The Impasse in Biodiversity Conservation Policy
Yrjö Haila,
Koli 25 August, 2008
The crux of the issue:
THE PROOF OF BIODIVERSITY IS IN THE USING
-- in other words: all conceptions that externalize
biodiversity into something that has to be
protected as separate from human livelihood, are
misleading
Approach: genealogy as history of the
present


How did we come to perceive nature as
something that requires conservation?
This is not an endpoint of linear increase of
reason, rather, we have to weave together
several chains of events

in what follows, I present four
WHY genealogy?


Our present understanding of the issue is shaped by
the contingencies of the flow of events, which were
shaped by the ways the issues were understood at
the time.
Hence, the normative basis has come about through
the same flow of events – in other words:
 (i) grounding: What for? – Why prioritize nature
conservation instead of something else?
 (ii) operationalizing: What criteria to use to assess
success vs. failure?
1. Conservation thinking
IUCN (1948)
(post-Enlightenment secularization)
ICPB (1922) and so on (International
Council for Bird Preservation)
Changing popular sensitivity:
”Nature is Our Friend”
Extinctions (Adams 2004)
The Romantic movement,
wilderness thinking (N.Am.)
Utilitarian conservation in New
England, South Africa, New
Zealand, and other European
colonies (Grove 1995, Judd 1997)
Emblematic: dodo, quagga, the
passenger pigeon
Big game hunting; Africa etc.
The fact of human-caused
extinctions, 19th c. – Darwinian
theory as a precondition
2. Legislation, treaties
Binding international treaties
- CITES 1973
- Ramsar Conv. (Wetlands) 1976
- EU: Birds D. 1979, Habitats D. 1992
Specific legislation - juridical innovations,
such as the Endangered Species Act 1973
Conservation becomes generally
regarded as a governmental
duty: administration – after WW2
Conservation legislation in different
countries: Sweden 1909, Finland 1923, …
3. Conservation science
The theory of Island Biogeography
(MacArthur & Wilson 1963, 1967):
area is a reliable predictor of
extinction threat; also Preston (1962)
BIODIVERSITY – as
a new catch-all term
Generalization of the notion
of extinction (*)
… increasingly comprehensive:
Red Data Lists (1960s  )
… increasingly systematic: e.g. SSSI
Sites of Special Scientific Interest
Beginnings: assessments and
classifications for legislative and
administrative purposes
(Preparing the ground culturally!)
Extinction risk becomes
a statistical notion – as
distinct from a targetspecific notion
(*)
Extinction risk is present
everywhere
4. Biosphere (Vaclav Smil, 2002)
GAIA
James Lovelock 1972
Symbiosis in evolution; the importance of microorganisms in maintaining ecological functions on the
biospheric level – Lynn Margulis (1970 --> )
Energetics: (Lotka!!) & G. Evelyn Hutchinson –
Raymond Lindeman (1942) – the Odum brothers:
The Fundamentals of Ecology (1954, 1st ed)
”Ecosystem” -- Tansley 1935 (precursors: organismic
metaphors since the 1880s, by and large)
V.I. Vernadsky 1926
(in French, 1929)
Alfred Lotka 1924
Eduard Suess 1875 – the term
A novelty has come about

The task of nature conservation is framed in a
new way: a shift from target-specific to
comprehensive conservation (biodiversity)


Nothing less is at stake than the life-support
system of Earth (at the very least, the system
supporting human life!)
as a result, the target is indefinite
Biodiversity is framed as a big issue,
deliberately
E.O. Wilson (1997) on what biodiversity is: "So, what is it?
Biologists are inclined to agree that it is, in one sense,
everything."
Difficulties with a “doable” definition: if nothing can be
excluded, no distinctions can be made; cf. omnis
determinatio est negatio (Spinoza)
Difficulties with specifying a problem space: How do you
preserve ”everything” – normative standards tend to collapse
to a simplistic culture/nature dualism
Example of the culture/nature dualism:
Orians & Soulé (2001): Conservation Biology. Research
Priorities for the Next Decade
”Conservationists must make two key decisions. First, they
must decide which time in the past should serve as the
reference period. Second, they must assess the probable
ecological conditions that existed in the area at the time.”
But as human influence – past, present and future – is
everywhere, this goal-setting is meaningless.
We need to be more specific about what biodiversity
means, and why it is meaningful: A PROCESS
PERSPECTIVE (Making the Biodiversity Crisis Tractable: A Process Perspective;
Haila, 2004)
First of all: 'biodiversity' is a social construct
(BioDiversity, 1986, 1988; Wilson 1992); but, as Hacking
(1999) notes, the attribute "social" is redundant:
processes taking place in society are social, by
definition. Hacking: reserve the term "construct" to
such concepts that are deliberately brought forth,
mainly for critical purposes – this fits "biodiversity."
Constructing a problem: opening up a public space in
which the problem gains urgency as compared with
other public problems – i. e., PUBLICS and PUBLIC
SPACES come in purals
Useful analytic concepts:
(A) Framing: Framing an issue means defining a stable
context within which it can be adequately understood and
addressed. The context allows specified questions to be
asked as well as criteria to be given on what could count
as an answer to those questions.
(B) Problem space: a problem space is analogous to a
physical state space (Alan Garfinkel 1981) – the
"movement" of problem definitions and perceptions
within that space is influenced by critical variables, which
bound the space.
(C) Closure: In the most elementary case, explanatory
closure is constituted by two alternatives: refuting one
lends support to the other (hypothesis testing).
Non-linearities:
Interactions between critical variables
- between variables
- between levels or organization, & as a
consequence of size/ rate differences (biophysical
scaling laws; ecological scales)
This means that the mutual ”matching” of framing,
problem space & closure is very seldom, if ever,
straightforward as regards issues pertaining to
biodiversity
Framing takes place in two dimensions, as it were:
the normative urgency of the problem has to be
grounded, and
the analytic features of the problem have to be
specified.
We could call the first dimension political framing, and
the second conceptual framing; the latter dimension
implies also an idea on how the problem can possibly
be solved (which cannot be normatively neutral).
PROBLEMS as regards BD:
(a) the "bigness" of the biodiversity concern in
normative terms: it is difficult to give qualifications;
(b) stabilization: how do you stabilize research on
"everything"?
Empirical stabiization: entities vs. processes?
In biology, all "entities" are temporary – they are
maintained by particular reproductive cycles. The
maintenance of such cycles is a dynamic question; &
the fabric of life that constitutes the biosphere of Earth
is maintained by the interactive reproductive dynamics
of zillions of micro-organisms (the biospheric
dependence!)
The genealogical heritage of ecology the science has
built up a dichotomy:
ecosystem ecology vs. population and community
ecology
Biodiversity cuts through this dichotomy, in conceptual
terms: entities make up the patterns of heterogeneity and
variability that we observe and call biodiversity, but
reproductive cycles are needed to maintain them. Two
specific challenges:
(1) Is biodiversity significant for ecosystem functions?
(2) Does the dynamic nature of ecological systems matter
for conservation?
-- (1) yes, by and large – but precisely?? -- (2) yes
In process terms, biodiversity is a pervasive
characteristic of life. However, life on Earth is not a single,
all-encompassing, dynamically unified system but rather
a complex of reproductive cycles.
In practice, the centrality of reproductive process means
that if the conditions are right, biodiversity will take care
of itself.
When are conditions right?
The problem of dynamically relevant indicators and
surrogates!!
Endangered species? – Remember the symbolic
significance of extinction & extinction threat!!
- ”Umbrella species”??
- ”Companion species” that pave the way for dynamic
conservation?? -- The Flying Squirrel, potentially.
Mapping with multivariate statistics the ”environmental
space” on the regional scale (Mike Austin et al., 1984
etc.)
Dynamic conservation policy
Conservation is aimed at a moving target: whenever it
succeeds, the situation changes
-- whatever the target (whether it is a species or habitat type)
A reasonable aim is to get human-induced environmental
changes to match critical dynamics of the habitat requirements
of the target species or environmental type
Surrogates that can be used are necessarily culture/nature
hybrids – nature already modified by human actions
Knowledge practices – knowmedge communities -companionship