We are grateful to the editor of Conservation
Biologyforarranging this Forum and for the
willingness of suchdistinguished conservationists
to respond to our essay.Our critique of
sustainability has clearly touched a nerve.By way
of rejoinder we would like to revisit themain
pointof our essay, approaching it from a different
direction, andthen turn briefly to the three
responses.At its root, conservation is all about
nature and the wayspeople interact with it. From
a conservation perspective,some ways of using
nature are acceptable and some arenot. How do
we tell which is which? We can ask thisquestion in
other ways: Where is the line between usingland
and abusing it? Or, if conservation succeeded,
whatwould success look like, in terms of nature
itself?Currently, there is no consensus answer to
these ques-tions, not among society generally, nor
among conserva-tionists. Indeed, these questions
are not asked very oftenand are not asked in ways
that keep these questions sepa-rate from the
many other questions that conservationistsfind
important.As posed, our questions are designed
expressly to focusattention on the core ends or
aims of conservation, havingto do with the
physical condition of nature. Everythingelse about
conservation, in our view, is secondary to
theachievement of these ends. Conservation is
about livingright in relation to lands and waters. If
we do not get thatrelation right, judged in terms
of our effects on natureitself, conservation has
failed. Conservation might also beabout other
things—about living right with one another,for
instance, or living right with future generations—
butit is first and foremost about the direct
human–naturelink. If we get that wrong, we can
never declare success.A central reason why we do
not like the concept ofsustainability is because we
cannot extract from it a clearanswer to our
questions about humans and nature.