What is Conservation Biology?
A recent response to the wave of global environmental change that is threatening
to extinguish a tremendous portion of the world’s biological diversity
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24% of world’s mammal species threatened
Over 11,000 species of plants and animals threatened
In past 500 years, 816 species extinct
103 bird species extinct in the past 200 years
Current extinction rates are at least 1,000 times normal extinction rate
Conservation biology differs from other biological sciences
It is often a crisis discipline
i.e., one often has to act before knowing all the facts – thus, a mixture of science
and art
Conservation biology is interdisciplinary
Great deal of overlap between Conservation biology and the natural resource
fields, nonetheless, there are two characteristics that distinguish them
• Dominance of utilitarian, economic objectives in the resource fields
• Nature of these resources – small number of valuable target species – a tiny
fraction of the biota
Another distinguishing feature of Conservation Biology is its time scale
Practitioners attach more weight to the long-range viability of whole systems and
species, including their evolutionary potential
Conservation biology tends to be holistic
• Reductionism alone cannot lead to explanations of community and ecosystem
processes
• Multidisciplinary approaches will ultimately be the most fruitful
Conservation biology is value-laden
Conservation biology is mission-driven
Conservation versus preservation
History of Conservation
• Habitat destruction noted by Aristotle in classical Greek period
• Conservation management practiced by agrarian societies
• Private game management, royal preserves and private manor lands
Early American conservation philosophical movements
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Romantic-transcendental preservation ethic (mid to late 1800’s)
Resource conservation ethic (late 1800s to early 1900s)
Evolutionary-ecological land ethic (1950’s)
Romantic-transcendental preservation ethic
• Derived from the writings of Emerson, Thoreau and Muir
• Nature has uses other than human economic gain
• Quasi-religious view of nature
Resource conservation ethic
• Made popular by the forester Gifford Pinchot
• Based on utilitarian philosophy
• Anthropocentric in nature
• Stressed equity – a fair distribution of resources
– multiple use concept of USFS and BLM
Evolutionary-ecological land ethic
• Developed by Aldo Leopold in his classic essays – e.g., A Sand County
Almanac
• Nature was not a simple collection of independent parts
• Close ties to restoration ecology
Modern conservation biology is a mixture of all three philosophical viewpoints
The quickening pace of environmental degradation and biological
impoverishment in the 1960’s and 1970’s would outstrip the ability of the various
conservation-related sciences, acting in isolation to respond