Emergency situations often entail agonizing choices over what to save when time and resources are limited. Writing in Conservation Biology, Woinarski et al. suggest that some assumptions about societal priorities during responses to natural disasters may need revisiting. The authors surveyed 2,139 adult Australians who were randomly selected to reflect the country’s population. Respondents were asked to consider 11 assets and rank them using a best–worst scaling design, according to which they wanted to be saved by fire managers during a hypothetical severe wildfire. The assets included: a single human life, a house with no people in it, a farm shed, farm animals, a population of koalas (an iconic species) that would not change the overall status of koalas in Australia, the last population of a native snail or a native shrub, and an ancient Aboriginal rock art site. As the authors expected, human life was overwhelmingly prioritized even if this choice meant the extinction of the snail or shrub species. Given the escalating rate of natural disasters, such low prioritization for uncharismatic species will probably lead to increasing extinctions. But respondents valued biodiversity assets higher than replaceable property, which is counter to most current protocols and suggests that these need review. Woinarski et al. suggest that similar and expanded consultation should be conducted to allow policy development that facilitates rapid decision-making that reflects community expectations. They also recognized a need to raise awareness of the conservation values and needs of ‘unloved’ species.

Original reference: Conserv. Biol., https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14230 (2023)

当时间和资源有限时，紧急情况常常需要痛苦地选择要保存什么。Woinarski 等人在保护生物学中写作。表明在应对自然灾害期间有关社会优先事项的一些假设可能需要重新审视。作者对 2,139 名澳大利亚成年人进行了调查，这些人是随机选择的，以反映该国的人口情况。受访者被要求考虑 11 项资产，并使用最佳-最差缩放设计对它们进行排名，根据该设计，他们希望在假设的严重野火期间被消防管理人员拯救。这些资产包括：一个人的生命、一栋无人居住的房子、一个农场棚屋、农场动物、一群不会改变澳大利亚考拉整体地位的考拉（标志性物种）、最后一批考拉。原生蜗牛或原生灌木，以及古老的原住民岩石艺术遗址。正如作者所预料的那样，人类的生命被压倒性地优先考虑，即使这种选择意味着蜗牛或灌木物种的灭绝。鉴于自然灾害发生率不断上升，对无魅力物种的如此低优先级可能会导致灭绝的增加。但受访者对生物多样性资产的重视程度高于可替代财产，这与大多数现行协议相反，并表明这些协议需要审查。沃伊纳尔斯基等人。建议应进行类似和扩大的磋商，以便制定政策，促进反映社区期望的快速决策。他们还认识到需要提高对“不受欢迎”物种的保护价值和需求的认识。

原文参考： Conserv. 生物学，https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14230 (2023)