Masters Dissertation Example

6.5.4 Contextualising the advocacy debate 
It has often been suggested that scientists are not generally successful at putting their 
ecological research into a management context (Floyd, 2001). Conservation biology is a value 
laden science (McCleery et al, in press), and whether or not researchers made concrete 
recommendations for the use of their findings was a largely significant predictor of 
implementation, with a higher proportion of findings implemented when recommendations 
were made.
Obviously, recommendations do not determine whether or not research findings are taken up if 
they are not thought to be relevant or practical, as can be seen from the finding that 
recommendations have a significant impact on the uptake of single species research findings, 
but only if the species is threatened (fig. 24). It should also be noted that the tendency of an 
author to recommend action perhaps serves to judge the likelihood of their pursuing an action 
rather than a direct influence of the recommendation (Fleishman et al, 1999), and it therefore 
cannot be suggested that there is a direct correlation. Similarly, some recommendations in the 
sample were much more concrete (such as closure of a specific beach during turtle nesting 
season) than others (such as prevention of introduction of alien species). Indeed, in an analysis 

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of 60 papers for which respondents answered that recommendations had been made, 14 were 
too general to be considered concrete or practical, and such limitations and subjectivity need 
to be taken into account 
However, there can be no doubt that contextualising findings into recommendations for 
practical use can facilitate implementation of findings. It has been suggested that species-
based researchers should independently assess status and monitor efficacy, and that scientists 
should be removed from policy decisions and advocacy (Fuller et al, 2003). However, the 
results from this study have emphasised that scientists are best placed to interpret their own 
findings into management relevance, and should work with practitioners to integrate their 
results into management; similar to the role suggested in a study by Lach et al (2003). Any 
arguments of scientists losing credibility if they translate their results in value-laden language 
(Scott et al, 2007; Lackey, 2007) seem relatively unconvincing, especially considering that 
those researchers who did not make recommendations generally did not have their findings 
implemented, rendering this a moot point. Indeed, one practitioner noted when interviewed 
that advocacy for management decisions was essential to change practices entrenched in the 
bureaucratic system in his country 
It is perhaps this apparent distinction between science and advocacy that widens the gap 
between scientists and practitioners, as the latter are often wary of the former in terms of their 
ability to apply results to real life situations and take stakeholders and context into account. 
That findings were more readily implemented when disseminated personally to stakeholders 
and targeted to a specific problem emphasises this, and although it should be noted that some 
of the authors were themselves practitioners with NGO and government affiliations, it is 
unlikely that stakeholders in any capacity would be receptive to a report of findings with no 
apparent conservation application.