Understanding hope and what it means for the future of conservation

Academic papers and media commentaries frequently appeal to hope as a necessary bulwark against despair for the conservation community. Such claims are often made in the absence of a rigorous discussion of the nature of hope. In this review, we investigate the importance of hope as it applies to conservation workers, educators, and others involved in environmental protection. We define hope in its many dimensions, ask whether having hope is necessary to motivate people to engage in environmental action, and inquire whether hope can be revived or reframed when conservation actions fail. Hope is a multi-faceted emotional state or motivational attitude with many subtypes, including authentic (or active), passive, false, and radical hopes. The conservation literature generally refers to active hope, although the type of hope considered is often left unstated. Whether hope leads to environmental engagement or action depends on many factors, including goal orientation and feasibility, societal and personal norms, personality traits, and group identity. Organizational attributes like leadership, consistent vision, and interpersonal communication affect the experience of hope among conservation practitioners, environmental educators, and the public. Grief and hopelessness are frequently part of the “emotional labour” of conservation and environmental work, but these may be buffered by a sense of agency and feasible objectives, which encourage authentic hope. Although there has been progress in understanding the role of hope in conservation, conservation communities can continue to learn from the rich body of psychological theory and practice that has been used to study hope in other fields.