Who Wants What and Why: A Typology for Clarifying Common Interest in Conservation

ABSTRACT Effective and equitable conservation requires navigating complex interactions among diverse actors with often conflicting interests. While the concept of common interest holds promise for fostering collaboration and guiding decision‐making, it remains underexplored in conservation. This article introduces a typology of interest and relevant concepts designed to distinguish common interests—those broadly shared within a community and expected to benefit the whole over the long term—from special interests that serve narrower constituencies. We define an interest as a pattern of demands supported by expectations and grounded in identifications, and classify conflicts of interest as primary (identity‐based), secondary (value‐based), and tertiary (assumption‐based). To assess whether a policy truly serves the common interest, we propose three evaluative standards: substantive validity (whether assumptions are supported by evidence), pragmatic effectiveness (whether value outcomes meet community demands), and procedural inclusiveness (whether relevant perspectives are meaningfully engaged). Using elephant conservation as a recurring example, this article illustrates how the proposed typology can help conservationists achieve both conceptual clarity and practical competence in engaging diverse actors in effective problem‐solving. Finally, we highlight the importance of deliberative democratic processes for aligning diverse interests toward the flourishing of people and nature.