Changing the Stories We Live By: Revolutionizing the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation Through Transformative Conservation

Abstract: As biodiversity continues to diminish worldwide, an interrogation of long-standing conservation discourse is needed to reformulate a new conservation rhetoric that confronts the socio-ecological complexities of the world and reorients the relationship between humans and nature. Using ecologically sensitive critical discourse analysis, this research investigates the dominant ideologies perpetuated within an iteration of mainstream American wildlife discourse and explores opportunities for transformative conservation alternatives. Critical discourse analysis is performed on the State Wildlife Action Plans policy framework, which serve as the United States’ primary comprehensive wildlife conservation strategies that guide states in the preservation of fish and wildlife. Analysis of the State Wildlife Action Plans Report and Best Practices for State Wildlife Action Plans documentation revealed three dominant ideologies constructed and perpetuated within this conservation program, summarized as “Human Centrality,” “Animals as Resources,” and “The Supremacy of the Economic.” These three ideologies are manifestations of the overarching worldview of Anthropocentrism. After identifying the potentially harmful impacts associated with these ideologies, new stories inspired by insight from various environmental philosophies, Indigenous beliefs, and historical conservation leaders that align with the tenets of transformative conservation are created. These three new, alternative stories are: “Honoring the Intrinsic Value of Nature,” “Humans and Nature Rejoined,” and “Decentering the Economic.” By disentangling the hegemonic ideologies and power relations upheld within American conservation discourse, novel ways of thinking inspired by transformative conservation can be forged to combat biodiversity loss.