Hope Springs Eternal: Biodiversity Conservation Requires That We See the Glass as Half Full

In their counterargument to our essay (Swaisgood and Sheppard 2010), Patten and Smith-Patten make some good points but miss the mark. They erect a straw man by suggesting that we advocate spreading hope as our new mission and that we “refrain from expressing pessimism to conservation neophytes.” Our central tenet was not that hope is some all-powerful salve for curing the depression of conservation biologists by converting them into naive Pollyannas. An overly rosy approach to conservation issues is as detrimental as an overly bleak approach if we are to influence the public and policymakers and galvanize them to action. Rather, we prescribed a commonsense balance of realism based on good science with a rejuvenated sense of purpose and aspiration. This is hope with its sleeves rolled up—not as an emotional buffer against cold hard facts but as a stoic, clear-eyed, and utilitarian alternative to apathy, inaction, and despair. We suggested Churchill's hopeful determination in World War II as a model, not a baseless Panglossian approach to painting a dark world with rainbow colors.