Conservation Biology that acknowledges that we can never go back

Breakthrough Journal “Conservation in the Anthropocene”

This vision of a conserved future — one in which we integrate human and ecological needs — seems a lot more appealing to me that the previous vision of cordoned-off nature. As a resident of Brooklyn, I do not need more nature preserves upstate to escape to, I need Brooklyn to become an urban center designed to support more ecological functions. Initiatives such as adding one million trees to the streets of New York City are a good start, but there are many other ways in which urban greening can provide a model for 21st Century conservation.

I also appreciate that conservation biology is beginning to wake up to the consequences of the ‘nature versus people’ approach to ecological preservation: not surprisingly, it is generally the economically- and politically-disempowered who are asked to ‘take one for the whole of humanity’ by vacated lands slated for preservation. The best way to preserve threatened species and ecosystems is to increase the affluence of the local people.

The authors of this valuable piece also take on eco-mysticism:

“ecologists and conservationists have grossly overstated the fragility of nature” & “The trouble for conservation is that the data simply do not support the idea of a fragile nature at risk of collapse”

This to me is one of the greatest failures of ecology: allowing public perception of how ecosystems work to be driven by a false depiction of ecosystem stability.

My only worry about this article is that it may paint to rosy a picture of nature’s resilience. As the economic portfolios always warn, past performance is no guarantee of future results, and there are many reasons to be concerned that we may someday reach the biophysical limits of the earth to support the human population.