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Is there a special conservation biology?

Is there a special conservation biology? Noss. R. 1999. Is there a special conservation biology? Ecography 22: 113-122. Conservation biology is special to the extent that it (ills useful roles in the scientific and conservation fields that are not being tilled by practitioners of other disciplines. The emergence of the "new conservation biology" in the late 1970's and its blossoming in the l980"s and 199O's reflect, to a large degree, a failure of traditional academic ecology and the natural resource disciplines to address modern conservation problems adequately. Yet. to be successful conservation biology, as an interdisciplinary field, must build on the strengths of other disciplines both basic and applied. The new conservation biology grew out of concern over extinction of species, although the field has expanded to include issues about management of several levels of biological organization. I examine four controversial questions of importance to conservation biologists today: I) are there any robust principles of conservation biology? 2) Is advocacy an appropriate activity of conservation biologists? 3) Are we educating conservation biologists properly? 4) Is conservation biology distinct from other biological and resource management disciplines? I answer three of these questions with a tentative "yes" and one (3) with a regretful "in most cases, no."" I see a need for broader Training for students of conservation biology, more emphasis on collecting basic field data, compelling applications of conservation biology to real problems, increased intluenee on policy, and expansion of the international scope of the discipline. If all these occur, conservation biology will by truly special. R. .Vci.v.s (n!>ssy(a.;iics.(>i'S!.eclti). Conservulion Biology Ins!.. SOt) .VH' Shirker Arc. Siil MC. Con-aUis^OR 97330. USA. Whether cotiservatioti biology is a distinct discipline with its owti theories, methods, and applicatiotis or simply an amalgam of what scientists atid practitiotiers in many diseiplincs have been doing for years is a troubling question to eonservation biologists who yearn for a disciplinary identity. It is evidetitly more troubling to the wildlife and fisheries biologists, foresters, range managers, and other applied scientists who feel threatened by this ostensibly new "metadiseipline" that has suddenly grabbed the spotlight oC scientifie and policy interest. Many natural resources professionals feel that "We were eonservation biologists when conservation biology wasn't coor' {Thomas and Salwasser 1989). As one disgruntled wildlife biologist - an ackno\vledged leader in his field - commented in his review of a eonservation biology text, 'The new soeiety [Society for Conset"vation Bioiogy] is either naive about what has been done by conservation biologists and tnanagers in the past or it chooses to ignore it...What the society proposes to be, the profession o\' wildlife eeology and tnanagemeiit has been for all of its history"" (Teer 1988). I must begin by divulging my biases. 1 call myself a eonservation biologist, work for the Conservation Biology Institute, edited the journal Conservation Biology for several years, and I am currently president-eleet of the Soeiety for Conservation Biology. I am hardly itiipai'tial. To pretend that ! ean objectively address the question suggested to me by the editors of Oikos and Eeography "Is there a special conservation biology?" - would be deceitful. Nevertheless. I attempt to address what I feel are the most important questions regarding the speeialness of eonservation biology: are self-proclaimed conservation biologists filling useful roles in the seientific and conservation commttnities that have not This is an invited Minireview on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Nordic Ecological Society Oikos. Copyright © ECOGRAPHY 1999 ISSN 0906-7590 Printed in Ireland ali rights reserved Rft)CiR.\PHY 222 been filled by academic ecology and the resource management disciplines? How can these roles be enhanced? History Meanings of "conservation biology" As hinted in my tirst paragraph, a professional rivalry of sorts has developed between conservation biologisis (as represented by the Society for Conservation Biology) and wildlife biologists (as represented by The Wildlife Society, at least in the U.S,A,), Thus, it is interesting that the first recorded use of the term "conservtttion biology'' was in the inaugural issue of The Wildlife Society's journal, the Journal of Wildlife Management. In that issue Errington and Hamerstrom (1937) began a paper on nest failures of ring-necked pheasant Phasianus colchicus with the words. "In the new and growing field of conservation biology.,," In those days conservation meant something different from what it means today. Conservation, in America at least, was strictly utilitarian and was opposed to ••preservation,'' which meant protecting the wonders of nature, mostly tor tlie spiritual and aesthetic enrichment of mankind (Fox 1981). Preservation today is interpreted as a hands-off approach, one option in a broad spectrum of conservation strategies. And whereas the early conservation biology of The Wildlife Society was focused exclusively on game species of mammals and birds, and remains strongly oriented in this direction today (Jensen and Krausman 1993. Bunnell and Dupuis 1995), modern conservation biology cuts across all taxa - the obviously useful as well as the seemingly useless and has a bundle of both anthropocentric and biocentric aims. Ironically, modern conservation biologists would not view favorably the specific subject of Errington iind Hamerstrom's paper an introduced game bird that, in some places, has had harmful, competitive interactions with native birds. By the time the term "conservation biology" appeared regularly in the late 197O's. the focus had changed considerably. Many conservation biologists would accept as historical fact Ehrlich's (1987: 761) summarization that "the beginning of conservation biology as a unified discipline can be traced to a symposium organized by Michael Soulc and Bruce WiJ^ox in September 1978 at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and to the volume they subsequently edited" (i,e,, Soule and Wilcox 1980). This event was preceded, however, by many, scattered journal articles and several books that carried a conservation biological theme, perhaps most notably Readings in Conservation Ecology (Cox 1969) and Biological Conservation (Ehrenfeld 1970). In May 1985 the Second Conference on Conservation Biology was held In Ann Arbor, Michigan, A noteworthy outcome of this meeting (besides Soule 1986) was 14 the founding of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB). with the explicit mission "to help develop the scientific and technical means for the protection, maintenance, and restoration of life on this planet - its species, its ecological and evolutionary processes, and its particular and total environmeni/" Also of significance in the late 198O's was a 1986 National Forum on Biodiversity, sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution, which resulted in an infiuential book (Wilson 1988), The term "biodiversity" subsequently became the guiding paradigm of conservation biology and even resulted in draft legislation in the United States, The journal Conservation Biology began publication in spring 1987. (It is interesting to note that the British journal. Biological Conservation, had been running for 17 years at that time, but never was associated with a scientific society). When the SCB held its first meeting in June of 1987, it already contained > 1500 members and was growing rapidly. Although I can find no comparative statistics to vahdate the claim, several observers have stated that SCB's growth in the 1990"s is the most rapid of any professional society. Membership is now over 5000 and still growing, albeit not as rapidly as in the early years. Involvement of scientists in conservation What happened in the half century from 1937 to 1987 was pivotal to the modern interpretation of conservation biology. Scientists and the public had slowly become aware oi' the extinction crisis. The idea that human civilization and nature were on a collision course did not arise first in the twentieth eentury. The roots of the conservation movement in the West can be traced at least to the mid-eighteenth century, when several European scientists pointed out the threat colonialism posed to the ecology of tropical areas, especially islands (Grove 1992), Deforestation had been decried by some scientists a century earlier. In the nineteenth century. American writers such as James Fenimore Cooper. Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau extolled the values of wilderness and worried about its destruction. The publication of Man and Nature by George Perkins Marsh in 1864 was heralded as a turning point, whence the vulnerability of nature to human intrusions was widely acknowledged. The establishment of national parks, laws protecting wildlife, and other conservation achievements in America, Europe, and Australia followed rapidly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Worstcr 1977. Fox 1981. Zasiowsicy 1986. Nash 1989, Grove 1992), Despite the burgeoning growth of the conservation movement in the twentieth century, most natural scientists - perhaps trying to remain detached, impartial observers were aloof to the problem of biotic impovECOGk.APlIY 22'2 ej-ishment. For a time the science of ecology seemed to offer a way for scientists to involve themselves legitimately in conservation activities. In the early to mid 20lh eentury, several British ecologists, including F. W. Oliver and Arthur Tansley. were active in public efforts to establish a system of nature reserves (Mclntosh 1985). One of the first actions of the Ecological Society of America after its forrnation in 1917 was to establish a Committee on the Preservation of Natural Conditions, chaired by Victor Shelford. arguably one of the first scientists to warrant the description "conservation biologist" in the modern sense. For nearly 30 years Shclford's committees sought representation in nature reserves of each of North America's biomes as complete ecosystems including top predators, and supported specific activities such as those of Save-thc-Redwoods League and other land preservation grotips. Shelford's efforts, however, proved controversial among his fellow ecologists. In 1946 the Ecological Society of America, concerned about Shelford's advocacy, voted to discontinue his committee. Undeterred. Shelford immediately organized an independent group of ecologists. called the Ecologists' Union, to continue conservation work. This organization, in 1950, was renamed The Nature Conservancy (Mclntosh 1985) and is today the major land conservation organization in North America. Among the illustrious members of Shelford's committees was Aldo Leopold. Leopold, who served as president of both The Wildlife Soeiety and the Ecological Society of Arncrica, not only was able to bridge the gap between the natural resources disciplines and academic ecology, but had a tremendous influence on succeeding generations of conservationists through expression of his "land etliic^" (Leopold 1949). I As exemplified by the Ecological Society of America's 1946 decisioti on advocacy, the post-war attitude in science was far removed from a conservation ethic. Industrial progress was the prominent concern. Some scientists, however, were worried about the environmental impacts of such "progress." In 1948 G. Evelyn Hutchinson warned of the dangers of the expanding human population and the disruption of geochemical cycles, one outcome of which could be global warming. Hutchinson suggested "it ought to be possible to show that it is as much fun to repair the biosphere and the human societies within it as it is to mend the radio or the family car."" In 1962 Rachel Carson's Silent Spring alerted the public to the dangers oi" pesticides and inspired an environmental movement concerned largely with toxic chemicals and pollution. Although Carsoti was personally interested in other life forms, the environmental movement that arose in the l960's and continues today has been chielly absorbed with threats to human health and welfare. Most of the widely heralded American environmental laws of the late l960"s and early 197O's, for instance, speak of the "human environment," not natural ecosystems and native species. thus clearly distinguishing the environtnental movement from the older conservation movement (Foreman 1991). Moreover, despite the concerns of some influential ecologists of this period, such as Eugene Odum and George Woodwell, ecologists and other natural scientists were largely silent on such issues as overpopulation (Paul Ehrlich and Garrett Hardin being notable exceptions!), habitat destruction, and the extinction of species. The biology and ecology courses I took in the 1960"s and early 197O's scarcely mentioned these issues, aside fi"om passing comments on human population. Island biogeograpiiy I credit the e.\plosion of interest in potential applications of MacArthur and Wilson's (1963. 1967) theory of island biogeography in the mid-1970's as the primary stimulus for the development of modern conservation biology. Although MacArthur and Wilson published their theory in the l960"s and made brief tnention o\' extension to terrestrial habitat islands, it was the flurry of papers on the application of island biogeographic concepts to nature reserve design by Terborgh (1974). Willis (1974), Diamond (1975). and others - and the ensuing controversy over the appropriateness of these applications (Simberloff and Abele 1976. followed by Diamond 1976. Terborgh 1976, Whitcomb et al. 1976, etc.) that caught the attention of natural scientists and awakened Iheir interests in conservation. Island biogeography was interesting to ecologists because it was theoretical it posed testable hypotheses, and it seemed applicable to real-world problems. Even though its predictive capacity proved lo be marginal - there are just too many variables in the real world island biogeographic theory got scientists thinking in new, quantitative ways about spatial issues such as patch size and isolation and how they affect the persistence of populations (e.g., Soule et al. 1979. Harris 1984. Newmark 1985). This, in itself, was a tremendous contribution: moreover, it led directly to the concepts of minimum viable population (MVP) and population viability analysis (PVA). concepts which defined the new conservation biology. As a graduate student in ecology at the time the controversy over extrapolation of island biogeographic principles to reserve design unfolded in Science (e.g., Simberloff and Abeie 1976). I saw many of my fellow students develop a conservation element in their research. Although we were warned, in a genuinely friendly way, by our advisors to emphasize science over application, our personal interests leaned tnore and more toward the kind of topics that came to dominate the conservation biology literature of the succeeding decade. This brings us back to the lirst conference on conservation biology in the late l970's and, otie decade later, the founding of SCB. .lust as concerns about deforesta115 tCOGRAPUY 22:2 (19')9) tion in tropical colonies spurred the interest of European scientists in conservation in the eighteenth century, the loss of tropical forests and scientists' predictions about mass extinction were major factors in the emergence of the new conservation biology (Myers 1979. 1983, Wilson 1988). All four chapters in Part I (ecological principles of conservation) of the book that resulted from the first conservation biology conference {Soule and Wilcox 1980) contain the words "tropical" or "ncotropicaF" in their titles, and many other book chapters emphasized the tropics. Extinction of species probably occurring at highest rates in the tropics - was the primary worry of conservation biologists in the 1970"s and l980's. Although extinction and tropical ecology remain major areas of concern, the late l98O's and 1990"s have seen greatly increased attention to temperate biotas, other kinds of biotic impoverishment besides species extinction, and especially in the late !990's, overdue consideration of marine and freshwater biodiversity. Conservation biology today I address here four issues that are among the key interests of conservation biologists today: 1) whether principles of conservation biology arc sufficiently well established to guide conservation action in particular cases: 2) the controversy over the role of advocacy in conservation biology; 3) education and training in conservation biology; and 4) the professional distinctiveness of conservation biology. The discussions that have arisen over the first three issues are illustrative of the fourth - they make conservation biology distinct. tainty are: 1) species well distributed aeross their native range are less susceptible to extinction than species confined to small portions of their range. 2) Large blocks of habitat, containing large populations, are better than small blocks with small populations. 3) Blocks of habitat close together are better than blocks far apart. 4) Habitat in contiguous blocks is better than IVagmentcd habitat. 5) Interconnected blocks of habitat are better than isolated blocks. 6) Blocks of habitat that are roadless or otherwise inaccessible to humans arc better than roaded and accessible blocks. 7) The fewer data or more uncertainty, the more conservative (i.e., less reduction or disruption of natural habitats) a conservation or development plan should be. 8) Maintaining viable (i.e., undegraded. fully functioning) ecosystems is usually more efficient, economical, and effective than a species-by-species approach. 9) Biodiversity is not distributed randomly or uniformly across a landscape; in establishing protection priorities, consider "hotspots." I have discussed some of the evidence in support of these principles elsewhere (Noss et al. 1997). Generally, conservation biologists arc less able to make specific predictions about future eonditions than to generalize about what should not be done (Soule pers. comm.). That is. they can predict that reducing and fragmenting natural habitat, building roads, and many othci" human activities will lead to undesirable consequences, but they cannot predict exactly what those consequences will be. Conservation practitioners frequently rely on principles such as those offered above, sometimes unquestioningly. Nevertheless, each of these empirical generalizations has exceptions. They must be interpreted and applied to particular cases cautiously and only by competent biologists familiar with the region and taxa involved. Simplistic and uncritical application of general principles can lead to fiawed advice. Principle 5, regarding connectivity, is a ease in point. What conservation biologists are interested in is functional connectivity, which might be defined as the successful movement of individuals across the landscape, ultimately resulting in demographic and genetic interchange among populations (Noss and Cooperrider 1994). Functional connectivity is highly species-specific (Soule 1991). A corridor to one species may be a barrier to another. One species might require a milc-widc swath of undisturbed, late-successional forest as a corridor, whereas another can meander through the landscape matrix with little difficulty. Populations that are naturally isolated usually should not be connected by artificial corridors. Nevertheless, a "corridor craze" has hit the world, to the extent that conservation planners regularly draw corridors into their designs, with or without evidence that they may work (Simberloff and Cox 1987, Simberloff et al. 1992). The bandwagon effect notwithstanding, I do not believe that solid empirical evidence of a particular ECOGRAPHY 2::2 11999) Principles of conservation biology? Conservation biology in the 1990's progressed from simple generalizations and rules-of-thumb about population viability, reserve design, and other issues as it was forced to recognize the idiosyncracies of real cases. Some ecologists (e.g., Shrader-Frechette and McCoy 1993) insist that the world is all special cases and that eeologieal theory offers a poor guide to conservation decision-making. Yet, I think it would be improper to abandon the search for pattern and generalities. Indeed, because case-specific intbrmation is always poorer than desired for conservation planning, empirical generalizations derived from prior experience often provide the only reasonable foundation for decision-making. Decisions will be made with or without the input of conservation biologists, so it would behoove biologists to offer whatever legitimate advice they can. The key word, of course, is "legitimate." Among the generalizations or "principles" that have been offered to guide conservation in the lace of uncer116 corridor providing functional connectivity should be rt quired before that corridor becomes part of a conserviition plan. If it were, we would scarcely ever have a b.isis for protecting corridors (but see Beier and Noss 1''98). We know that fragmentation - the converse of connectivity - is generally bad, so the burden of proof should be on those who would disrupt the natural connectivity of a landscape. A good understanding of t t e biological needs of the focal species, however, is rt quired to make more specitic design recommendations. Poorly designed, narrow corridors with abundant edge habitat, for example, could conceivably do more hirm than good by exposing animals to predators (iicluding humans). In designing corridors, it seems to tbcus on the species most sensitive to habitat frjagmentation and to protect or restore the pathways that these organisms normally follow through the landscape. Conservation biologists as advocates Cne of the greatest strengths and weaknesses of conserition biology is that it is a normative, value-laden . From the beginning, the new conservation biol^ists had a mission. As pointed out by Soule (1985), ethical norms arc a genuine part of conservation biology, as they are in all mission- or crisis-oriented discip ines." A strength of having ethical norms (comparable, for instance, to the life-affirming norms of edical science) is that there is a strong sense of commitment on the part of practitioners and a shared di;sire to "do the right thing."" A weakness is that those who do not share your norms will attack you on p-inciple. A further weakness is the apparent contradiction with the traditional image of science as neutral, o )jective, and value-free. The overarching normative aiisumption in conservation biology is that biodiversity is good and ought to be preserved. Although this might a non-controversial proposition, it has caused scientists to feei uncomfortable with conservation ology and some anti-conservationists to dismiss it as religion, not science. Biologists remain divided over the proper relationship between science and advocacy. The issue is a complex one that 1 cannot do justice to here. I view rruch of the tension as essentially between two core ilues of any applied science: objectivity and public responsibility (Noss et al. 1997). An objective scientist should make his or her work as free of bias as possible. A publicly responsible scientist, on the other hand, should try to make research relevant to real-worJd pi'oblems. Further, applied scientists have a duty to interpret their findings in ways that will help solve the problems facing society. This interpretation frequently and properly includes explicit recommendations conctrning policy and management options. Because they ECOGRAPHY 22:2 are often the people most knowledgeable about the study area, ecosystem, or species in question, conservation biologists may be in the best position to make such recommendations to society. Whenever one recommends, however cautiously or conservatively, one advocates. The obligation of the conservation biologist, as oi' any applied scientist, is to make sure that this advocacy is responsible. Responsible advocacy is honest (i.e.. it seeks the truth) and strives to minimize biases (except the commendable bias of biophilia the love of living organisms and the desire to see them persist). In practice, a responsible scientist would not advocate a particular solution to a conservation problem until or unless there is an objective scientific basis tor taking that position. This is a crucial distinction. An unfortunate trend in modern "courtroom science"' is the use of expert witnesses as "hired guns."" individuals willing to support the biases and preconceived notions oC their clients. This trend threatens to undermine science and erode its status as a search for truth. But we must be careful to distinguish such dishonest advocacy from the honest attempt to find the best way to solve a conservation problem. Wanting to solve the problem is advocacy, and it is nothing to be ashamed oh The process of finding a solution, however, must be as objective as possible. Wiens (1996: 595), in a paper summarizing research on the effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, wrote that "[ajdvocacy can erode the objectivity and rigor of the scientific process... Although there is nothing wrong with predicting a result (all good scientific hypotheses otTer predictions), advocacy can bolster such expectations to the degree that contrary evidence is not considered or hypotheses are accepted without supporting evidence." Wiens is correct that scientists must consider contrary evidence fairly, not accept hypotheses without rigorously obtained supporting evidence, and take care not to cite data selectively. What he criticizes, however, is dishonesty, not advocacy. Shrader-Freehctte (1996) suggested that if scientists refuse to act as advocates, they ean inadvertently serve the status quo and perpetuate "ethical and environmental errors in the status quo."" If there is a consensus among conservation biologists on the issue of advocacy, it appears to be that advocacy is proper and unavoidable, but that how and what one advocates must be very carefully considered. An explicit statement of the values and goals underlying any position of advocacy would be helpful, especially in cases where advocacy of a conservation position actually or potentially conflicts with advocacy of other worthwhile goals (e.g.. saving a large area of tropical rain tbrest versus an economic development program for the people of that region). 117 Edncating conservation biologists The founders o( the new conservation biology arc now well into middle age. It is not surprising, then, that educational issues are being more regularly discussed among conservation biologists - we want to be sure the generation that replaces us is well trained! Most of today's conservation biologists come from traditional academic backgrounds, i.e., Ph.D.'s in biology, botany, or zoology, followed by faculty jobs at universities (Beissinger 1990. Noss 1997). A smaller number come from resource management fields (in my case, Ph.D. in wildlife ecology) and/or have professional experience primarily with governmental land-managing or environmental agencies or non-governmental organizations (chiefiy conservation groups and zoos). Although conservation biology professes to be interdisciplinary, or at least multi-disciplinary (Soule 19^5, Jacobson 1990), it is no secret that the vast majority of members of the Society for Conservation Biology and authors in its journal are traditionally-trained biologists whose abilities in tnanagetneni and policy, if any. are self-taught or acquired by painful experience. That biology is the core discipline of conservation biology is appropriate, not only to keep Ihe name of the tield accurate, but because the first, essential stage in any conservation planning or management endeavor is to understand the biology and ecology of the system the organisms involved, their interactions among each other and with their environment, and the factors that might make them vulnerable to decline or extinction. An emphasis on biology, as opposed to social science, is also consistent with the observation that human cultural systems are far more adaptable than biological systems. Nevertheless, conservation biologists increasingly recognize that the proximate and ultimate threats to biodiversity virtually all have to do with humans. Conservation solutions, therefore, are dependent on social and political decisions and, ultimately, on social change. In order to interact effectively in the pohtical arena, from the local scale to the global, the conservation biologist must understand social systems and possess reasonably good "people skills" (Jacobson and McDuff 1998, Clark unpubi.). Conservation biology and related programs at universities have proliferated over the last decade (Jacobson 1990, Jaeobson et al. 1995). but they are generally not training conservation biologists for the job opportunities and professional challenges of today (Orr 1990, Noss 1997, Meffe 1998, Jacobson and McDuff 1998, Soule and Press 1998). Although numbers for quantitative comparison arc unavailable, it appears certain that the vast majority of jobs for conservation biologists today are not in universities, but in land-managing and regulatory agencies, conservation groups, consulting firms, research institutes, zoos, and even industry. The multitude of students enrolled in conservation biology 118 and related programs at universities should be trained in the skills required for these jobs. It would be especially helpful if their professors had experience in the "real world"" outside of the academy, so that they could pass on the appropriate knowledge. Instead, graduate students are being trained as "little professors," regardless of whether they are seeking a Ph.D. or plan to pursue academic jobs, and the people training them usually have httle or no experience elsewhere. A further problem is that most academic curricula in conservation biology remain rigidly departmental with little opportunity tor interdisciplinary training (Noss 1997. Meffe 1998). Professional rivalry and competition for university funds cause department chairs to be highly turf-conscious. Graduate students usually are forced to specialize on narrow research topics, even though the job market increasingly requires broadlytrained, versatile professionals. Fssential skills in policy processes and communications arc ignored (Jacobson and MeDuff 1998. Clark unpubi.). Indeed. Jacobson and McDuff (1998: 263) suggest that "we may. in fact, be training idiot savants - individuals skilled in eertain areas - (in this case, the technical biological aspects of conservation) but largely inept in other aspects of the field."' The recent critics of academic curricula in conservation biology have suggested a number of possible solutions to the problems noted, including 1) development of truly interdisciplinary degree programs. 2) internships to develop job experience outside the university, 3) recruitment of faculty with extensive professional experience outside academia, 4) more coursework outside of biology, 5) increased emphasis on general natural history (as opposed to narrow, taxonomic specialization), 6) promotion of a problem-solving and policy-oriented approach to education, 7) development of strong communication skills in students, and 8) modification of faculty incentive systems to promote cooperation among departments and to reward individual faculty for real-world service to conservation (Bcissitiger 1990. Noss 1997, Meffe 1998, Jacobson and MeDuff 1998, Soule and Press 1998). Furthermore, all of this increasing breadth of training must be accomplished without sacrificing depth of training in the core discipline of biology (see Soule and Press 1998). Otherwise, we risk training jacks of all trades who are masters of none. There seems no escaping the conclusion that education in a field as complex as conservation biology requires degree programs significantly longer in duration than the idealized (but rarely attained) 4-ycar bachelors, 2-ycar master's, and 4-year doctoral programs of today. Students and administrators may at first balk at expanded course and internship requirements, but students who are able to complete such a curriculum will come out better trained and more competitive in the job market. Moreover, they might actuECOGRAPHY 22:2 ]y be equipped to address the complex and challenging conservation problems of the next century. Etistinctiveness Considering the above, then, is conservation biology s;:)ecial? Several analyses have shown that wildlife biol;y and conservation biology are distinct from each ther, as refiected in the content of their journals. Jmsen and Krausman (1993) compared the subject tatter and authors' affiliations in Conservation Biology to the Journal of Wildlife Management and V/ildhfe Society Bulletin for the period 1987-1991. Compared to the wildlife journals. Conservation Biolgy had a much broader scope geographically and xonomicaily, had far fewer papers on game species, hjad more papers with modeling and theory and much fewer papers on techniques, and had more diverse author affiliations. A second, more extensive analysis (:Junnell and Dupuis 1995) confirmed that the wildlife journals have emphasized game species and furbearers nee their inception, whereas Conservation Biology has had more papers addressing multiple species and spao-tcmporal scales. Curiously, Bunnell and Dupuis ( 995) concluded that the wildlife journals were more gorous than Conservation Biology, but their determination of rigor was merely the proportion of papers with methods sections, a highly questionable criterion (Noss 1995). Soule (1985) noted two characteristics of the resource management fields that distinguish them from conservation biology: "The first is the dominance in the resource fields of utilitarian, economic objectives...the emphasis is on our natural resources... The second ... is the nature of these resources. For the most part they are a small number of particularly valuable target species.'" It appears that Soule's statement is as true today as it was in 1985. Conservation biology generally represents a different, broader agenda and modus operandi than the resource management fields (Table 1). As pointed out by Aplet et al. (1992), however, the perceived differences between conservation biology and resource management are nothing new. They are simply the latest manifestation of the "A-B cleavage" recognized a half-century ago by Leopold (1949). wherein "one group (A) regards the land as soil, and its function as commodity-production; another group (B) regards the land as a biota, and its function something broader." It will be interesting to see if conservation biology draws closer to the status quo (i.e.. becomes more utilitarian and less biocentric) as it is increasingly institutionalized in government agencies, where the resource management fields have been for decades. A comparison of conservation biology with ecology is even simpler. Although extensive overlap exists be- able 1. Comparison of traditional resource management witli conservation biology. Revised from Apkt et al. (1992). Noss and (Cooperrider (1994). Parameter Traditional resource management (wildlife and tisheries biology, forestry, range management, etc.) anthropocentric: confident in human knowledge about resources and human effects on nature; not cautious; emphasizes human eontrol and domination of nature utilitarian; oriented toward human use of natural resources, supplying a harvestable surplus or sustainable yield to humans game or food species of mammals, birds, fishes; commercial timber trees; forage for livestock; emphasis on "improved" or introduced species short-term perspective narrow, politically defined boundaries usually strictly disciplinary; rigid boundaries between fields; uniform mostly empirical primarily agencies and academic fragmented/disciplinary competitive Conservation biology philosophical attitude usually biocentric or ecocentric, sometimes long-term anthropocentric; uncertain and cautious about elTects of human activities on nature; emphasizes humans living within limits of nature oriented toward conservation of all of biodiversity, with or without use by or benefit to humans all taxa; biodiversity at several levels of organization; emphasis on native species C'rientation taxa or interest time scale egion of interest education basis for paradigms professional affiliations gency programs interactions among {isciplines and gencies csponsiveness long-term perspective international, ecologically defined boundaries strives to be multi-disciplinary of inter-diseipiinary; diverse theoretical and empirical more diverse; primarily academic, but also agencies, conservation groups, etc. integrated cooperative management responsive to bureaucracy, politicians, and commodity users management responsive to loug-term needs of species (including humans) and ecosystems rOGRAPHY 22: tween conservation biology and applied ecology (as represented, for example, by the Journal of Applied Ecology and Ecological Applications), the sense of mission is much stronger in the conservation biology journals (e.g.. Conservation Biology and Biological Conservation). There is also in the latter a sense of urgency, of needing to act in the face of uncertainty: "In crisis disciplines, one must ael before knowing all the facts; crisis disciplines are thus a mixture of science and art, and their pursuit requires itituition as well as information" (Soule 1985). One finds little appeal to art and intuition in the traditional sciences. The traditional ecology journals (Ecology. Journal of Ecology, Oikos, Oecologia. etc.) and their associated societies generally lack a strong sense of mission oi' urgency. Paradoxically, many of the conservation planning schemes arising out of conservation biology, such as The Wildlands Project (Noss 1992, Foreman et al. 1992. Soule 1995. Soule and Terborgh 1999) arc less oriented toward immediate crises and more toward building long-tertn conservation networks over decades and centuries. In large part. then, the blossoming of conservation biology over the last two decades reficcts a failure of both traditional ecology and the traditional resource management disciplines to address modern conservation problems adequately. Nevertheless, some of the distinetion between conservation biology and related fields is breaking down as the techniques and methods of conservation biology are viewed as useful by an increasing sphere of professionals. I view this as a permeation of conservation biology into other fields, a natural and welcome response of professionals to the biodiversity crisis. Articles with a conservation focus are appearing more regularly in the traditional academic journals, such as Science, Natutx. and the ecological jout"nals noted above. Moreover, the Ecological Society of America has initiated the on-hne journal Conservation Ecology. Practitioners and academics at"e beginning to talk more often with each other. Although much of the leadership in wildlife biology (for example, Teer 1988 and some recent presidents of The Wildlife Society) has been hostile to conservation biology, an increasing number of wildlife biologists consider themselves conservation biologists, and vice versa. An increasing number of papers published in wildlife journals are essentially conservation biology papers (see. for example. Bcissengcr and Westphal 1998. Mladenoff and Sickley 1998. Meyer et al. 1998). make conservation biology unnecessary as a distinct science is uncertain. I suggest, however, that a need for a robust, integrative field of conservation science will exist for a long time to eotne. In response to the questions posed at the beginning of this essay, I conclude that conservation biology over the last two decades has made many new and "special"" contributions, both to science and to conservation. I predict that conservation biology will continue to make positive contributions, but will gradually become less distinct as its theories and techniques are incorporated into other disciplines. Continued speculation about how distinct conservation biology is from other fields is counterproductive. Instead, we should identify areas where conservation biology has not fulfilled its promise and where further progress is urgently needed. These needs include: 1) more broadly and rigorously trained professionals inside and outside aeademia; 2) more emphasis on gathering the basic field data necessary to construct and validate models; 3) compelling applications of conservation biology "on the ground" in land management: and 4) increased infiuence in the policy arena. A further need is to expand the international scope of conservation biology. I have written this commentary from a distinctly American perspective, with an emphasis on historical events and trends in North America. This ethnocentrism is defensible, in part, because conservation biology, as it is known today, developed initially in the United States, and the leading professional society and journal are centered here. On the other hand, other nations and regions are well ahead of Americans in several areas of this science. For example, the strong natural history tt"adition of northern Europe, especially in Fennoscandia and Britain, has allowed biodiversity considerations to contribute meaningfully to forestry, environmental monitoring, and land-use decisions generally. The natural histoi7 tradition is much weaker in North America, with the result that much of our conservation theorizing, modeling, and planning is going on in a vacuum. (The weakening continues with the loss of the "ologies." now viewed as old-iashioned. from university curricula). The Australians are leaders in several areas of conservation biology, particularly in the developtnent of efficient, practical methods of selecting and designing networks of nature reserves, but also in several areas of population genetics and PVA. Increasing international scope and membership is a major objective of SCB. In 1997 83'!4i of the membership was in the United States. The content of the journal is less biased, however. Only 6\"A> of the first authors in 1997 were from the United States, and the trend over the last few years has been inereasing representation of international authors. Ultimately, the profession o!" conservation biology will fulfill its chalECOGRAPHY 22:2 1.1919) Conservation biology tomorrow Whether the permeation of conservation-biological thinking and values into other sciences will eventually 120 nge only when the global community of decisionr takers looks to it regularly for advice on key issues :garding land-use and environmental policy. That day coes not. at present, appear close at hand, but the growing infiuence of conservation biology will bring ii oser. 'eferences 4plct. G. H.. Laven, R. D. and Fiedler. P. L. 1992. The relevance of conservation biolog)' to natural resource management. - Conserv. Biol. 6: 298-300. eier. P. and Noss, R. F. !998. Do habitat corridors provide connectivity? - Conserv. Biol. 12: 1241-1252. eissinger. S. R. 1990. On the limiis and directions of conservation biology. - BioSeience 40: 456 457. eissenger. S. R. and Westphal. M. 1. 1998. On the use of demographic models of population viability analysis in endangered species management. .1. Wildl. Manage. 62: 821-841. Ejuniiell, F. L. and Dupuis.. L. A. 1995. Conservation Biology's literature revisited: wine or vinaigrette? Wildl. Soc. Bull. 23: 56-62. Cox. G. W. (ed.) 1969. Readings in conservation ecology. Appleton-Century-Crofts. New York, iamond. J. M. 1975. The island dilemma: lessons of modeln biogeographic studies for the desisn of natural preserves. Biol. Conserv. 7: 129 !46. E iamond. J. M. 1976. Island biogeography and conservation: sirategy and limitations. - Science 193: 1027 -1029. lrenfeld. D. W. 1970. Biological conservation. - Holt. Rhinehart. and Winston, New York. Ejhrlich. P. R. 1987. Population biology, conservation biology. and the future of humanity. - BioSeience 37: 757-763. rington. P. L. and Hamcrstrom. F. N. 1937. The evaluation of nesting losses and juvenile mortality of the ring-neeked pheasant. J. Wildl. Manage. 1: 3-20. Ejoreman. D. 1991. The new eonservation movement. - Wild Earth 1: 6-12. Fjoreman. D. et al. 1992. The Wildlands project mission slatement. - Wild Earth (Special issue): 3 4. Fjox, S. R. 1981. .lohn Muir and his legacy: the Americim eonservation movement. - Little. Brown and Co., Boston. MA. C|rove. R. H. 1992. Origins of western environmentalism. Sci. Am. July 1992: 42 47. arris. L. D. 1984. The IVagmcnied forest: island biogeography theory and the preservation of biolic diversity. Univ. Chicago Press, hutchinson. G. E. 1948. On living in the biosphere. .Sci. Monthly 67: 393 397. cobson. S. K. 1990. Graduate ediicatiou in conser\alion biology. - Conserv. Biol. 4: 431-440. J; cobson. S. K. and McDuff, M. D. 1998. Training idiot savants: the lack of human dimensions in conservation biology. - Conserv. Biol. 12: 263 -267. JitoKson. S. K.. Vaughan. E. and Miller. S. W. 1995. New directions in eonservation biology: graduate progratus. Conserv. Biol. 9: 5-17. Jensen. M. N. and Krausman. P. R. 1993. Conservation Biology's literature: new wine or iust a new bottle? Wildl. .Soc. Bull. 21: 199 203. Oxford Univ. L ;opo[d. A. 1949. A sand county almanac. Press. acArlhur. R. H. and Wilson. E. O. 1963. An equilibrium theory of insular zoogeography. Evolution 17: 373 387. ^ acArlhur. R. H. and Wilson. E. O. 1967. The theory of island biogeography. - Princeton Univ. Press. OCiR.APHV 22:2 {\'m) Mclntosh, R. P. 1985. The background of ecology: concept and theory. Cambridge Univ. Press. Meffe. G. K. 1998. Softening the boundaries. Conserv. Biol. !2: 259 260. Meyer, J. S., irwin, L. L. and Boyce. M. S. 1998. Intlucncc of habitat abundance and fragmentation on spotted owls in western Oregon. Wildl. Monogr. 139. Miadenoff. D. .L and Sickley. T. A. 1998. Assessing potential gray wolf restoration in the northeastern United States: a spatial prediction o!" favorable habitat and potential population levels. - J. Wildl. Manage. 62: I 10. Myers, N. 1979. The sinking ark: a new look at the problem of disappearing species. - Pergamon Press. Myers. N. 1983. A wealth of wild species. Westview Press. Boulder. CO. Nash. R. F. 1989. The rights of nature: a history of environmental ethics. - Univ. Wisconsin Press. Ncwmark. W. D. 1985. Legal and biotic boundaries of western North American national parks: a problem of congruence. Biol. Conserv. 33: 197 208. Noss, R. F. 1992. The Wildlands Project: land conservation strategy. - Wild Eitrlh (Special issue): 10-25. Noss. R. F. 1995. Assessina ritior and objectivity in conservation science. - Wildl. SV-/BU11. 23: 539-541. Noss. R. V. 1997. The failure of universities to produce conservation biologists. - Conserv. Biol. 11: 1267 1269. Noss, R. F. and Cooperrider. A. Y. 1994. Saving nature's legacy: protecting and restoring biodiversity. Island Press, Washincton. DC. Noss. R. F., O"Connell. M. A. and Murphy. D. D. 1997. The science of conservation planning: habitat conservation under the Fndangered Species Act. Island Press. Washington, DCOrr, D. W. 1990. Whal is education For? - Environ. Prof. 12: .351-355. Shrader-Frechette. K. 1996. Throwing out the bathwater of positivism, keeping the baby of objectivity: relativism and advocacy in conservation biology. - Conserv. Biol. 10: 912-914'. Siiradcr-Frechette. K. and McCoy. E. D. 1993. Method in ecology: strategies for conservation. Cambridge Univ. Press. Simberloff. D. and Abele. L. G. 1976. Island biogeography theory and conservation practice. - Science 191: 285 286. Simberloff. D. and Cox. J. 1987. Consequences and costs of conservation corridors. - Conserv. Biol. 1: 63 71. Simberloff, D. et al. 1992. Movement corridors: conservation bargains or poor investrncnts? - Conserv. Biol. 6: 493504. Soule. M. E. 1985. What is conservation biology? - BioSciencc 35: 727 734. Soule, M. E. (ed.) 1986. Conservation biology: the science of scarcity and diversity. Sinauer. Soule. M. E. 1991. Theory and strategy. - In: Hudson, W. E. (ed.). Landscape linkages and biodiversity. Island Press, Washington. DC. pp. 91- 1()4. Soule, M. E. 1995. An unflinching vision: networks of" people defending networks of lands. - Tn: Saunders. D., Craig. J. L. and Mattiske. E. M. (eds). Nature conservation 4: the role of networks. Surrey Beatty. Sydney, pp. i - 8 . Soule. M. E. and Wilco.x. B. A. (eds) l"980. Conservation biology: an evolutionary-ecological perspective. Sinauer. Soule. M. E. and Press. D. 1998. What is environmental studies? BioSeience 48: 397 405. Soule. M. E. and Terborgh. J. (eds) !999. Continental reserve networks. Island Press. Washinijton. DC. Soule. M. E.. Wilcox. B. A. and Holtby. C. 1979. Benign neglect: a model of fauna! collapse in the same reserves of East Africa. - Biol. Conserv. 15: 259-272. Teer, J. G. 1988. Review of conservation biology: the science of scarcity and diversity. - J. Wildl. Manace. 52: 570572. Terborgh, J. 1974. Preservation of natural diversity: the problem of extinction prone species. - BioSeience 24: 715722. Terborgh. J. 1976. Island biogeography and conservation: strategy and limitations. - Science 19.3: 1029-1030. Thomas. J. W. and Salwasser, H. 1989. Bringing conservation biology into a position of influence in natural resource management. Conserv. Biol. 3: 123 127. Whitcomb. R. F. el al. 1976. Island biogeography and conservation: strategy and limitations. - Science 193: 10301032. Wiens, J. A. 1996. Oil. seabirds. and science. - Bioscience 46: 587-597. Willis. F. O. 1974. Populations and local extinctions of birds on B;trro Colorado Island, Panama. - Ecol. Monogr. 44: 153 169. Wilson. H. O. (ed.) l'>88. Biodiversity. - Nat. Aead. Press. Washington. DC. Worster, D. 1977. Nature's economy: the roots of ecology. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, CA. Zaslowsky. D. 1986. 'I'hese American lands: parks, wilderness. and the public lands. - The Wilderness Society and Henry Holt. New York. tiCOGRAPHY 32:2 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Ecography Wiley

Is there a special conservation biology?

Ecography , Volume 22 (2) – Apr 1, 1999

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Copyright © 1999 Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
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0906-7590
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1600-0587
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Abstract

Noss. R. 1999. Is there a special conservation biology? Ecography 22: 113-122. Conservation biology is special to the extent that it (ills useful roles in the scientific and conservation fields that are not being tilled by practitioners of other disciplines. The emergence of the "new conservation biology" in the late 1970's and its blossoming in the l980"s and 199O's reflect, to a large degree, a failure of traditional academic ecology and the natural resource disciplines to address modern conservation problems adequately. Yet. to be successful conservation biology, as an interdisciplinary field, must build on the strengths of other disciplines both basic and applied. The new conservation biology grew out of concern over extinction of species, although the field has expanded to include issues about management of several levels of biological organization. I examine four controversial questions of importance to conservation biologists today: I) are there any robust principles of conservation biology? 2) Is advocacy an appropriate activity of conservation biologists? 3) Are we educating conservation biologists properly? 4) Is conservation biology distinct from other biological and resource management disciplines? I answer three of these questions with a tentative "yes" and one (3) with a regretful "in most cases, no."" I see a need for broader Training for students of conservation biology, more emphasis on collecting basic field data, compelling applications of conservation biology to real problems, increased intluenee on policy, and expansion of the international scope of the discipline. If all these occur, conservation biology will by truly special. R. .Vci.v.s (n!>ssy(a.;iics.(>i'S!.eclti). Conservulion Biology Ins!.. SOt) .VH' Shirker Arc. Siil MC. Con-aUis^OR 97330. USA. Whether cotiservatioti biology is a distinct discipline with its owti theories, methods, and applicatiotis or simply an amalgam of what scientists atid practitiotiers in many diseiplincs have been doing for years is a troubling question to eonservation biologists who yearn for a disciplinary identity. It is evidetitly more troubling to the wildlife and fisheries biologists, foresters, range managers, and other applied scientists who feel threatened by this ostensibly new "metadiseipline" that has suddenly grabbed the spotlight oC scientifie and policy interest. Many natural resources professionals feel that "We were eonservation biologists when conservation biology wasn't coor' {Thomas and Salwasser 1989). As one disgruntled wildlife biologist - an ackno\vledged leader in his field - commented in his review of a eonservation biology text, 'The new soeiety [Society for Conset"vation Bioiogy] is either naive about what has been done by conservation biologists and tnanagers in the past or it chooses to ignore it...What the society proposes to be, the profession o\' wildlife eeology and tnanagemeiit has been for all of its history"" (Teer 1988). I must begin by divulging my biases. 1 call myself a eonservation biologist, work for the Conservation Biology Institute, edited the journal Conservation Biology for several years, and I am currently president-eleet of the Soeiety for Conservation Biology. I am hardly itiipai'tial. To pretend that ! ean objectively address the question suggested to me by the editors of Oikos and Eeography "Is there a special conservation biology?" - would be deceitful. Nevertheless. I attempt to address what I feel are the most important questions regarding the speeialness of eonservation biology: are self-proclaimed conservation biologists filling useful roles in the seientific and conservation commttnities that have not This is an invited Minireview on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Nordic Ecological Society Oikos. Copyright © ECOGRAPHY 1999 ISSN 0906-7590 Printed in Ireland ali rights reserved Rft)CiR.\PHY 222 been filled by academic ecology and the resource management disciplines? How can these roles be enhanced? History Meanings of "conservation biology" As hinted in my tirst paragraph, a professional rivalry of sorts has developed between conservation biologisis (as represented by the Society for Conservation Biology) and wildlife biologists (as represented by The Wildlife Society, at least in the U.S,A,), Thus, it is interesting that the first recorded use of the term "conservtttion biology'' was in the inaugural issue of The Wildlife Society's journal, the Journal of Wildlife Management. In that issue Errington and Hamerstrom (1937) began a paper on nest failures of ring-necked pheasant Phasianus colchicus with the words. "In the new and growing field of conservation biology.,," In those days conservation meant something different from what it means today. Conservation, in America at least, was strictly utilitarian and was opposed to ••preservation,'' which meant protecting the wonders of nature, mostly tor tlie spiritual and aesthetic enrichment of mankind (Fox 1981). Preservation today is interpreted as a hands-off approach, one option in a broad spectrum of conservation strategies. And whereas the early conservation biology of The Wildlife Society was focused exclusively on game species of mammals and birds, and remains strongly oriented in this direction today (Jensen and Krausman 1993. Bunnell and Dupuis 1995), modern conservation biology cuts across all taxa - the obviously useful as well as the seemingly useless and has a bundle of both anthropocentric and biocentric aims. Ironically, modern conservation biologists would not view favorably the specific subject of Errington iind Hamerstrom's paper an introduced game bird that, in some places, has had harmful, competitive interactions with native birds. By the time the term "conservation biology" appeared regularly in the late 197O's. the focus had changed considerably. Many conservation biologists would accept as historical fact Ehrlich's (1987: 761) summarization that "the beginning of conservation biology as a unified discipline can be traced to a symposium organized by Michael Soulc and Bruce WiJ^ox in September 1978 at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and to the volume they subsequently edited" (i,e,, Soule and Wilcox 1980). This event was preceded, however, by many, scattered journal articles and several books that carried a conservation biological theme, perhaps most notably Readings in Conservation Ecology (Cox 1969) and Biological Conservation (Ehrenfeld 1970). In May 1985 the Second Conference on Conservation Biology was held In Ann Arbor, Michigan, A noteworthy outcome of this meeting (besides Soule 1986) was 14 the founding of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB). with the explicit mission "to help develop the scientific and technical means for the protection, maintenance, and restoration of life on this planet - its species, its ecological and evolutionary processes, and its particular and total environmeni/" Also of significance in the late 198O's was a 1986 National Forum on Biodiversity, sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution, which resulted in an infiuential book (Wilson 1988), The term "biodiversity" subsequently became the guiding paradigm of conservation biology and even resulted in draft legislation in the United States, The journal Conservation Biology began publication in spring 1987. (It is interesting to note that the British journal. Biological Conservation, had been running for 17 years at that time, but never was associated with a scientific society). When the SCB held its first meeting in June of 1987, it already contained > 1500 members and was growing rapidly. Although I can find no comparative statistics to vahdate the claim, several observers have stated that SCB's growth in the 1990"s is the most rapid of any professional society. Membership is now over 5000 and still growing, albeit not as rapidly as in the early years. Involvement of scientists in conservation What happened in the half century from 1937 to 1987 was pivotal to the modern interpretation of conservation biology. Scientists and the public had slowly become aware oi' the extinction crisis. The idea that human civilization and nature were on a collision course did not arise first in the twentieth eentury. The roots of the conservation movement in the West can be traced at least to the mid-eighteenth century, when several European scientists pointed out the threat colonialism posed to the ecology of tropical areas, especially islands (Grove 1992), Deforestation had been decried by some scientists a century earlier. In the nineteenth century. American writers such as James Fenimore Cooper. Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau extolled the values of wilderness and worried about its destruction. The publication of Man and Nature by George Perkins Marsh in 1864 was heralded as a turning point, whence the vulnerability of nature to human intrusions was widely acknowledged. The establishment of national parks, laws protecting wildlife, and other conservation achievements in America, Europe, and Australia followed rapidly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Worstcr 1977. Fox 1981. Zasiowsicy 1986. Nash 1989, Grove 1992), Despite the burgeoning growth of the conservation movement in the twentieth century, most natural scientists - perhaps trying to remain detached, impartial observers were aloof to the problem of biotic impovECOGk.APlIY 22'2 ej-ishment. For a time the science of ecology seemed to offer a way for scientists to involve themselves legitimately in conservation activities. In the early to mid 20lh eentury, several British ecologists, including F. W. Oliver and Arthur Tansley. were active in public efforts to establish a system of nature reserves (Mclntosh 1985). One of the first actions of the Ecological Society of America after its forrnation in 1917 was to establish a Committee on the Preservation of Natural Conditions, chaired by Victor Shelford. arguably one of the first scientists to warrant the description "conservation biologist" in the modern sense. For nearly 30 years Shclford's committees sought representation in nature reserves of each of North America's biomes as complete ecosystems including top predators, and supported specific activities such as those of Save-thc-Redwoods League and other land preservation grotips. Shelford's efforts, however, proved controversial among his fellow ecologists. In 1946 the Ecological Society of America, concerned about Shelford's advocacy, voted to discontinue his committee. Undeterred. Shelford immediately organized an independent group of ecologists. called the Ecologists' Union, to continue conservation work. This organization, in 1950, was renamed The Nature Conservancy (Mclntosh 1985) and is today the major land conservation organization in North America. Among the illustrious members of Shelford's committees was Aldo Leopold. Leopold, who served as president of both The Wildlife Soeiety and the Ecological Society of Arncrica, not only was able to bridge the gap between the natural resources disciplines and academic ecology, but had a tremendous influence on succeeding generations of conservationists through expression of his "land etliic^" (Leopold 1949). I As exemplified by the Ecological Society of America's 1946 decisioti on advocacy, the post-war attitude in science was far removed from a conservation ethic. Industrial progress was the prominent concern. Some scientists, however, were worried about the environmental impacts of such "progress." In 1948 G. Evelyn Hutchinson warned of the dangers of the expanding human population and the disruption of geochemical cycles, one outcome of which could be global warming. Hutchinson suggested "it ought to be possible to show that it is as much fun to repair the biosphere and the human societies within it as it is to mend the radio or the family car."" In 1962 Rachel Carson's Silent Spring alerted the public to the dangers oi" pesticides and inspired an environmental movement concerned largely with toxic chemicals and pollution. Although Carsoti was personally interested in other life forms, the environmental movement that arose in the l960's and continues today has been chielly absorbed with threats to human health and welfare. Most of the widely heralded American environmental laws of the late l960"s and early 197O's, for instance, speak of the "human environment," not natural ecosystems and native species. thus clearly distinguishing the environtnental movement from the older conservation movement (Foreman 1991). Moreover, despite the concerns of some influential ecologists of this period, such as Eugene Odum and George Woodwell, ecologists and other natural scientists were largely silent on such issues as overpopulation (Paul Ehrlich and Garrett Hardin being notable exceptions!), habitat destruction, and the extinction of species. The biology and ecology courses I took in the 1960"s and early 197O's scarcely mentioned these issues, aside fi"om passing comments on human population. Island biogeograpiiy I credit the e.\plosion of interest in potential applications of MacArthur and Wilson's (1963. 1967) theory of island biogeography in the mid-1970's as the primary stimulus for the development of modern conservation biology. Although MacArthur and Wilson published their theory in the l960"s and made brief tnention o\' extension to terrestrial habitat islands, it was the flurry of papers on the application of island biogeographic concepts to nature reserve design by Terborgh (1974). Willis (1974), Diamond (1975). and others - and the ensuing controversy over the appropriateness of these applications (Simberloff and Abele 1976. followed by Diamond 1976. Terborgh 1976, Whitcomb et al. 1976, etc.) that caught the attention of natural scientists and awakened Iheir interests in conservation. Island biogeography was interesting to ecologists because it was theoretical it posed testable hypotheses, and it seemed applicable to real-world problems. Even though its predictive capacity proved lo be marginal - there are just too many variables in the real world island biogeographic theory got scientists thinking in new, quantitative ways about spatial issues such as patch size and isolation and how they affect the persistence of populations (e.g., Soule et al. 1979. Harris 1984. Newmark 1985). This, in itself, was a tremendous contribution: moreover, it led directly to the concepts of minimum viable population (MVP) and population viability analysis (PVA). concepts which defined the new conservation biology. As a graduate student in ecology at the time the controversy over extrapolation of island biogeographic principles to reserve design unfolded in Science (e.g., Simberloff and Abeie 1976). I saw many of my fellow students develop a conservation element in their research. Although we were warned, in a genuinely friendly way, by our advisors to emphasize science over application, our personal interests leaned tnore and more toward the kind of topics that came to dominate the conservation biology literature of the succeeding decade. This brings us back to the lirst conference on conservation biology in the late l970's and, otie decade later, the founding of SCB. .lust as concerns about deforesta115 tCOGRAPUY 22:2 (19')9) tion in tropical colonies spurred the interest of European scientists in conservation in the eighteenth century, the loss of tropical forests and scientists' predictions about mass extinction were major factors in the emergence of the new conservation biology (Myers 1979. 1983, Wilson 1988). All four chapters in Part I (ecological principles of conservation) of the book that resulted from the first conservation biology conference {Soule and Wilcox 1980) contain the words "tropical" or "ncotropicaF" in their titles, and many other book chapters emphasized the tropics. Extinction of species probably occurring at highest rates in the tropics - was the primary worry of conservation biologists in the 1970"s and l980's. Although extinction and tropical ecology remain major areas of concern, the late l98O's and 1990"s have seen greatly increased attention to temperate biotas, other kinds of biotic impoverishment besides species extinction, and especially in the late !990's, overdue consideration of marine and freshwater biodiversity. Conservation biology today I address here four issues that are among the key interests of conservation biologists today: 1) whether principles of conservation biology arc sufficiently well established to guide conservation action in particular cases: 2) the controversy over the role of advocacy in conservation biology; 3) education and training in conservation biology; and 4) the professional distinctiveness of conservation biology. The discussions that have arisen over the first three issues are illustrative of the fourth - they make conservation biology distinct. tainty are: 1) species well distributed aeross their native range are less susceptible to extinction than species confined to small portions of their range. 2) Large blocks of habitat, containing large populations, are better than small blocks with small populations. 3) Blocks of habitat close together are better than blocks far apart. 4) Habitat in contiguous blocks is better than IVagmentcd habitat. 5) Interconnected blocks of habitat are better than isolated blocks. 6) Blocks of habitat that are roadless or otherwise inaccessible to humans arc better than roaded and accessible blocks. 7) The fewer data or more uncertainty, the more conservative (i.e., less reduction or disruption of natural habitats) a conservation or development plan should be. 8) Maintaining viable (i.e., undegraded. fully functioning) ecosystems is usually more efficient, economical, and effective than a species-by-species approach. 9) Biodiversity is not distributed randomly or uniformly across a landscape; in establishing protection priorities, consider "hotspots." I have discussed some of the evidence in support of these principles elsewhere (Noss et al. 1997). Generally, conservation biologists arc less able to make specific predictions about future eonditions than to generalize about what should not be done (Soule pers. comm.). That is. they can predict that reducing and fragmenting natural habitat, building roads, and many othci" human activities will lead to undesirable consequences, but they cannot predict exactly what those consequences will be. Conservation practitioners frequently rely on principles such as those offered above, sometimes unquestioningly. Nevertheless, each of these empirical generalizations has exceptions. They must be interpreted and applied to particular cases cautiously and only by competent biologists familiar with the region and taxa involved. Simplistic and uncritical application of general principles can lead to fiawed advice. Principle 5, regarding connectivity, is a ease in point. What conservation biologists are interested in is functional connectivity, which might be defined as the successful movement of individuals across the landscape, ultimately resulting in demographic and genetic interchange among populations (Noss and Cooperrider 1994). Functional connectivity is highly species-specific (Soule 1991). A corridor to one species may be a barrier to another. One species might require a milc-widc swath of undisturbed, late-successional forest as a corridor, whereas another can meander through the landscape matrix with little difficulty. Populations that are naturally isolated usually should not be connected by artificial corridors. Nevertheless, a "corridor craze" has hit the world, to the extent that conservation planners regularly draw corridors into their designs, with or without evidence that they may work (Simberloff and Cox 1987, Simberloff et al. 1992). The bandwagon effect notwithstanding, I do not believe that solid empirical evidence of a particular ECOGRAPHY 2::2 11999) Principles of conservation biology? Conservation biology in the 1990's progressed from simple generalizations and rules-of-thumb about population viability, reserve design, and other issues as it was forced to recognize the idiosyncracies of real cases. Some ecologists (e.g., Shrader-Frechette and McCoy 1993) insist that the world is all special cases and that eeologieal theory offers a poor guide to conservation decision-making. Yet, I think it would be improper to abandon the search for pattern and generalities. Indeed, because case-specific intbrmation is always poorer than desired for conservation planning, empirical generalizations derived from prior experience often provide the only reasonable foundation for decision-making. Decisions will be made with or without the input of conservation biologists, so it would behoove biologists to offer whatever legitimate advice they can. The key word, of course, is "legitimate." Among the generalizations or "principles" that have been offered to guide conservation in the lace of uncer116 corridor providing functional connectivity should be rt quired before that corridor becomes part of a conserviition plan. If it were, we would scarcely ever have a b.isis for protecting corridors (but see Beier and Noss 1''98). We know that fragmentation - the converse of connectivity - is generally bad, so the burden of proof should be on those who would disrupt the natural connectivity of a landscape. A good understanding of t t e biological needs of the focal species, however, is rt quired to make more specitic design recommendations. Poorly designed, narrow corridors with abundant edge habitat, for example, could conceivably do more hirm than good by exposing animals to predators (iicluding humans). In designing corridors, it seems to tbcus on the species most sensitive to habitat frjagmentation and to protect or restore the pathways that these organisms normally follow through the landscape. Conservation biologists as advocates Cne of the greatest strengths and weaknesses of conserition biology is that it is a normative, value-laden . From the beginning, the new conservation biol^ists had a mission. As pointed out by Soule (1985), ethical norms arc a genuine part of conservation biology, as they are in all mission- or crisis-oriented discip ines." A strength of having ethical norms (comparable, for instance, to the life-affirming norms of edical science) is that there is a strong sense of commitment on the part of practitioners and a shared di;sire to "do the right thing."" A weakness is that those who do not share your norms will attack you on p-inciple. A further weakness is the apparent contradiction with the traditional image of science as neutral, o )jective, and value-free. The overarching normative aiisumption in conservation biology is that biodiversity is good and ought to be preserved. Although this might a non-controversial proposition, it has caused scientists to feei uncomfortable with conservation ology and some anti-conservationists to dismiss it as religion, not science. Biologists remain divided over the proper relationship between science and advocacy. The issue is a complex one that 1 cannot do justice to here. I view rruch of the tension as essentially between two core ilues of any applied science: objectivity and public responsibility (Noss et al. 1997). An objective scientist should make his or her work as free of bias as possible. A publicly responsible scientist, on the other hand, should try to make research relevant to real-worJd pi'oblems. Further, applied scientists have a duty to interpret their findings in ways that will help solve the problems facing society. This interpretation frequently and properly includes explicit recommendations conctrning policy and management options. Because they ECOGRAPHY 22:2 are often the people most knowledgeable about the study area, ecosystem, or species in question, conservation biologists may be in the best position to make such recommendations to society. Whenever one recommends, however cautiously or conservatively, one advocates. The obligation of the conservation biologist, as oi' any applied scientist, is to make sure that this advocacy is responsible. Responsible advocacy is honest (i.e.. it seeks the truth) and strives to minimize biases (except the commendable bias of biophilia the love of living organisms and the desire to see them persist). In practice, a responsible scientist would not advocate a particular solution to a conservation problem until or unless there is an objective scientific basis tor taking that position. This is a crucial distinction. An unfortunate trend in modern "courtroom science"' is the use of expert witnesses as "hired guns."" individuals willing to support the biases and preconceived notions oC their clients. This trend threatens to undermine science and erode its status as a search for truth. But we must be careful to distinguish such dishonest advocacy from the honest attempt to find the best way to solve a conservation problem. Wanting to solve the problem is advocacy, and it is nothing to be ashamed oh The process of finding a solution, however, must be as objective as possible. Wiens (1996: 595), in a paper summarizing research on the effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, wrote that "[ajdvocacy can erode the objectivity and rigor of the scientific process... Although there is nothing wrong with predicting a result (all good scientific hypotheses otTer predictions), advocacy can bolster such expectations to the degree that contrary evidence is not considered or hypotheses are accepted without supporting evidence." Wiens is correct that scientists must consider contrary evidence fairly, not accept hypotheses without rigorously obtained supporting evidence, and take care not to cite data selectively. What he criticizes, however, is dishonesty, not advocacy. Shrader-Freehctte (1996) suggested that if scientists refuse to act as advocates, they ean inadvertently serve the status quo and perpetuate "ethical and environmental errors in the status quo."" If there is a consensus among conservation biologists on the issue of advocacy, it appears to be that advocacy is proper and unavoidable, but that how and what one advocates must be very carefully considered. An explicit statement of the values and goals underlying any position of advocacy would be helpful, especially in cases where advocacy of a conservation position actually or potentially conflicts with advocacy of other worthwhile goals (e.g.. saving a large area of tropical rain tbrest versus an economic development program for the people of that region). 117 Edncating conservation biologists The founders o( the new conservation biology arc now well into middle age. It is not surprising, then, that educational issues are being more regularly discussed among conservation biologists - we want to be sure the generation that replaces us is well trained! Most of today's conservation biologists come from traditional academic backgrounds, i.e., Ph.D.'s in biology, botany, or zoology, followed by faculty jobs at universities (Beissinger 1990. Noss 1997). A smaller number come from resource management fields (in my case, Ph.D. in wildlife ecology) and/or have professional experience primarily with governmental land-managing or environmental agencies or non-governmental organizations (chiefiy conservation groups and zoos). Although conservation biology professes to be interdisciplinary, or at least multi-disciplinary (Soule 19^5, Jacobson 1990), it is no secret that the vast majority of members of the Society for Conservation Biology and authors in its journal are traditionally-trained biologists whose abilities in tnanagetneni and policy, if any. are self-taught or acquired by painful experience. That biology is the core discipline of conservation biology is appropriate, not only to keep Ihe name of the tield accurate, but because the first, essential stage in any conservation planning or management endeavor is to understand the biology and ecology of the system the organisms involved, their interactions among each other and with their environment, and the factors that might make them vulnerable to decline or extinction. An emphasis on biology, as opposed to social science, is also consistent with the observation that human cultural systems are far more adaptable than biological systems. Nevertheless, conservation biologists increasingly recognize that the proximate and ultimate threats to biodiversity virtually all have to do with humans. Conservation solutions, therefore, are dependent on social and political decisions and, ultimately, on social change. In order to interact effectively in the pohtical arena, from the local scale to the global, the conservation biologist must understand social systems and possess reasonably good "people skills" (Jacobson and McDuff 1998, Clark unpubi.). Conservation biology and related programs at universities have proliferated over the last decade (Jacobson 1990, Jaeobson et al. 1995). but they are generally not training conservation biologists for the job opportunities and professional challenges of today (Orr 1990, Noss 1997, Meffe 1998, Jacobson and McDuff 1998, Soule and Press 1998). Although numbers for quantitative comparison arc unavailable, it appears certain that the vast majority of jobs for conservation biologists today are not in universities, but in land-managing and regulatory agencies, conservation groups, consulting firms, research institutes, zoos, and even industry. The multitude of students enrolled in conservation biology 118 and related programs at universities should be trained in the skills required for these jobs. It would be especially helpful if their professors had experience in the "real world"" outside of the academy, so that they could pass on the appropriate knowledge. Instead, graduate students are being trained as "little professors," regardless of whether they are seeking a Ph.D. or plan to pursue academic jobs, and the people training them usually have httle or no experience elsewhere. A further problem is that most academic curricula in conservation biology remain rigidly departmental with little opportunity tor interdisciplinary training (Noss 1997. Meffe 1998). Professional rivalry and competition for university funds cause department chairs to be highly turf-conscious. Graduate students usually are forced to specialize on narrow research topics, even though the job market increasingly requires broadlytrained, versatile professionals. Fssential skills in policy processes and communications arc ignored (Jacobson and MeDuff 1998. Clark unpubi.). Indeed. Jacobson and McDuff (1998: 263) suggest that "we may. in fact, be training idiot savants - individuals skilled in eertain areas - (in this case, the technical biological aspects of conservation) but largely inept in other aspects of the field."' The recent critics of academic curricula in conservation biology have suggested a number of possible solutions to the problems noted, including 1) development of truly interdisciplinary degree programs. 2) internships to develop job experience outside the university, 3) recruitment of faculty with extensive professional experience outside academia, 4) more coursework outside of biology, 5) increased emphasis on general natural history (as opposed to narrow, taxonomic specialization), 6) promotion of a problem-solving and policy-oriented approach to education, 7) development of strong communication skills in students, and 8) modification of faculty incentive systems to promote cooperation among departments and to reward individual faculty for real-world service to conservation (Bcissitiger 1990. Noss 1997, Meffe 1998, Jacobson and MeDuff 1998, Soule and Press 1998). Furthermore, all of this increasing breadth of training must be accomplished without sacrificing depth of training in the core discipline of biology (see Soule and Press 1998). Otherwise, we risk training jacks of all trades who are masters of none. There seems no escaping the conclusion that education in a field as complex as conservation biology requires degree programs significantly longer in duration than the idealized (but rarely attained) 4-ycar bachelors, 2-ycar master's, and 4-year doctoral programs of today. Students and administrators may at first balk at expanded course and internship requirements, but students who are able to complete such a curriculum will come out better trained and more competitive in the job market. Moreover, they might actuECOGRAPHY 22:2 ]y be equipped to address the complex and challenging conservation problems of the next century. Etistinctiveness Considering the above, then, is conservation biology s;:)ecial? Several analyses have shown that wildlife biol;y and conservation biology are distinct from each ther, as refiected in the content of their journals. Jmsen and Krausman (1993) compared the subject tatter and authors' affiliations in Conservation Biology to the Journal of Wildlife Management and V/ildhfe Society Bulletin for the period 1987-1991. Compared to the wildlife journals. Conservation Biolgy had a much broader scope geographically and xonomicaily, had far fewer papers on game species, hjad more papers with modeling and theory and much fewer papers on techniques, and had more diverse author affiliations. A second, more extensive analysis (:Junnell and Dupuis 1995) confirmed that the wildlife journals have emphasized game species and furbearers nee their inception, whereas Conservation Biology has had more papers addressing multiple species and spao-tcmporal scales. Curiously, Bunnell and Dupuis ( 995) concluded that the wildlife journals were more gorous than Conservation Biology, but their determination of rigor was merely the proportion of papers with methods sections, a highly questionable criterion (Noss 1995). Soule (1985) noted two characteristics of the resource management fields that distinguish them from conservation biology: "The first is the dominance in the resource fields of utilitarian, economic objectives...the emphasis is on our natural resources... The second ... is the nature of these resources. For the most part they are a small number of particularly valuable target species.'" It appears that Soule's statement is as true today as it was in 1985. Conservation biology generally represents a different, broader agenda and modus operandi than the resource management fields (Table 1). As pointed out by Aplet et al. (1992), however, the perceived differences between conservation biology and resource management are nothing new. They are simply the latest manifestation of the "A-B cleavage" recognized a half-century ago by Leopold (1949). wherein "one group (A) regards the land as soil, and its function as commodity-production; another group (B) regards the land as a biota, and its function something broader." It will be interesting to see if conservation biology draws closer to the status quo (i.e.. becomes more utilitarian and less biocentric) as it is increasingly institutionalized in government agencies, where the resource management fields have been for decades. A comparison of conservation biology with ecology is even simpler. Although extensive overlap exists be- able 1. Comparison of traditional resource management witli conservation biology. Revised from Apkt et al. (1992). Noss and (Cooperrider (1994). Parameter Traditional resource management (wildlife and tisheries biology, forestry, range management, etc.) anthropocentric: confident in human knowledge about resources and human effects on nature; not cautious; emphasizes human eontrol and domination of nature utilitarian; oriented toward human use of natural resources, supplying a harvestable surplus or sustainable yield to humans game or food species of mammals, birds, fishes; commercial timber trees; forage for livestock; emphasis on "improved" or introduced species short-term perspective narrow, politically defined boundaries usually strictly disciplinary; rigid boundaries between fields; uniform mostly empirical primarily agencies and academic fragmented/disciplinary competitive Conservation biology philosophical attitude usually biocentric or ecocentric, sometimes long-term anthropocentric; uncertain and cautious about elTects of human activities on nature; emphasizes humans living within limits of nature oriented toward conservation of all of biodiversity, with or without use by or benefit to humans all taxa; biodiversity at several levels of organization; emphasis on native species C'rientation taxa or interest time scale egion of interest education basis for paradigms professional affiliations gency programs interactions among {isciplines and gencies csponsiveness long-term perspective international, ecologically defined boundaries strives to be multi-disciplinary of inter-diseipiinary; diverse theoretical and empirical more diverse; primarily academic, but also agencies, conservation groups, etc. integrated cooperative management responsive to bureaucracy, politicians, and commodity users management responsive to loug-term needs of species (including humans) and ecosystems rOGRAPHY 22: tween conservation biology and applied ecology (as represented, for example, by the Journal of Applied Ecology and Ecological Applications), the sense of mission is much stronger in the conservation biology journals (e.g.. Conservation Biology and Biological Conservation). There is also in the latter a sense of urgency, of needing to act in the face of uncertainty: "In crisis disciplines, one must ael before knowing all the facts; crisis disciplines are thus a mixture of science and art, and their pursuit requires itituition as well as information" (Soule 1985). One finds little appeal to art and intuition in the traditional sciences. The traditional ecology journals (Ecology. Journal of Ecology, Oikos, Oecologia. etc.) and their associated societies generally lack a strong sense of mission oi' urgency. Paradoxically, many of the conservation planning schemes arising out of conservation biology, such as The Wildlands Project (Noss 1992, Foreman et al. 1992. Soule 1995. Soule and Terborgh 1999) arc less oriented toward immediate crises and more toward building long-tertn conservation networks over decades and centuries. In large part. then, the blossoming of conservation biology over the last two decades reficcts a failure of both traditional ecology and the traditional resource management disciplines to address modern conservation problems adequately. Nevertheless, some of the distinetion between conservation biology and related fields is breaking down as the techniques and methods of conservation biology are viewed as useful by an increasing sphere of professionals. I view this as a permeation of conservation biology into other fields, a natural and welcome response of professionals to the biodiversity crisis. Articles with a conservation focus are appearing more regularly in the traditional academic journals, such as Science, Natutx. and the ecological jout"nals noted above. Moreover, the Ecological Society of America has initiated the on-hne journal Conservation Ecology. Practitioners and academics at"e beginning to talk more often with each other. Although much of the leadership in wildlife biology (for example, Teer 1988 and some recent presidents of The Wildlife Society) has been hostile to conservation biology, an increasing number of wildlife biologists consider themselves conservation biologists, and vice versa. An increasing number of papers published in wildlife journals are essentially conservation biology papers (see. for example. Bcissengcr and Westphal 1998. Mladenoff and Sickley 1998. Meyer et al. 1998). make conservation biology unnecessary as a distinct science is uncertain. I suggest, however, that a need for a robust, integrative field of conservation science will exist for a long time to eotne. In response to the questions posed at the beginning of this essay, I conclude that conservation biology over the last two decades has made many new and "special"" contributions, both to science and to conservation. I predict that conservation biology will continue to make positive contributions, but will gradually become less distinct as its theories and techniques are incorporated into other disciplines. Continued speculation about how distinct conservation biology is from other fields is counterproductive. Instead, we should identify areas where conservation biology has not fulfilled its promise and where further progress is urgently needed. These needs include: 1) more broadly and rigorously trained professionals inside and outside aeademia; 2) more emphasis on gathering the basic field data necessary to construct and validate models; 3) compelling applications of conservation biology "on the ground" in land management: and 4) increased infiuence in the policy arena. A further need is to expand the international scope of conservation biology. I have written this commentary from a distinctly American perspective, with an emphasis on historical events and trends in North America. This ethnocentrism is defensible, in part, because conservation biology, as it is known today, developed initially in the United States, and the leading professional society and journal are centered here. On the other hand, other nations and regions are well ahead of Americans in several areas of this science. For example, the strong natural history tt"adition of northern Europe, especially in Fennoscandia and Britain, has allowed biodiversity considerations to contribute meaningfully to forestry, environmental monitoring, and land-use decisions generally. The natural histoi7 tradition is much weaker in North America, with the result that much of our conservation theorizing, modeling, and planning is going on in a vacuum. (The weakening continues with the loss of the "ologies." now viewed as old-iashioned. from university curricula). The Australians are leaders in several areas of conservation biology, particularly in the developtnent of efficient, practical methods of selecting and designing networks of nature reserves, but also in several areas of population genetics and PVA. Increasing international scope and membership is a major objective of SCB. In 1997 83'!4i of the membership was in the United States. The content of the journal is less biased, however. Only 6\"A> of the first authors in 1997 were from the United States, and the trend over the last few years has been inereasing representation of international authors. Ultimately, the profession o!" conservation biology will fulfill its chalECOGRAPHY 22:2 1.1919) Conservation biology tomorrow Whether the permeation of conservation-biological thinking and values into other sciences will eventually 120 nge only when the global community of decisionr takers looks to it regularly for advice on key issues :garding land-use and environmental policy. 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Journal

EcographyWiley

Published: Apr 1, 1999

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