Community Well-being-Centered Conservation (Wild Happiness)
OneNature believes it is possible to transform conservation by linking holistic community well-being and wildlife stewardship.
Why do we need Wild Happiness?
As we take stock of the social, environmental, and economic crises facing the world today, it’s clear that our current way of life and the systems we have built to sustain it are inequitable, unsustainable, and economically precarious. For decades, policymakers have used Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a leading indicator of the economy’s general health. GDP as a single metric cannot meaningfully assess a country’s overall standard of living or well-being.
At OneNature, we believe this is true not just at a global level but at a local level as well. The focus on economic productivity as a measure of success has been ingrained in community development and conservation projects for decades. Most wildlife conservation work has emphasized economic approaches to saving wildlife and wild places. At times this approach has been at odds with traditional community values; It may have even undermined the relationship with wildlife and nature that has kept species and spaces thriving for generations. Without deeply understanding and supporting community well-being, conservation projects will fail to reverse the extinction crisis, secure environmental sustainability, and support social justice and human thriving in communities stewarding the world’s remaining wildlife and wild places.
How can we create Wild Happiness?
As with global metrics, rather than relying solely on models that equate economic growth with human thriving, we should use common values grounded in well-being. We must have an understanding of diverse worldviews to reassess what actually matters to society, acknowledge the systemic issues we face, and develop new practices that promote well-being for people, wildlife, and the planet.
To understand and measure well-being in conservation projects, it’s common practice to rely on objective indicators (information observed about the community) instead of subjective indicators (information about the subject’s experience from the subject’s perspective) in assessing community impacts. OneNature believes that both types of indicators are vital to establishing a true well-being baseline that can provide reliable information on community perceptions and early warning signs of unanticipated challenges. OneNature and the Happiness Alliance have created a peer-reviewed validated community well-being index that is a model of such a subjective well-being survey. It’s designed to assess life satisfaction, the many domains of well-being, and communities’ feelings about wildlife and nature around them.
OneNature works toward the adoption of a new, comprehensive approach to community conservation centered on community values and perceptions. This approach allows conservation practitioners to better support communities and wildlife. It can be used not just to support communities but can inform and encourage decision-makers to better understand the value and connection communities have to wildlife and nature. This information can then be used to develop more socially just and sustainable policies and funding to increase human thriving, protect species and habitats, and improve long-term economic sustainability.