A Literal Act of Congress: Reconciling Conservation Science and Policy

Ballard, Jennifer R; Booth, Austin T

doi:10.3389/fcosc.2025.1554025

POLICY BRIEF article

Front. Conserv. Sci.

Sec. Human-Wildlife Interactions

Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2025.1554025

A Literal Act of Congress: Reconciling Conservation Science and Policy

Provisionally accepted

Jennifer R Ballard ^*

Austin T Booth

Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC), Little Rock, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Modern conservation is a complex intersection of biological, physical, and social sciences applied to balance ecological needs and human interests within a defined regulatory framework; developing comprehensive policy recommendations that account for this complexity is challenging.• New policy recommendations should be presented with adequate consideration for their scientific justifications, social implications and legal applications. • Policy proposals that are not adequately contextualized risk undermining public trust and missing opportunities for advocacy; two examples are provided. • Greater collaboration across the research and applied conservation disciplines, increased representation of environmental law and conservation policy expertise, and partnerships between schools of law and biological sciences could facilitate the advancement of more comprehensive policy proposals.

Keywords: conservation policy, social science, interdiscipinarity approach, Federal Authority, State authority

Received: 31 Dec 2024; Accepted: 02 Apr 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Ballard and Booth. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Jennifer R Ballard, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC), Little Rock, United States

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