Need for empirical evidence to support use of social license in conservation: reply to Garnett et al

Kendal and Ford (2018) argue that the use of the term social license in conservation needs critical evaluation and highlight the utility of social constructs such as social acceptance in understanding public support for conservation activities. Garnett et al. (2018) argue that social license is a distinct concept, best conceptualized as a binary “emergent property of political interactions before and during the operations of an enterprise.” They argue that the license metaphor is a useful one; a social license is a necessary precursor to a regulatory license, and it is something that can be granted and withdrawn. There are aspects of this argument that are worthy of further exploration, particularly the conceptualization of social license as an emergent property of relationships between civil society and conservation actors. However, their expectations that an emergent social license would be binary and recognizable are inconsistent with the vast majority of scholarship on the concept.