How people view and treat wild animals can vary dramatically from one part of the world to another. In the first international study of wildlife values, research led by Colorado State University found a distinct difference between Latin American views toward wildlife and those in the United States and Canada – and traced the divergence in views to European colonization centuries ago.
The study shows that Latin America regards wildlife as part of the social community, deserving of rights like humans – a value the researchers call "mutualism" – while the United States and Canada largely view wildlife as a resource for use by humans – a value they label "domination." These views align with the colonizing countries that established institutions in the Western Hemisphere: Britain in North America and Spain and Portugal in Latin America. Britain and northern Europe were more domination oriented than southern Europe, which favored mutualism.
This research, published May 15 in Nature Sustainability , reinforces past studies showing that colonizing institutions can help explain current cultural differences between North and South America.
"British institutions fostered the establishment of settlements, while Spanish and Portuguese institutions focused on the extraction of resources such as gold," said lead author Michael Manfredo, a professor in CSU's Warner College of Natural Resources. "Moreover, the religious orientation of the countries of northern Europe called for human domination, which was not the case in southern Europe. Today's values are consistent with these differences."
Manfredo pointed to a religious and social shift in northern Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries that commanded Protestant followers to control their environment, including the animals that lived there. Alternatively, countries that were historically Catholic were more likely to hold mutualist views.
Findings are based on a survey of nearly 18,500 people in 33 American and European countries. Survey responses fell along a spectrum between mutualism and domination, and wildlife values varied considerably across countries.
Results showed that North America and northern European countries have high levels of mutualism but are more domination oriented than Latin America and the rest of Europe. Latin America has low levels of domination and very high levels of mutualism – higher even than the colonizing countries, Spain and Portugal.
Indigenous people influenced wildlife values in Latin America
The study found that people with Indigenous ancestry across the Americas are strongly mutualistic, and Latin America had larger Indigenous populations when it was colonized.
"At the time of European colonization, there were large cities and significant numbers of Indigenous people in Latin America – 50 million people or more," Manfredo said. "We would conclude that the current values of mutualism there arose through the acculturation of the reasonably compatible views toward wildlife among Iberians and Indigenous people."
Real-world application
The difference in values has important implications for wildlife management policies. Differing values can cause conflict when cross-cultural organizations try to apply their conservation ideas to other parts of the world, the researchers said.
"Sustaining wildlife is a global problem, and unless you take into consideration the cultural differences, success will be difficult," Manfredo said. "What is acceptable practice in one country may be unacceptable in others."
Lethal control is a common way of dealing with human-wildlife conflict in countries with higher levels of domination. Countries with higher levels of mutualism tend to support lethal control only in extreme situations of harm to humans.
The survey asked whether lethal control should be used in various conflict scenarios, such as crop damage, vehicle collisions, zoonotic disease, attacks on pets or livestock, and attacks on humans.
"Lethal control is North America's fundamental way of dealing with human-wildlife conflict," Manfredo said. "It is used for a wide variety of purposes, including safety, agricultural production and limiting invasive species."
Wildlife values evolve slowly
The study demonstrated that wildlife values are persistent and have deep historical roots.
Study author Tara Teel, a CSU professor and interim head of the Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, said it's important for conservation organizations to understand that it might not be possible to engineer changes to such deep-rooted values.
"We need to work within the value sets that exist in different places and understand those to be effective in conservation," she said.
Broad cultural value shifts can and do happen, she noted, pointing to animal rights movements in various parts of the world that slowly move the needle toward mutualism.
In previous research, Manfredo and Teel have worked with state wildlife agencies in the U.S. to evaluate public values toward wildlife and how they are changing over time.
"We see in the United States a shift away from domination toward more mutualist values due to modernization forces like increased income, education and urbanization," Teel said, adding that it's important to regularly monitor public opinion to assess whether agencies' policies align with the populations they serve.
