Conservation Biology:

The scientific study of biodiversity and its

management for sustainable human welfare.

Focuses on the interaction of humans and biodiversity, seeks to

reveal the aspects of this interaction that are significant to human interests, and strives to

answer questions about how these aspects can be managed for

sustainable human benefit.

Biodiversity: richness of the biosphere in genetically distinct

organisms and the systems they compose.

Do you agree?

“….to provide principles and tools for preserving biological diversity.”

“….the new, multidisciplinary science that has developed to deal with the crisis confronting biological diversity.”

One interface of particular interest is with the humanities. Environmental ethics examines moral values relating to the natural environment.

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

Aldo Leopold, 1949

The popular expression of environmental ethics is known as environmentalism. It is a society movement “….toward understanding humankind’s natural bases of support while continuously applying what is learned toward perpetuating those bases.”

Conservation biology also interfaces with many nonbiological fields.

Key goal of conservation biology: to gain scientific knowledge and apply it to the management of biological diversity.

This implies three things:

1. How can we identify and protect the value of biodiversity.

2. How can we modify biodiversity to increase its sustainable benefits for humans.

3. How can we restore biodiversity where it has been degraded to the detriment of human interests.

So, if biodiversity is the central concern of conservation biology, what is biodiversity?

E.O. Wilson says that biodiversity is our most valuable but least appreciated resource.

In its broadest sense, biodiversity is the richness of the biosphere in genetically distinct organims and the systems they compose. It spans a hierarchy from below the species level to the level of the biosphere.

Two levels of particular concern:

Diversity of species.

Diversity of ecosystem types.

Every year, many species are lost. Some are large and conspicuous. Many more are small and relatively unnoticed.

Also, many ecosystems are in danger. More than 30 ecosystems are critically endangered in the United States alone. Fifty-eight others are endangered, and 30 more are threatened.

Three major problems exist:

1. System of legal protection for endangered species has not proven adequate to handle the need.

2. Management policies for public forests, rangelands and parks have emphasized exploitation of resources, often without a sound ecosystems basis.

3. At the international level, the strategy of protecting biodiversity by creating strictly protected national parks does not work well in many developing countries.

What are the functions of conservation biology?

1. Clarify the ecological and economic values of biodiversity.

2. Develop technologies to protect, restore, and manage biodiversity.

3. Provide responsible opinion about future trends in biodiversity and their significance to humanity.

Is conservation biology a value-laden science?

Should it be a field that promotes conservation of biodiversity based on a set of assumed values of biodiversity, or should it be a rigorous science that seeks to provide objective answers to questions

about how to achieve the goals of biodiversity management set by society?