Understanding conflict among experts working on controversial species: A case study on the Australian dingo
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(Published version)
Date
2023
Authors
Donfrancesco, V.
Allen, B.L.
Appleby, R.
Behrendorff, L.
Conroy, G.
Crowther, M.S.
Dickman, C.R.
Doherty, T.
Fancourt, B.A.
Gordon, C.E.
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Conservation Science and Practice, 2023; 5(3)
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Valerio Donfrancesco, Benjamin L. Allen, Rob Appleby, Linda Behrendorff, Gabriel Conroy, Mathew S. Crowther, Christopher R. Dickman, Tim Doherty, Bronwyn A. Fancourt, Christopher E. Gordon, Stephen M. Jackson, Chris N. Johnson, Malcolm S. Kennedy, Loukas Koungoulos, Mike Letnic, Luke K.-P. Leung, Kieren J. Mitchell, Bradley Nesbitt, Thomas Newsome, Carlo Pacioni, Justine Phillip, Brad V. Purcell, Euan G. Ritchie, Bradley P. Smith, Danielle Stephens, Jack Tatler, Lily M. van Eeden, Kylie M. Cairns
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Abstract
Expert elicitation can be valuable for informing decision-makers on conservation and wildlife management issues. To date, studies eliciting expert opinions have primarily focused on identifying and building consensus on key issues. Nonetheless, there are drawbacks of a strict focus on consensus, and it is important to understand and emphasize dissent, too. This study adopts a dissensus-based Delphi to understand conflict among dingo experts. Twenty-eight experts participated in three rounds of investigation. We highlight disagreement on most of the issues explored. In particular, we find that disagreement is underpinned by what we call “conflict over values” and “conflict over evidence.” We also note the broader role played by distrust in influencing such conflicts. Understanding and recognizing the different elements shaping disagreement is critical for informing and improving decision-making and can also enable critique of dominant paradigms in current practices. We encourage greater reflexivity and open deliberation on these aspects and hope our study will inform similar investigations in other contexts.
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© 2023 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.