In recent decades, interest in and application of behavioral insights to conservation theory and practice have expanded significantly. Yet the growth of integrated strategies to adapt and guide human behavior in service of conservation outcomes has included limited engagement with questions of equity and power. Here we examine the use of behavioral approaches in conservation efforts, emphasizing potential misapplications that may result from omitting equity and power considerations. Such omission may lead to an overemphasis on the role of individual behaviors relative to system-level drivers of biodiversity loss, result in misalignment between behavioral interventions and the actual drivers of behavior in situ, and incur unanticipated negative social welfare and distributional costs, all of which may undermine conservation success. We offer recommendations for centering equity when applying behavioral insights to conservation, including strategies for high-level agenda setters (scholars, advocates, funders and programmatic leaders) as well as conservation practitioners. The urgent need for biodiversity conservation is insufficient reason to side-step equity and power considerations; we contend that centering equity is consistent with this urgency and key for developing sustainable conservation theory and practice.

中文翻译：

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保护行为科学的公平视角

近几十年来，对保护理论和实践的行为洞察力的兴趣和应用显着扩大。然而，适应和指导人类行为以服务于保护结果的综合战略的发展包括对公平和权力问题的有限参与。在这里，我们研究了行为方法在保护工作中的使用，强调了可能由于忽略公平和权力考虑而导致的潜在误用。这种遗漏可能导致过分强调个体行为相对于生物多样性丧失的系统级驱动因素的作用，导致行为干预与原地行为的实际驱动因素之间的错位，并产生意想不到的负面社会福利和分配成本，所有这些这可能会破坏保护的成功。我们提供了在将行为洞察力应用于保护时以公平为中心的建议，包括为高级议程制定者（学者、倡导者、资助者和项目负责人）以及保护从业者提供的策略。生物多样性保护的迫切需要不足以回避公平和权力的考虑；我们认为，以公平为中心与发展可持续保护理论和实践的紧迫性和关键是一致的。