Response to comments on “Compassionate Conservation deserves a morally serious rather than dismissive response - reply to Callen et al., 2020”

Critical questions for ‘compassionate conservation’
Conservation biologists have previously identified the ideological misnomer within ‘Compassionate Conservation’ (Callen et al., 2020), highlighting the flaws in this approach (Hayward et al., 2019). The successful merging of ‘Compassionate Conservation’ principles with effective conservation practice has not yet been demonstrated. Consequently, we and many others (Callen et al., 2020, Driscoll and Watson, 2019, Fleming, 2018, Hampton et al., 2019, Hayward et al., 2019, Johnson et al., 2019, Oommen et al., 2019, Rohwer and Marris, 2019, Russell and Blackburn, 2017) are concerned that the stated values of ‘Compassionate Conservation’ will not lead to advances in ethical practice nor that these will actually improve biodiversity conservation. We do not intend to debate ethical monism, an overly simplified and unpragmatic tool that is too blunt to deal with the complex challenges facing the survival of human and non-human species in the 21st century. Conservation biologists are more concerned with conserving biodiversity.