the results
used to update the design. This updated design was then
used for the remaining respondents. In both phases each re-
spondent was presented with four choice sets presented in a
randomized order.
We deliberately avoided asking respondents to make a
private monetary contribution to bird conservation, as is
usually done in environmental valuation when the aim is
to quantify the values of non-market or public goods
(Adamowicz et al., ). In such studies the cost is one of
the attributes to be traded off, meaning the marginal willing-
ness-to-pay can be calculated for each of the attributes (here
birds). In this case we had no interest in the willingness-to-
pay for each attribute but were interested in the trade-off be-
tween attributes regardless of cost. Also, the most realistic
scenario is one in which the Australian Government
would invest tax revenue in the conservation of the birds,
rather than individuals paying. An experimental design
without a cost attribute was consistent with our aim to reveal
people’s acceptance of conservation actions for the various
bird taxa rather than their willingness-to-pay for these ac-
tions. Adding a cost attribute would probably have shifted
the choice behaviour away from people’s ethical and emo-
tional reactions to proposed conservation actions towards
considerations of cost (Carlsson et al., ; Pedersen
et al., ).
The choice experiment was followed by questions about
the respondents’demographic background, their attitudes
towards and knowledge about birds and their understand-
ing of climate change and its causes (Supplementary
Material ). A four-point rating scale was used where appro-
priate but avoided the use of ‘no opinion’, to eliminate social
acceptability bias (Garland, ) and force deeper psycho-
logical engagement with the question (Smyth et al., ).
Sampling and data
Data were collected through a commissioned online survey
during September–October . The study was approved
by the Charles Darwin University Human Research Ethics
Committee (H). The sample was recruited from an on-
line panel recruited by MyOpinions PermissionCorp.
MyOpinions has an active panel of c. , verified
respondents and has developed, and continues to maintain,
an actively managed panel that adheres to a strict research-
only policy governed by industry bodies such as the
FIG. 2 Example of a choice set and accompanying text as presented to respondents in an online survey.
328 Stephen T. Garnett et al.
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European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research, the
Australian Market & Social Research Society and the
Association of Market and Social Research Organisations.
MyOpinions is also accredited to ISO and
ISO professional standards and guidelines.
Approximately half of the panel has been recruited from off-
line sources. MyOpinions offered an incentive of AUD for
completion of the survey.
A random sample of adults (. years) was drawn from
the panel in three Australian states (Tasmania, Victoria,
Queensland), aligning with the distribution of the focal spe-
cies. A total of , people were sampled and invited to take
the survey. When invited, panel members did not know the
topic of the survey. We received , responses (response
rate: .%), of which (.%) were incomplete. In
total there were , completions.
Econometric approach
For the analysis we used a random utility model (McFadden,
) as point of departure. Assuming that the researcher
does not possess complete information regarding individual
decision maker n, individual preferences are the sum of a
systematic (V) and a random (ε) component:
Uni =Vni xni
b
+1ni (1)
where U
ni
is the true but unobservable utility associated with
alternative iout of a set of available alternatives j, V
ni
is the
deterministic part that is a function of the attributes (x
ni
), β
is a vector of coefficients reflecting the desirability of the at-
tributes, and ε
ni
is unknown and treated as random.
Selection of one alternative over another implies that the
utility (U
ni
) of that alternative is greater than the utility of
the other alternatives:
Pi()=Prob Vi+1i.Vj+1j
∀j[C,j=i(2)
Assuming that the error components are distributed in-
dependently and identically following a type extreme value
distribution, one gets the conditional logit. In this model the
probability of individual nchoosing alternative iis
Pni =exp(
m
Vni)
j[C
exp(
m
′Vnj)(3)
The scale parameter μis normalized to as it cannot be
identified separately from the vector of parameters in a sin-
gle data set. One of the shortcomings of the conditional logit
is that it erroneously assumes that all respondents have
identical preferences. Thus, we additionally used a latent
class approach to identify a number of a priori unknown
subgroups that may exist in a population (Swait, );
each of the subgroups is characterized by a distinct prefer-
ence structure. Every individual is assumed to belong
probabilistically to one of the subgroups. The probability
of a respondent choosing alternative i, conditional on be-
longing to a given segment s, in the latent class framework is
P(ni|s)=exp(
b
sXin)
J
j=1exp(
b
sXjn)(4)
Application of the latent class model requires external
determination of the number of classes separate from the
maximization procedure. Thus, we sequentially estimated
models with an increasing number of segments S(S=,,
,...). We used the Bayesian information criteria to select
the number of classes (Greene & Hensher, ). All models
were estimated using Latent Gold Choice .(Vermunt &
Magidson, ).
We conducted likelihood-ratio tests to investigate the
relative impact of attributes (Lancsar et al., ), as the
parameter values cannot be interpreted directly in non-lin-
ear models and are confounded with scale. For the latent
class model we ran this test separately for each class
(Supplementary Material ).
Results
The most parsimonious classification of respondent pre-
ferences for either actions or bird taxa identified three
classes using latent class analysis of the choice modelling re-
sults (Table ). These were characterized as ‘Wild preferred’
for people who consistently favoured the option of helping
species remain where they currently occur over other op-
tions, ‘No extinction’for people who demonstrated little
preference for any action provided taxa did not go extinct,
and ‘Status quo’for people who were most likely to agree
that taxa be left to cope with climate change without inter-
vention of conservation managers. Although classes were
statistically indistinguishable in terms of income (AUD
, per annum), education (% had completed second-
ary school), gender, and knowledge of birds, respondents in
the ‘Status quo’class (%) were older, and less likely to at-
tribute human agency in climate change or to agree that de-
cisions about adaptation should be made by experts. They
were also less likely to enjoy seeing new birds and more
likely not to take any notice of them. Two thirds of this
class chose the status quo in all four of the choice sets
they were offered and the remainder chose it twice (%)
or three times (%). Reasons for a lack of support for adap-
tation support were split relatively evenly among a belief
that climate will have no effect (%), meaning that no
adaptation investment would be needed, disapproval of
conservation investment generally (%), feeling that they
did not know enough (%), and a belief that money
would not be spent appropriately (%). The other two
classes differed only in their attitude to the adaptation ac-
tions proposed, with one class (% of respondents)
Conserving Australian birds 329
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favouring protection in the wild (‘Wild preferred’) more
strongly than the other (%; ‘No extinction’).
Although the basis of the latent class analysis was to dis-
cover which classes supported conservation, particularly of
wild birds, preferences were not immediately evident from
direct questions about which actions they found acceptable.
More than % of respondents in all classes agreed or
strongly agreed that all three options (retention in the
wild, assisted colonization, and captivity) were acceptable
(Fig. ). However, .% of respondents varied in the extent
of their preferences for a conservation approach (Fig. b),
with the ‘Status quo’respondents less likely to express a
preference than the others (breadth of preferences measured
as standard deviation across four values for three variables;
χ
=.,P,.). We calculated the difference between
proportion of people listing one of the three options as less
acceptable than the other two and the proportion listing the
same option as more acceptable than the others, and found
the contrast was markedly in favour of investment in the
wild and against the other options (Fig. b).
Although ‘Status quo’respondents were less likely to
consider expenditure on any of the birds acceptable
(Fig. ), .% of all respondents assigned the same level
of importance for all bird taxa (Fig. a) and the preferences
of the % who favoured one taxon above the others almost
cancelled out the preferences of the % who gave a lower im-
portance to one taxon than all the others (Fig. a). However,
the choice model analysis revealed that respondents in the
‘Wild preferred’class also favoured assisted colonization
of the rufous scrub-bird should the climate change.
Respondents from Tasmania (n = ), the place to
which scrub-birds or mainland brown thornbills would be
moved if required, were as likely to be in any of the classes
as people from the mainland states (Supplementary
Material , Fig. S). More Tasmanian respondents preferred
decision making by local communities (% compared to
% on the mainland) than by the general public (%vs
%) but the same proportion (%) of Tasmanian respon-
dents and those on the mainland believed conservation
managers should make the decision (Supplementary
Material , Fig. S).
Discussion
Four points emerge from our data. Firstly, there was a
high level of desire to avoid extinctions across all respon-
dents (%). This proportion is comparable to Europe
and the USA: in Europe % of respondents thought
that the decline and loss of animal and plant species
was ‘very serious’(%) or ‘fairly serious’(%;
European Union, ); in the USA a mean of %ofre-
spondents (range –%) worried ‘a great deal’or ‘afair
amount’about the extinction of plant and animal species
in annual surveys conducted during – (Jones &
Saad, ). That our figure (%) is higher than the %
of Australians willing to pay into a fund to prevent the
extinction of threatened species (Zander et al., )
was expected, as it was assumed that the government
would allocate taxes rather than payments coming direct-
ly from the respondents, which is the situation with most
threatened species conservation in Australia. It follows
that there remains strong support for legislation and pol-
icy that prevents the extinction of species, despite the
simultaneous promulgation of legislation and policies
that undermine democratic principles by permitting de-
velopments that lead to extinction (Ellis, ).
Secondly, nearly % of respondents expressed a strong
preference for maintaining species where they currently
occur in the wild. However, these respondents did not
rule out moving taxa, such as the rufous scrub-bird, should
that prove to be essential. Most respondents were relatively
comfortable with options such as assisted colonization or re-
taining species in a zoo in perpetuity, which many scientists
have until recently considered taboo (Hagerman &
Satterfield, ), even if these were not actively favoured.
This is in contrast to the findings of Hancock & Gallagher
() for a sample of Australian conservation profes-
sionals, of whom % felt that, in the foreseeable future,
plants should not be moved to places where they are likely
to have occurred before anthropogenic change, let alone to
sites beyond their former range. Circa % of this group also
felt that increased action in situ was the most urgent activity.
The strength of opinion among those favouring wild conser-
vation suggests that this option needs to be investigated
thoroughly before other options are adopted, but that the
more contentious ideas should not be rejected as being un-
acceptable to the general public, whatever private views are
held by conservation professionals.
The low level of support for retaining birds in zoos in
perpetuity suggests that this option would need the stron-
gest justification before being adopted. These results resem-
ble those of conservation biologists (Hagerman et al., )
and self-selected panels (Tam & McDaniels, ) in Canada
and the USA, both of which favoured strategies with low risk
but provided qualified support for other options. The rela-
tively small ‘Status quo’class expressed too few preferences
on actions to influence the debate. Overall the level of cli-
mate scepticism (% believed climate change was a scam
or only natural change) was within the range reported
from Australia-wide surveys (–%; Greenhill et al.,
) but in the ‘Status quo’class (%) it was much closer
to that of recent surveys in the USA (%; Yale Project on
Climate Change Communication, ).
Thirdly, although various authors have insisted on the
importance of local ownership of the governance processes
of assisted colonization (e.g. Hewitt et al., ), with the
Australian conservation professionals sampled by Hancock
330 Stephen T. Garnett et al.
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& Gallagher () believing that ‘full approval from all sta-
keholders at the source and recipient sites’was the most im-
portant influence on successful assisted colonization of
flora, in the case examined here, respondents demonstrated
a high level of trust in conservation professionals. Over %
of the respondents were satisfied that conservation profes-
sionals had the major say in the decision about the adapta-
tion option most suitable for conserving a species in the face
of climate change. That a higher proportion of Tasmanian
respondents preferred that decisions about adaptation ap-
proaches be made by local communities rather than the gen-
eral public may reflect an anti-mainland sentiment among
those who did not want conservation professionals to make
the decision. However, the proportion of Tasmanian re-
spondents willing to accept the direction of experts on ap-
propriate adaptation strategies did not differ from the
mainland. This result may reflect ignorance or lack of inter-
est, especially while the question remains hypothetical, but
does behove conservation professionals to act in the best
interest of the taxa being conserved and recognize that
this may be influenced by their own value system.
Fourthly, none of the classes expressed preferences for
the particular bird taxa, even though they were informed
that two were species and two were subspecies. Studies of
a range of taxa have shown that the threat of extinction is
the most powerful driver of how people value species, re-
gardless of charisma or other confounding factors, such as
distinctiveness (Tisdell, ). In this case charisma was
avoided as much as possible by confining the choice to
four small brown birds. Also, as noted, genetic distinctive-
ness was deliberately not emphasized, even though the ruf-
ous scrub-bird has twice the genetic distinctiveness of the
scrubtit and five times that of the brown thornbill as a spe-
cies (Garnett et al., ). Subspecies of brown thornbill, of
which there are five, are even less distinct. However, we were
as careful as possible not to change respondents’level of un-
derstanding by our questions as they would then not have
been typical of the wider population. Thus, the lack of pref-
erence for species over subspecies, or for the scrub-bird over
the others, suggests that prioritization based on genetic dis-
tinctiveness, which has been favoured by some scientists and
economists (Faith, ,; Garnett, ; Weitzman,
; Joseph et al., ), is either not well understood by
the general public or is understood but does not affect
their preferences. The acceptance of top-down direction
on management of bird conservation in the face of climate
change could suggest that the public is happy for their views
about genetic distinctiveness in setting priorities to be over-
ridden by conservation managers. However, the legislation
of most countries, including Australia, gives equal value to
all levels of genetic distinctiveness (Garnett & Christidis,
). In Australia, even a taxon such as the Norfolk
Island owl Ninox novaeseelandiae undulata, of which the
last female was mated with a New Zealand male to retain
TABLE 1 Characteristics of three respondent classes identified through latent class analysis of choices made by Australians about strategies
that could be used to help bird taxa threatened by climate change. Means sharing the same superscript and those without are not signifi-
cantly different from each other (Tukey’s HSD, P ,.)
Characteristic All Status quo Wild preferred No extinctions Statistics
No. of respondents 1,119 240 345 534
Mean income (AUD) 44,700 ±SD 31,800 44,700 ±SD 31,300 44,000 ±SD 29,700 44,200 ±SD 33,300 F= 0.14, P = 0.871
Female (%) 50 47 54 49 χ
2
= 3.98, P = 0.137
Post-secondary education
(%)
66 67 68 65 F= 0.26, P = 0.773
Age (years) 49 ±SD 16 52 ±SD 15
a
49 ±SD 16
b
48 ±SD 16
b
F= 6.24, P = 0.002
Cause of climate change
Human 31 16
a
38
b
34
b
χ
2
= 74.88,
P = 0.001Natural + Human 52 51 52 52
Natural 12 21
a
7
b
11
b
Scam 5 12 3 4
Primary locus of decision making authority
Local people 25 39 20 23 χ
2
= 74.69,
P,0.001General public 15 28
a
11
b
11
b
Conservation scientist 60 33
a
68
b
66
b
Self-reported ability to identify birds
Few 31352732χ
2
= 10.91,
P = 0.091Common 62 58 68 60
Most/All 7758
Reaction to encountering a bird species for the first time
Take no notice 19 30
a
16
b
16
b
χ
2
= 26.13,
P,0.001Enjoy 66 54
a
69
b
69
b
Identify/list 16 17 14 16
Conserving Australian birds 331
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Brown thornbill: mainland
Wild preferred(a)
No extinction(b)
Status quo(c)
All respondents(d)
Brown thornbill: Tasmania
Scrubtit
Rufous scrub-bird
Brown thornbill: mainland
Brown thornbill: Tasmania
Scrubtit
Rufous scrub-bird
Brown thornbill: mainland
Brown thornbill: Tasmania
Scrubtit
Rufous scrub-bird
Brown thornbill: mainland
Brown thornbill: Tasmania
Scrubtit
020
40
Percentage of respondents
Not important at all
Important
Not important
Very important
Totally unacceptable
Acceptable
Not acceptable
Totally acceptable
60 80 100 02040
Percentage of respondents
60 80 100
Rufous scrub-bird Keep in a zoo
Assisted colonization
Retain in the wild
Keep in a zoo
Assisted colonization
Retain in the wild
Keep in a zoo
Assisted colonization
Retain in the wild
Keep in a zoo
Assisted colonization
Retain in the wild
FIG. 3 Stated importance of government investment in conservation of four Australian bird taxa threatened by climate change
(left column) and acceptability of three types of conservation approaches (right column) for three respondent classes (a–c) and all
respondents (d).
332 Stephen T. Garnett et al.
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its genetic potential (Garnett et al., ), is given the highest
priority in the Australian Government’s latest policy docu-
ments (Australian Government, ). Also, Tasmania has
explicitly given equal priority to species and subspecies
(Tasmanian Government, ). Our results corroborate
the approach taken in Tasmania. Whatever the private
views of conservation professionals, there is currently no le-
gitimacy in using genetic distinctiveness to prioritize taxa
for conservation action in Australia.
Overall, the results suggest that % of the Australian
public wishes to avoid extinction, preferably by helping cli-
mate-stressed populations to adapt where they currently
occur. However, people are relatively sanguine about other
approaches if deemed necessary, and are willing to follow
the advice of experts, and for them to proceed with climate
change adaptation, with appropriate caution as conditions
change. We conclude that the public generally supports
the more strongly expressed views of conservation advocates
that the highest priority should be to support existing wild
populations (Lundhede et al., ), even in the face of cli-
mate stress on those populations, but there is acceptance
that more drastic interventions may eventually be needed.
Acknowledgements
The research was funded by an internal faculty grant
(Faculty of Engineering, Health, Science and Environment
at Charles Darwin University) and is a contribution to the
social research undertaken under the auspices of the
National Environment Science Programme Threatened
Species hub of the Department of the Environment. We
thank Julie Ballweg for her early contributions to the design
of the research. Graeme Chapman and Allan Richardson
kindly allowed their photographs to be used for the survey.
Author contributions
STG and KKZ conceived the research and initiated the col-
laboration with SH, TAS and JM. STG, KKZ and JM
100
80
60
40
100
80
60
40
Percentage of respondentsPercentage of respondents
Type of bird(a)
(b) Conservation approach
20
0
20
0
Wild preferred
Respondent class
None
Moderate
Weak
Strong
Mild
Very strong
No extinction Status quo
FIG. 4 Extent of variation in preferences (none to very strong)
across types of birds (a) and conservation approaches (b).
5
Type of bird(a)
Conservation approach(b)
3
1
–1
Percentage difference
–3
50
30
10
–10
Percentage difference
–30
Rufous scrub-
bird
Scrubtit Brown
thornbill:
Tasmania
Brown
thornbill:
mainland
Keep in a zooAssisted
colonization
Retain in the wild
Wild preferred No extinction Status quo
FIG. 5 Percentage difference between those with a clear
preference for a bird (a) or conservation approach (b) and those
who expressed clear disapproval. Note difference in scale of
y-axes.
Conserving Australian birds 333
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designed the survey, including the choice experiment. JM
and KKZ analysed the data. STG, with contributions from
SH and TAS, developed the first draft of the article. All
authors contributed to reviewing and finalizing the article
and addressing the reviewers’comments.
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Biographical sketches
STEPHEN GARNETT studies relationships between conservation and
livelihoods. KERSTIN ZANDER is an environmental economist
whose main research interest is the socio-economic and environmental
dimensions of human adaptation to climate change and natural ha-
zards. SHANNON HAGERMAN conducts research on evolving conser-
vation mandates and policy, and is currently studying values-based
aspects of novel and contested conservation interventions. TERRE
SATTERFIELD studies the social science of conservation. JÜRGEN
MEYERHOFF is an economist with extensive experience in applying
stated preference methods.
Conserving Australian birds 335
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