Are our moral responsibilities towards animals and the environment in conflict with our responsibilities to social justice and other human beings? How are the responsibilities of caring for the environment unequally distributed? Prof. Tan aims to explore how we can hold our responsibilities to people and animals without conflict. These two values come into conflict in conservation policy and its impacts. Conservation efforts tend to be focused on parts of the world that have not yet diminished their natural resources, with much of the focus on the African continent. These conservation efforts often used the national park model where the people living in the area are forced off of their ancestral lands and banned from entering into the space without permission. Often these communities have relied on the land for economic support, food and cultural practices all of which are then criminalized during the process of conservation. The current norm places an unequal burden of conservation on poor communities in the global south and at times violates their rights to culture and livelihood.

These unequal burdens of conservation efforts can be further examined along the axis of gender. Conservation efforts can have hidden impacts and these invisible impacts seem to disproportionately affect women. For example, in one village in India researchers reported talking to women about the impacts of crop destruction due to animals from the nearby conservation site. The women talked about how there was less food. Later on the researchers noticed that the women tended to serve the food of the men waiting for them to become full until they would eat whatever was left. Though the lack of food could have impacted everyone slightly, the gendered roles of the community led to women bearing the biggest burden. 

In the Sundarbans gender conservation and culture all intersected to create a disproportionate impact on the women in the community. Through the efforts of conservation biologists the tiger populations in the Sundarbans increased, a success for the overall biodiversity and ecosystem of this area. However, this increased tiger population caused an increase in human wildlife conflict in the area. Due to historically held religious belief there is immense stigma associated with women whose husbands are killed due to tiger attacks. If a woman’s husband is killed she is ostracized from the community entirely. They are unable to gather food or supplies from the same places the larger community does and barred from using the same tools/equipment. Oftentimes their extended family kicks them out of the home along with any female children. The social structure of the surrounding areas makes it difficult for women to access work or financial stability and as such many are often manipulate or forced into sex work and other dangerous, low paying work. The efforts of conservationists to increase the tiger populations unintentionally contributed to the continued disenfranchisement of women in this area.