Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology
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Despite advances in the quality of participatory decision making for conservation, many current efforts still suffer from an inability to bridge the gap between science and policy. Judgment and decision-making research suggests this gap may result from a person's reliance on affect-based shortcuts in complex decision contexts. I examined the results from 3 experiments that demonstrate how affect (i.e., the instantaneous reaction one has to a stimulus) influences individual judgments in these contexts and identified techniques from the decision-aiding literature that help encourage a balance between affect-based emotion and cognition in complex decision processes. ⋯ Trade-off techniques may help individuals incorporate relevant technical data, even when it conflicts with their initial affective impressions or other value-based objectives. In the third study, subjects displayed a lack of trust in decision-making authorities when the decision involved a negatively affect-rich outcome (i.e., a loss). Identifying shared salient values and increasing procedural fairness may help build social trust in both decision-making authorities and the decision process.
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Many researchers report that rock climbing has significant negative effects on cliff biota. Most work on climbing disturbance, however has not controlled for variation in microsite characteristics when comparing areas with and without climbing presence. Additionally, some researchers do not identify the style or difficulty level of climbing routes sampled or select climbing routes that do not represent current trends in the sport. ⋯ When we investigated the relative influences of microtopography and climbing disturbance, however the differences in vegetation were not related to climbing disturbance but rather to the selection by sport climbers of cliff faces with microsite characteristics that support less vegetation. Climbed sites had not diverged toward a separate vegetation community; instead, they supported a subset of the species found on pristine cliff faces. Prior management recommendations to restrict development of new climbing routes should be reevaluated based on our results.