Conservation Crossroads

Both the science and practice of conservation seem to be sitting at a crossroads.  In one direction is a preservation path that has helped save some precious parts of  our world's biodiversity legacy.  Preservation tools include creating biodiversity preserves,  restoring degraded habitats and landscapes, and as a last resort preserving germplasm in captive breeding programs.  However, in recent years a number of people have started to argue that preservation alone is not sufficient...or even in many cases a misguided  approach.  They argue that conservation (and the environmental movement in general)  needs to take a less idealistic and more pragmatic path that is focused more on achieving functional goals and less on broadly preserving past natural history.  Clearly, reality is not as dichotomous as that, but there does seem to be a subtle yet profound shift in thinking and outlook going on.  Two recent articles describe this new thinking.  This op-ed piece in the New York Times provocatively titled "The age of Man is not a disaster" is co-authored by Peter Kareiva, the chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy.  This nice article in the Washington Post also provides a nice summary of the new ideas.

Also, in book club this term we are reading "Rambunctious garden: saving nature in a post-wild world" by Emma Marris" (the lead author of that NYT op-ed piece.  Check out the short video by Emma.