Conservation Biology- provides principles and tools for preserving biological
diversity.
Daly’s Principles of Resource Use
1. National development objectives give insufficient value to living natural resources
2. Living natural resources are exploited for profit, not for meeting legitimate needs of
local people.
3. The species and ecosystems upon which human survival depends are still poorly
known.
4. The available science is insufficiently applied to solving management problems
5. Conservation activities by most organizations have had to focus too narrowly.
6. Institutions assigned responsibility for conserving biodiversity have lacked sufficient
resources to do the job.
Species Management
1.) Species managed where they occur naturally- cost lower.
2.) Species depend on park and nature reserve for survival (passive management
or protection)
3.) Species heavily restricted or heavily dependent on zoos and botanical gardens
Cost increases 10X to 10,000 X at each of level of intervention.
IN SITU OVER EX SITU
IN SITU = Parks and Reserves
Creative use of modify landscapes
Debt-for-nature-swaps
Easements and zoning
Farming nature- Papua New Guinea’s Insect Farming and trading Agency
Tourism and Wildlife Conservation- what is ecotourismExample, Kenya, South Africa, Galapagos, Argentina
Ex Situ
Zoos (In the preservation of biological diversity, the use of technology is a last
resort, Conway 1986). Less than 125 species maybe 500 can be housed in zoos. 540,000
animals in zoos of world = 1% of domestic cats in US. North American zoo average size
is less than 55 acres.
Need to understand biology- not simple
Reintroductions-tough costly
Manage populations SSP’s - adequate founders, expand population,
rapidly, manage risk (divide pop), maximize effective population size.
Manage risk
Botanical gardens- (conservation of samples of plants away from their field
habitats is ex situ. Gene banks- In US in 1940’s established medium-term storage. Longterm (-18 C) at the National Seed Storage Laboratory (NSSL) in Fort Collins, Colorado
1978. Regeneration and characterization protocols,
Less than 1/3 of the crops produced in the developing countries of Africa and of the
Americas are of local origin.