What is Conservation Biology?
Define conservation biology
What does a conservation biologist do?
What is it you think you will learn in this
course?
What would you like to learn in this course?
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/multime
dia/sounds/knownsounds/document_view
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivo
ry/multimedia/sounds/searchsou
nds/document_view
Conservation Biologists examine reasons that
species have gone extinct, why others are in peril,
and ways to avoid the loss of additional species and
the ecological services and other benefits they
provide.
The Ivory-billed woodpecker was North America’s largest, but is now
considered extinct, as caused by habitat loss of swamp forests in the
southeastern U.S., including far western Kentucky. In 2006, scientists
thought they recorded the sounds of this bird in Arkansas (click link below),
but these claims have largely been dismissed and no further sounds heard.
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/multimedia/sounds/searchsounds/document_view
Conservation Biology focuses on maintaining the
viability of biological species and the ecological
work they do, including charismatic megafauna
such as the endangered Siberian tiger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcWyyyms07w
Conservation Biology also importantly focuses on humans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1VYm
pTikgw (link to 2010 International Year of Biodiversity video)
In the news…one year ago.
Sept 1, 1914 – Sept 1, 2014
Tom Eblen
Centennial passing of an avian storm
8/13/14
In the news… this time last
year.
K ruger P ark (South Africa) to m ove 500 rhinos
from M ozam bican border to interior of park to
try and save species from extinction.
In the news…
Cecil the lion killed July 2015
President Obama
Historical Case Studies of
Overexploitation of Natural
Resource Base
Easter Island (400 AD-present)
Anasazi Indians, Chaco Canyon, NM
(900-1100 AD)
Petra, Jordan (7000 BC-1900 AD)
Dust Bowl (1930’s)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrPhFO00VQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=guTek7ipD4U
2013 Oklahoma
Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima Nuclear
Disasters (2011)
•radiation through the Northern Hemisphere.
Landscape-scale Modifications to Ecosystems
Cum berland Plateau M ix ed-M esophytic Forest,
Central Appalachia (W V, KY, VA, TN )
“Real people stressed by heat, drought, economic decline, and
perhaps worse will curse and kill more often and celebrate
and love less often. And they will mourn the loss of places
disfigured by heat, drought, and death that were once familiar,
restoring, and consoling.”
- David Orr
Channelization of the M ississippi River and coastal
subsidence from oil and gas drilling ex acerbates
hurricane Katrina im pacts (2005)
“Port-au-Prince in ruins; dazed people wander the streets; food,
water and body bags in short supply.” NBC News, 1/13/10.
HAITI
D.R.
Deforestation in Haiti com pounded earthquake im pacts (2010)
US Heat Wave: First Half of Year Hottest on Record
2011, wettest year on record Lexington, near record warm winter
Russia, Wildfires summer 2010,
globally the hottest summer on
record…until 2014…until 2015
Globally, 13 of the hottest years on
record have occurred in the past 15
years (+1.8F)
Rising Seas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M
H8nJ5PMYhQ&feature=related
Resource extraction and consumption has impacts at multiple spatial scales, from the species level (e.g. FL
panther, to global weather patterns) all of which impact biodiversity and human livelihoods
Human population growth 8000 BC to 2000 AD
Estimated human population growth thru 2050
Land area needed to support the
typical human lifestyle
Like any of lifes difficulties, each individual (and society) has to
choose whether to be responsible and tackle the major
environmental challenges we now face, ignore them, or pretend
they don’t exist.
“Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.” Edward Abbey
ETHICAL DILEMMAS AND QUESTIONS TO PONDER…
Do humans have an ethical responsibility for creating an
environmentally sustainable world?
In the scheme of things you individually have to be concerned
about, where if any place does resource conservation and
sustainability rank among your priorities?
In a democratic society (nation-state), and in a global world
populated by 7 billion people (and growing) with finite resources,
do we have an ethical responsibility to become as scientifically
literate as our abilities allow?
Origins of Conservation Biology
Evolutionary Tendencies
• Instinctual reactions to non-humans: Fear, Aversion, Attraction, Love
• “Wilderness is where my genome lives.” – Paul Shepard
Religious and Philosophical Influences
• define the relationship between humans, their societies, and the
natural world
Sociological Inertia
• the weight and momentum (influence) of culture on human behavior;
behavioral norms
Science
• What we have learned in the past few centuries about other life on
Earth and sustainability of resources that we depend on?
Attitudes Towards
Wilderness (“Nature”)
Some evolutionary tendencies/attitudes we have include:
• we of course like to control our fates, and inability to control or
use nature can create uncertainty (e.g. accidents, getting eaten!)
• Deprivation/reduction of visual acuity; fear darkness and the
predation that so long characterized this time period
Art by Mauricion Anton
PLEISTOCENE EXTINCTION,
North and South America
(10-15K years pre-Columbus)
Painting by Mauricio Anton, in The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives. Columbia University Press. 1997.
Painting by Mauricio Anton, in The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives, Columbia University Press. 1997.
Painting by Mauricio Anton, in The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives, Columbia University Press. 1997.
Painting by Mauricio Anton, in The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives, Columbia University Press. 1997.
Extinct
Extinct &
& living
living large
large (>45kg)
(>45kg) mammals
mammals of
of the
the late
late Quaternary
Quaternary (N.A.)
(N.A.)**
Glyptodont
American mastodon
Mountain deer
Big-tongued ground sloth
Columbian mammoth
Woodland caribou
Jefferson's ground sloth
Dwarf mammoth
Moose
Shasta ground sloth
Jefferson's mammoth
Wapiti
Dire wolf
Woolly mammoth
Pronghorn
Gray wolf
Mexican horse
Pleistocene mountain goat
Black Bear
Western horse
Mountain goat
Brown Bear
Pleistocene tapir
Bighorn
Giant short-faced bear
Western camel
Shrub ox
Saber-toothed cat
Long-legged llama
Bonnet-headed musk ox
American lion
Long-nosed peccary
Musk ox
Jaguar
Flat-headed peccary
Pleistocene bison
American cheetah
Mule deer
American bison
Mountain lion
White-tailed deer
* from Martin & Burney 1999
WildEarth
Wilderness
“Wilderness” – Norse-Teutonic origin
 Wild – “unruly, willed”
 doer – “animal, beast”
 ness – “state or condition
 Wil-doer-ness – the place of wild beasts
Wil-doer –appears in Beowulf (Anglo-Saxon epic of 8th century
14th century Bible translation; uninhabited land of the Middle East, a
treeless wasteland
1755 dictionary – a desert; a tract of solitude and savageness
Today – uncultivated or otherwise undeveloped land usually with the
absence of humans and presence of intact biota
“Forest Creatures & the Wild Man Mythology”
Pan – origin of “panic”
“Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti”
Loss of visual acuity in dark, “forboding” places
Judeo-Christian Influence
•Most practioners of early Christianity (in particular)
emphasized dominion and distinctiveness of humans
over nature; (Lynn White “exploitative philosophy” )
Book of Genesis (Old Testament, Bible)
“be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it;
have dominion over every living thing that moves upon
the Earth.”
• JC philosophy and writings influenced wilderness
concepts and symbolism (n = 280 in Bible)
“The land is a Garden of Eden before them, and behind
them a desolate wilderness.” Joel 2:3
Noah’s Ark
Stewardship and
care of “God’s
creatures”
The Exodus
 Sanctuary from a sinful
persecuting society
 Place to draw close to God
Testing ground of faith
Supported the notion of
nature as escape for
purification, faith , and
renewal
The Essenes and Monastacism
Wilderness as a disciplinary force and
refuge to purify, focus on non-earthly
pleasures, spiritual catharsis
St. Basil
Established monastary
on forested mountains
near the Black Sea in 4th
century
 “I am living … in the
w ilderness w here the Lord
dw ealth .”
Religious recognition of
the beauty in nature
Eastern Philosophies and Religion
Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism,
Taoism, Shintoism
• Humans part of nature
• Wilderness place of refuge
• Natural settings important places of
worship or for religious context.
• Nature directly worshipped
• Nature prevalent theme in art –
humans depicted as secondary
subjects ; Kuo His “Why does a
virtuous man take delight in
landscapes?”
• But are these followers and their
cultures more likely to conserve
resources? read buddhist concept of nature:
Natural
World
Spiritual
World
http://www.dalailama.com/messages/environment/
buddhist-concept-of-nature
Kuo Hsi
Early Spring (~1000 A.D.)
Lang Shih-ning
Pair of Cranes in the Shadow
of Flowers (~1700 A.D.)
Chinese rank badges
(19th century)
More European Influence
Continent-wide resource depletion
Preserves for Nobility sometimes created
Awareness of the extinction of some species on continent
and European colonies
Auroch (Bos prim igenius)
Dodo (Raphus cucullatus )
Pre-Columbus America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brSPQ7s
UE84 (7:30)
Exploration and Colonialism
• European population 27-73 million (700-1300 A.D)
• Crusades stimulated trade, demand for exotic
products and to exploit East to replenish bounty of
nation-states
• religious sanctuary and propagation
• Import of resources helped facilitate Renaissance
(rebirth) learning, exploration, scholarship, and later
the Enlightenment
“The land before is a hideous and desolate
w ilderness ” William Bradford (1600’s)
“Men dreamed of life without wilderness, for it had no place in the
paradise myth.” - Nash, W ilderness and the Am erican M ind
Despite millennia of habitation and influence on the New World (North and
South America), native peoples there were typically viewed with disdain.
The New World was a “waste and uninhabited wilderness where none
inhabited but Hellish fiends and brutish men that Devils worshipped.” –
Roderick Nash
Five-Minute Drill
How has religion influenced human-nature
relations?
How has the predominant views of Western
monotheistic religions differed from Eastern
religions and hunter-gatherer societies?
What resource exploitation patterns in Europe
led to colonization of the western
hemisphere, and how did those attitudes to
resource use translate to these new
societies?
Early Conservation Measures
Kublai Khan
 Leader of the
Mongol Horde
 No killing of animals
between March and
October
 Established food
plots of wild animals
Bialowieza Forest (Poland-Belarus)
Established in 1561 by the Polish King largely to protect
wisent
Now one of the largest remaining woodland tracts in
Europe
Wisent (Bison bonasus )
Some Early Colonial Conservation
Measures
• 1626-1639 - NE regulation
timber cutting and sale, forest
fires, den hunting
• 1710 - Massachusetts coastal
waterfowl protection
• Forest reserves in India and
other colonies (but at what
cost?)
• Mauritius = French rulers had
25% of land remain forested
William Penn (1644-1718)
• Founder
Woods)
• Wrote
of Pennsylvania (Penn’s
the first forest conservation
law in colonies: requiring the
preservation of one acre in five as
forest
New Ways of Thinking about Nature:
The Enlightenment and
Age of Reason
Rational Nature of the World
• Mechanical certainty, mathematical
formulas; living things acted/reacted
according to principles that could be
observed and defined and explained by
natural laws
• Nature could be dissected, explained, and
overcome for the benefit of society
The Enlightenment (1700’s)
•reason, liberty, happiness, and progress were dominant themes
of intellectuals
• humanity progressing/evolving towards something better
• happiness emphasized over salvation
• with science’s assistance and human reasoning and rationality
society can perfect itself without divine intervention
• Deism – humanity must use reason and science to figure out
its place in Nature’s mechanism
Romanticism
• World viewed as complex, harmonious
• Mysterious, strange, remote, solitary
experiences and ideas were sought by
romantics; Fear of wilderness was reinterpreted
as awe and astonishment
• Gave rise to Deists, who believed that
reason dictated that such beauty and
complexity could only be the result of God
• Urban creation was man’s works
superimposed upon God
• Primitivism - romantic expression that
man’s happiness decreases in proportion to
civilization, primitive cultures admired, “noble
savage” concept
• People sought out primitive experiences to
yield strength, hardiness, and virility
America’s Identity Crisis
• Distinctive culture = True Nation
• What was uniquely American?
• Europe had scenery, but not wilderness!
• Europe deposited layer of artificiality on God’s masterpiece
= gave America a distinct moral advantage = destined for
literary/artistic excellence
Danube, birds, Nat. Bridge (Notes on VA)
• Cooper, Leatherstocking Tales and Irving firmly establish
nature writing as literary genre
Rise of Nature Appreciation
Birds of Am erica
(1827)
• Began in cities, removed from physical
hardships
• 1820-1840 rise in magazines and picturesque
books, 1850’s rise in popularity of travel
literature
John James Audubon
• Wilderness increasingly becoming a novelty;
pilgrimages; Appreciation of wilderness
becomes a gentlemanly virtue
Thomas Cole (1830s)
•Unique, nature-centric artistic perspective
•Adirondacks, Hudson Valley, Catskill Mts.
George Catlin
(1796-1872)
•1830s trekked through remote Indian
country in the Great Plains documenting
traditional Native culture.
• visited more than 140 tribes, painted
over 325 portraits and 200 scenes of
American Indian life.
• illustrate Indian cultures on the
precipice of radical change that would
come with U.S. expansion into tribal
territories.
•Proposed establishment of national
parks to save Native Americans,
wilderness (e.g. buffalo)
Catlin’s Works
Hot Springs, AR (1832)
•1st federally protected natural area
Five-Minute Drill
Why and how did European attitudes towards
wilderness change during and after
colonization of other places?
What major movements and belief systems
arose and influenced your last answer?
In what way did answers A and B influence
early American conservation actions and
attitudes?
Frontier-Manifest Destiny
(1835-1885)
Manifest Destiny
1862- Homestead Act –
160 acres free if live 5 years
and improve it
30,000 miles by 1861
ERA OF EXPLOITATION (NORTH AMERICA)
1600-1900
• Fur Industry (Beaver, Bear, Deer/Elk, Wolves, Mink,
Otter, etc.); caused regional extinction of many species
Passenger Pigeon slaughter (1884)
Extinction of Kentucky Large
Mammals
Thomas Moran (1870s)
William Jackson, photographer
Charles Darwin
Naturalist, traveled to Galapagos
Islands, other remote areas to study
flora and fauna
Origin of Species (1859) – challenged
anthropocentric view of life, explained
diversity and human existence through
evolution
Examined concept of variation and
change of biota over time; natural
selection via struggle for existence and
survival of the fittest
Romantic-Transcendental Conservation Ethic
Emerson
Thoreau
Muir
Nature has uses other than economic gain
Nature is the temple of God in which to commune and appreciate Him
Minimalism over materialism
Nature is purifying of the corruption and sin of civilization
Ralph Waldo Emerson
•Nature, recognized as a major work in
Romantic and Transcendental movement,
emphasized the interconnectivity of life,
provided philosophical underpinnings of
science of ecology
• “In the woods we return to reason and
faith.”
• However, thought nature was created for
human benefit, was inexhaustible and
invulnerable to humans use
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
 Published Walden (1854), an account
of Thoreau's two years at Walden Pond;
considered one of the greatest
masterpieces of nature writing.
 A scientist, observer, and philosopher,
he believed that man derived his
strength from contact with nature.
 Foresaw rapid exhaustion of natural
resources and advocated setting aside
tracts of land via federal ownership to
remain forever wild for the benefit of
future generations. Protecting
wilderness = protecting civilization
"In w ildness is the preservation
of the w orld ."
George Perkins Marsh
•Man and Nature or Physical Geography as
Modified by Human Action (1864)
•Congressman from Vermont
•Man abused his power to alter nature,
which has serious implications
•Wilderness provided utility, and its
protection was compatible with progress and
economic welfare
•Great civilizations rise and fall
according to their stew ardship of
resources
•Focused his attack indiscriminate lumbering
practices and soil erosion
 Explorer, world traveler, keen observer, prolific nature writer,
scientist, storyteller, and advocate of the gospel of
John Muir naturalist,
wilderness
(1838-1914)
 Leader of the preservationist movement, the management
philosophy of The National Park System
Explored the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite, studied glaciers
and botany. Believed that trancendentalism is the central
philosophy for interpreting wilderness. One of the nation's most
eminent nature writers, his articles in Century magazine in the
late 1880s drew attention to the destruction of forestland by
grazing animals, the need to preserve wilderness, and eventually
led to the creation of Sequoia and Yosemite national parks in
1890
 A father of our national parks, a tireless naturalist and lobbyist
for protecting wildlands.
 Founded the Sierra Club in 1892.
 Persuaded Roosevelt to manage forest reserves using federal
control
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CDzhIvugw8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpgx-LkvHGE&feature=related
Fredrerick Jackson Turner
“The Frontier in American History” 1893
• frontier is determined by the rxn between wilderness and the edge of
expanding settlement
• frontier/ w ilderness shaped sacred Am erican virtues
• frontier influence made Americans “better” (virtuous) than Europeans
• democracy was a forest product = individualism, independence,
confidence, and encouraged self-government
• helped create and legitimize national lament for the “pioneer days of
old”
Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946)
Wanted to apply max. sust. yield and other principles to America’s
forest reserves
Crusaded for preservation of our natural resources through managed
use (Resource Conservation Ethic; multi-use concept practiced by
USFS and BLM); apply max. sustained yield to forests.
“manage scientifically to obtain a steady supply of valuable timber
products”
 Founded and developed the U.S. Forest Service (1905) under TR,
changed name from forest reserves to “national forests”
“Conservation movement has development for its first principle”
“greatest good for greatest # for the longest time”
 The 1st great fact about conservation is that it stands for
development
Throughout his life and career, held fast to his notion of the universal
interdependence of people and natural resources, and human
responsibility for maintaining those resources in good supply and
condition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m-oFZMhJqc Part 1 of “The
Greatest Good” documentary, you’ll find more parts of this on the
same page.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irGOngj8O88 (later part of his life)
Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)
 Avid outdoorsman, birder, and hunter
 Propelled conservation movement forward via
Progressive reform platform
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCxf9eYWiaM
 Established Boone & Crockett Club (1887) and U.S.
Forest Service (1905)
 Created the first national wildlife refuge (1903) at
Pelican Island, FL
 Greatly influenced by Muir and Pinchot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gJ43sReByo
 Established 51 NWRs, created 5 National Parks, and 16
National Monuments. National forest acreage increased
from 42 million acres in 1905 to 172 million when he left
office.
 Elevated the Biological Survey to a strong bureau with
police powers
• By 1916 – 13 National Parks existed; Congress created
National Park Service to oversee their use
• Preservationists rallied around the National Park concept and
embraced it as the mechanism to protect areas of interest
• Preservationists fought to prevent development and roads in
them
• What has happened to the
frontier that has influenced
American virtues?
• How can we escape the
vices and ills of the city?
• How can we return to the
days of old…the simple life?
• How can we recapture or
resurrect those virtues that
urban life has dulled and
suppressed?
ARCADIAN MYTH – returning to a
mythical pastoral place and past
• Nature Fad (1915-1925) sparked by urbanization, industrialization,
immigration, social and economic disparity, corruption, pollution, fear of
“race suicide” was the fuel
• Cities – parks, playgrounds, zoos, nat. history museums
• Suburbs – organic architecture, bird watching, country clubs, green
lawns and trees
• Country – agriculture schools, cowboy novels, summer camps, 2nd
country homes
• Wilderness – Scout groups, field sports, natural history authors,
publicaiton of Thoreaus works, mountain clubs, NP tourism
Five-Minute Drill
What technologies and sociological developments
occurred that influenced the American
conservation movement?
What important American figures emerged to
challenge some early/traditional Judeo-Christian
anthropocentric beliefs about nature?
How did the realization about the end of the
“frontier” coupled with your last 2 answers
influence early conservation actions in the U.S.?
Feminism, Suffrage, Civil Rights
– challenged
traditional dominance systems, brought forth new voices for nature
Alice Hamilton (1869-1970)
•medical doctor, researcher, social reformer; combined these
interests
• gained experience and contacts at Hull House settlement
in Chicago
• connected human health, disease, and the environment
• tireless research and advocacy efforts led to legislative
change that reduced or eliminated industrial toxins and/or
human exposure to them
• published Industrial Poisons in the U.S. (1925); Industrial
Toxicology (1934)
• 1st female professor at Harvard
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E75pST2QTEM
Lacy Act of 1900
Migratory Bird Treaty Act (1916, 1936, 1972)
 Lacy Act – outlawed
interstate trade of protected
birds, called on the BBS to
enforce laws
1916 – protected migratory
birds between Canada and U.S.
1936, 1972 – act expanded to
include Mexico and Japan
Wildlife Education
Anna Comstock
• The mother of nature education, formed
the Comstock Publishing Company. Its
motto: "Nature through Books."
•Handbook of N ature Study (1911)
emphasized the rewards of direct
observation of wildlife. Stressed the
importance of natural relationships
•approach to nature study, she said, was
to "cultivate the child's imagination, love
of the beautiful .” Instrumental in
launching a pilot nature study program -
Roger Tory Peterson
• one of the premier naturalists and wildlife
artists of the 20th century
• designed Peterson method of field
identification and series of field guides that
popularized nature and especially bird
watching Field Guide to the Birds (1934)
1920s -1930s
Jay “Ding” Darling
• Cartoonist
• Conservation and
wilderness advocate
• 1st Chief of what is now
U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service
• Founded National Wildlife
Foundation
Aldo Leopold (1886-1948)
A forester, game manager, scientist, teacher,
and writer, Leopold was also a visionary, whose
concept of a land ethic serves as the
philosophical underpinning of the modern-day
conservation movement
Recognized the scientific need beyond
sentiment for preserving natural areas and
systems
Pioneer of wildlife management, published
Game Management (1933) “Father of game
management” “Father of conservation biology”
Eloquent prose about the challenge of
defending and promoting conservation land
ethics in Sand County Almanac (1949)
Stewardship largely responsibility of individual
not government; preached land ethic and
restrained use and light impact of natural areas;
frowned on gadgetry
 Helped create 1st wilderness area (Gila), and
actions via the Wilderness Society and philosophy
underpinned the Wilderness Act
Ecological-Evolutionary Land Ethic – not based on
religion per se, but on ecological and evolutionary
principles and concepts
Biocentric Equality - right of all organisms to achieve
self-realization. All members of biotic community,
including humans, are what Leopold called “plain
citizens”).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQED4YEMx9A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqlp-lteQj4&feature=related (Nice factual presentation by
WI student)
Gospel of Ecology
(1960-1973)
Wilderness Act (1964)
Established a process for permanently protecting areas from human
encroachment and development
Wilderness defined as an area where “the earth and its community of life
are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not
remain.”
Protected areas “are to be managed so to appear that the landscape has
primarily been shaped by the forces of nature.”
Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
 writer, scientist, ecologist
 Silent Spring (1962) described the dangers of
pesticides and synthetic compounds; perhaps most
influential book of 20th century
 writing focused on relaying information to the public in
concise clear argumentative format
 pollution and environmental degradation could affect
multiple organisms in a food web, and were not always
local problems but could be regional, global, and lifethreatening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_Njv5Ygg0g
(short clip on bio)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-NAUkyIgM&feature=related (Part 1 of a documentary with links
to all 6 parts, from American Experience)
T.D. Lysenko, Stalinism, and
Suppression of Science
•Lysenkoism - destruction of real science by
pseudoscience committed in the name of a particular
political agenda and more or less openly supported by the
ruling party/government officials.
(1898-1976)
“It is better to know less, but to know just what is necessary for
practice."
"In order to obtain a certain result, You must want to obtain
precisely that result; if you want to obtain a certain result, you
will obtain it .... I need only such people as will obtain the results
I need.”
EARTH DAY
April 22, 1970
• estimated 20 million people nationwide attended festivities
out of which came the largest grassroots environmental
movement in U.S. history, and the impetus for national
legislation like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.
• somewhat ignored and unparticipated in by mainstream
enviro groups (e.g. Sierra Club)
• By 1990, more than 200 million people in 141 countries
participated in Earth Day celebrations.
Endangered Species Act (1973)
 Authorizes the determination and listing of endangered and threatened
species and their habitats
 Prohibits unauthorized taking, possession, sale, and transport of all
endangered and threatened species or destruction of their habitat, the later
includes any government agency
 Provides federal government authority to purchase land and water for the
purpose of protecting threatened or endangered species
Human ecologist Paul Shepard argued that even though we
have a deep-seated fear of nature given our sometimes role as
prey species, animals and plants provide context for our
existence and fostered the evolution of our development
in many ways; we became the thinking animals we are today.
“Wilderness is where my genome lives.”
Therefore, some postulate that humans have an innate,
subconscious attraction, love of, and need for the
companionship of other life forms called biophilia, a term
coined by renowned sociobiologist E.O. Wilson.
A brief bio about E.O. Wilson and the newly created
“Biophilia Center” in Florida can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLLRn49diy0
Five-Minute Drill
How did Leopold’s philosophy towards nature differ
from Muir and Pinchot?
What other protected area system is Leopold known
for helping to usher in?
What important historical events and technological
developments during the early-mid 1900s shaped
modern conservation and resource management?
What was Rachel Carson’s major contribution to
conservation biology and how did it influence
natural resource conservation law?
How the discipline of Conservation
Biology was formed
Of course there is much history and changes in the relationship between
humans and their environment that led to the formation of what we know
as the “modern”conservation mentality
Many tired of ecologists, wildlife managers, etc.,
“studying the flames while Rome burns”
1978 1st International Conference on Conservation Biology:
Michael Soule and others united academics and
conservationists and created the Society for Conservation
Biology
Discipline that provides principles and tools for conserving
biodiversity
It is synthetic and multidisciplinary
Ethics - a major branch of philosophy; encompasses right conduct and
good life.
A central aspect of ethics is "the good life", the life worth living or life
that is satisfying, which is held by many philosophers to be more
important than moral conduct.
Summum bonum - the greatest good. The right act can be identified as
the one causing the greatest good and the immoral act as the one
impeding it
Morals – the practice of ethics
Ethics and Decision-Making
The Precautionary Principle
(Hippocratic Oath) To practice and prescribe to the best of
my ability for the good of my patients, and to try to avoid
harming them.
The Precautionary Principle is the “Hippocratic Oath” of
Conservation Biology. First, do no harm.
Con Bio
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
What does this have to do with conserving biodiversity,
and where would that action be located on this pyramid?
Underlying Values (Postulates)
of Con Bio
Biodiversity and ecological complexity is good
Evolution (the single unifying principal of biology) is good
Biodiversity has value: intrinsic (organisms have inherent right
to exist and evolve) and instrumental (organisms and their
environs provide goods, services, knowledge, and enjoyment)
Some Reasons for Preserving Biodiversity
Instrumental versus Intrinsic
Distinguishing Characteristics of
Conservation Biology
A value-laden science that is mission-oriented and
advocacy-oriented
Crisis discipline (we have to act now)
A science of eternal vigilance (can’t let your guard
down)
A legally empowered science
A multidisciplinary science
An inexact science
A science with an evolutionary time-scale
Top 5 Problems Addressed
by Conservation Biology
The conservation of genetic diversity
The conservation of species
The conservation of habitat
The management of landscapes through
ecosystem processes
Sustainable development of human
economies and human populations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k6Fzdfyuts&feature=r
elated
In conservation, can the “rabbit hole” described in the m ovie “The
M atrix ” by sym bolic of w hat Aldo Leopold described as “ecological
consciousness”, and one of the penalties of “living alone in a w orld of
ecological w ounds.”