ABSTRACT
This chapter considers current concern for biodiversity as a 'crisis' and reflects on how this might justify exceptional measures. It poses the question of whether it is realistic to achieve conservation success whilst at the same time striving for better standards of social justice. Conservation Initiative on Human Rights (CIHR) is a consortium of international conservation NGOs that came together in 2009 to agree a set of principles and working practices to promote rights-based approaches to biodiversity conservation. The chapter addresses conservation and social justice objectives through separate policy instruments and looks at the scale of the biodiversity crisis and its significance to humans. The current era of mammalian extinction is marked by the loss of large animals and especially of apex consumers across terrestrial, marine and freshwater systems. The chapter provides some provisional support for the view that striving to make conservation more socially just is compatible with the need for conservation interventions to be effective.
