Page 255

Conservation Biology and the Preservation of Biodiversity:
An Assessment.

Gary K. Meffe
Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Newins Ziegler 303, Box 110430, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611-0430

The field of conservation biology has been formally recognized for 10, 15, or 20 or more years, depending on how one identifies its beginning (Ehrenfeld 1970; Soulé and Wilcox 1980; Soulé 1986). Regardless of which date we accept, the field has existed for a short time, yet it has had profound and far-reaching effects on the science and management of biodiversity, effects that are well out of proportion to its youthful existence. These influences, some of which I will discuss here, imply that the development of the field of conservation biology was nearly inevitable and perhaps overdue. It brought together and motivated large numbers of scientists of varied description and inclination to address, in a highly pluralistic manner, the problem of the greatest loss of biological diversity in 65 million years. It continues to do so, with some degree of success, although history must be the final judge of its efficacy. I will discuss the field of conservation biology and its contributions to the preservation of biodiversity, identify its areas of weakness, and suggest directions in which the field should go. Much of this material is opinion—my personal assessment of the field—and little more. It should not be misconstrued as a comprehensive attempt to critically assess the field; that task remains for future analysts.

What is Conservation Biology?

I begin with a general (and admittedly superficial) description of the field; moredetailed treatments are available in many other sources. I offer the definition of conservation biology I have used before (Meffe and Can-oil 1997):

Page 256

An integrative approach to the protection and management of biodiversity that uses appropriate principles and experiences from basic biological fields such as genetics and ecology; from natural resource management fields, such as fisheries and wildlife; and from social sciences, such as anthropology, sociology, philosophy, and economics.

An important aspect of this definition is that conservation biology borrows and synthesizes from many disciplines. It is an amalgamation of the perspectives, data, techniques, and pursuits of many natural and social sciences, all focused on the problem of the loss and protection of biodiversity

Conservation biology differs from more traditional conservation endeavors, such as fisheries, wildlife biology, forestry, or soil conservation, in at least three ways. First, its origin was strongly academic and theoretical. The field of conservation biology was developed largely by academicians, especially population geneticists and ecologists, who applied their genetic and ecological models to the growing problem of loss of biodiversity. It subsequently was enriched by many other disciplines, in both the natural and social sciences.

Second, the field is rooted in a philosophy of stewardship rather than one of utilitarianism or consumption. The latter has been the basis of traditional resource conservation, that is, conserving resources solely for their economic use and human consumption. This change is reflected in the adoption of very different “guiding lights” in traditional resource management and modern conservation biology: Gifford Pinchot's resource conservation ethic versus Aldo Leopold's evolutionary-ecological land ethic (Callicott 1990).

Third, conservation biology includes significant contributions from nonbiologists in the various social sciences, political sciences, and economics, who join with those in the natural sciences to address our complex problems and develop perspectives and methods. Thus, conservation biology is a broad synthesis of many academic fields, and its purpose is to address the loss and stewardship of biodiversity.

Another important feature of conservation biology is its basis in and recognition of three broad underlying principles (Meffe and Carroll 1997): the inevitability of evolutionary change, the recognition that ecology is dynamic, and the need to take into account the human presence. Conservation biologists recognize that because natural systems are the result of long-term evolutionary change, they will continue to evolve. To protect the status quo, as in a museum, would be a mistake, because systems must continue to evolve. Another mistake is to not understand the evolutionary processes that led to the characteristics of a species when we are attempting to protect or recover it. Likewise, natural systems are dynamic on shorter, ecological time scales, and conservation biologists recognize that natural disturbances are critical to the integrity of ecological systems. The “balance-of-nature” paradigm has been usurped by a “flux-of-nature” viewpoint (Pickett and others 1992).

Finally, conservation biologists recognize that it would be hopelessly naive to ignore humans in the conservation equation or to focus our attention solely on highly natural or pristine systems and lock them away from humanity. In fact, the growing human population is the primary motivation for and the reason we

Page 257

need the field of conservation biology, and it must be considered at all times. The goal of conservation biology, then, is to understand and meld all three of these foci to help establish an ecologically sustainable world.

What has Conservation Biology Contributed to the Protection of Biodiversity?

I begin this section with a caveat: Although I will claim a great many advances by the field of conservation biology, I do not mean to imply that they all are the result of this field exclusively, that the field has any unique or singular claim to them, or that they would not or could not have developed otherwise. However, I do believe that conservation biology has played an important role in each of these advances.

The major contributions of conservation biology to the protection of biodiversity that I will discuss are of three kinds: new ideas and syntheses, galvanization and reform of natural-resource management, and inspiration for new and related disciplines and current natural-resource practitioners.

New Ideas and Syntheses

First and foremost, conservation biology has provided a formal, global recognition of biodiversity—what it is and what we are losing (Myers 1992; Wilson and Peter 1988). The world's attention to this crisis and our subsequent modes of dealing with it have been guided largely by this field. In defining biodiversity, we have argued with various degrees of success that biodiversity is much more than richness of species, that it ranges from genes to landscapes and includes the various processes that occur as a function of that diversity. The field has helped to define what we have, what we are losing, and how we deal with it. It is best organized around a triumvirate of composition (what is there), structure (how it is distributed in space and time), and function (what it does) rather than merely around counts of species (Noss 1990). We have learned that if we are to preserve biodiversity successfully, we must deal with natural complexities at multiple levels and configurations.

Next, conservation biology has acted to coalesce many scientific issues under one roof as a metadiscipline. Such issues include genetics, biogeography (including the practical application of island-biogeography theory to rates of loss of biodiversity), population ecology and dynamics, community and ecosystem ecology, evolutionary biology, landscape ecology, and numerous social-science and human dimensions. We consistently draw on these and other disciplines to address the complex interdisciplinary issues that confront us. Conservation biology also recognizes the critical importance of habitat fragmentation and edge effects in losses of biodiversity. It promotes the concept that the quality and spatial configuration of habitat is at least as important to the protection of biodiversity as the total amount of habitat available. Work on metapopulations, spatially explicit models, and the highly practical tool of population viability analysis, also developed by conservation biologists, are related to the spatial considerations of habitat frag-

Page 258

mentation. All these address the various problems of persistence that face real populations on real landscapes.

Conservation biology has advanced considerably the serious recognition of the potentially disastrous effects of exotic species on native species and ecosystems. The influence of nonindigenous plants and animals has become a major focus in the protection of biodiversity as we have learned how such invaders not only can affect the richness of species, but also can change ecosystem functions.

Finally, conservation biology has incorporated values and ethics into its science. It clearly is a value-laden science,-with a strong value base that freely recognizes that protection of biodiversity is good and necessary, not only for the benefit of humanity, but also for its own inherent good.

Galvanization and Reform of Natural Resource-Management

The second major contribution of conservation biology is that it has acted (whether intentionally or not) to galvanize and reform natural-resource management in two important ways. First, it caused some staid and conservative disciplines—such as traditional fisheries, wildlife, and forestry—to take notice of ideas, controversies, and approaches that had been simmering under the surface for some time. In fact, the clinging to tradition by these fields may have helped to spawn conservation biology, because individuals who were unhappy with the status quo searched for and developed a new discipline that offered an alternative to traditional, consumption-oriented approaches to natural-resource management. As a result, these other disciplines also seem to be moving forward as they embrace the concepts of conservation biology and make them work for natural-resource management. One need only scan the recent pages of such journals as Fisheries and The Wildlife Society Bulletin to see the influence of the last decade of conservation biology.

Conservation biology also has acted in the opposite direction, of bringing ecology and evolution out of the “pure” realm of the ivory tower and applying them to the problems of the day. Many “pure” researchers, who formerly would not dirty their hands with applied problems, now are applying what they know to real landscapes and real issues, thus enriching those endeavors. This new interplay between pure and applied research, with the breakdown of barriers between them, is possibly one of the healthiest and most positive benefits of the development of conservation biology.

Second, conservation biology has changed tangibly management practices as they actually occur on the landscape. In retrospect, the old practices were too scattered and, in many cases, had insufficient scientific justification to have lasted much longer, and their failure may have contributed to the development of conservation biology as a field. As the many pathologies (sensu Holling 1995, Holling and Meffe 1996) of natural-resource management became apparent, new approaches were needed and developed. This has been manifested in several ways:

• challenging and changing natural resource management practices by federal and state agencies to incorporate and accommodate the various principles

Page 259

promulgated by conservation biology, which now is influencing, through its science and philosophy, how we treat our resources;

• moving away from simple command-and-control approaches to management, which repeatedly have been shown to fail ultimately, toward understanding how nature operates and working within those “rules” (Knight and Meffe 1997);

• developing a greater appreciation for and understanding of uncertainty in environmental management and policy and incorporating that uncertainty into management practices. Recognition of the many natural and human sources of uncertainty has led to multiple calls for adaptive management (Gunderson and others 1995; Holling 1978; Walters 1986), which management agencies are starting to heed and embrace; and

• incorporating natural patterns of variation, such as disturbance regimes, into management. This includes such activities as reinstituting fire in appropriate ecosystems, leaving storm debris on forest floors, and mimicking a natural flood in the Grand Canyon, all designed to incorporate natural processes into management.

In addition to these changes, we are seeing environmental activists working with scientists (or with science) in their calls for policy reform. Numerous activist organizations now routinely incorporate conservation biology into their activities, a step that represents a convergence of science and activism toward the common goal of science-based policy. In sum, natural-resource managers the world over now are relying increasingly on the findings and principles of conservation biology for direction. In the United States, federal and state agencies alike are retooling, using conservation biology as a guide.

Inspiration for New Ideas, Disciplines, and Organizations

New ideas, disciplines, and organizations have been inspired by conservation biology, and a new generation of practitioners is undergoing intellectual development and professional training in this new environment. For example, the idea that cross-boundary issues are critical is now a common point of discussion among natural-resource management agencies and private landowners, whereas 10 years ago, political boundaries on a map seemed real and impermeable. Stepping back to view the larger landscape and cooperate with other land tenants, rather than hiding behind the seemingly comfortable and protective boundaries set by legal documents, is becoming a way of life rather than an unusual behavior. In general, such notions of cooperation for a common good rather than of confrontation or competition, are becoming prevalent.

New disciplines have been denned or developed further as a result of progress within conservation biology. For example, restoration ecology, landscape ecology, environmental ethics, and ecological economics all have begun to flourish as important components of conservation biology. Surely they existed beforehand, and they may have developed independently, but conservation biology seems to have been and continues to be the overarching catalyst that supported and promoted

Page 260

their advancement. The metadiscipline of conservation biology is the glue that binds these and other disciplines into a coherent and focused package.

An obvious but extraordinarily important catalyst for the field was development of a major international society, the Society for Conservation Biology, and its journal, Conservation Biology, as the focal points for intellectual activities in the field. The effects and influences of this society and journal are virtually incalculable within the academic and applied communities of conservation scientists. They help to identify and define the field and offer an intellectual home to its practitioners.

Closely related to all these factors, and ultimately feeding the further development of conservation biology, are the many courses and degree programs in conservation biology that are developing in colleges and universities around North America and the rest of the world, as well as several college textbooks that are designed specifically for use in these courses. For the first time in history, the field has reached the point at which we are formally educating a new generation of students as conservation biologists, in contrast with the founding generation, who came to the field from various specialized disciplines. These students have been inspired by the challenges and opportunities involved in the protection of biodiversity, which seems to have given greater meaning to basic programs in ecology.

Finally, training courses have developed in various natural-resource management agencies to bring the practitioners up to speed on such topics as general tenets of conservation biology, ecosystem management, and various human dimensions. My experiences as a trainer in some of these courses tells me that as a result of this reorientation natural-resource management in the United States will never be the same.

Gaps and Problems

Although conservation biology has been considered a rousing success by most measures, it has its problems, it has experienced growing pains, and it still has some way to go to be considered a mature discipline. A useful analogy is human ontogeny. Conservation biology was born rapidly, with typical pains and shakiness; it grew quickly, feeling its way along, learning first how to walk, then to run; it became an awkward adolescent; and now it is emerging into confident maturity as a young adult. It has not reached its full potential yet, and it has a great deal to learn before it has its full effect on the world, but its future looks bright and exciting. However, hurdles must be overcome, and I present several of them here.

First, I believe the field's main problem is that it means very little globally, compared with many other human endeavors; conservation biology certainly is not yet a household term that most people can identify. Society at large does not realize what conservation biologists have to offer or the relevance of conservation biology to their lives, other than in a vague connection to a general concern for the environment. Conservation biologists have not done a good job of positioning the field to be a globally effective agent of social change.

Page 261

Part of the problem is that society has not defined its environmental problems broadly enough to address them adequately. Many individuals seem to associate environmental problems with the need to recycle, with possible global climatic change, with harm to individual animals, with the problem of toxins in the air, water, and soil, or with other issues related to human health. As important as these problems are, others—such as major losses of biodiversity and their ramifications, collapse of ecosystem services, and destruction and fragmentation of habitat (apart from tropical deforestation, which much of the public recognizes)—do not seem to resonate as major environmental issues or issues that hold much threat for or relevance to humanity. Many people do not seem to make connections between the development of strip malls or golf courses, growth of population, loss of soils, withdrawal of water, and related activities and their influences on biodiversity, sustainability, human health, or social structure. In essence, I do not believe that society at large appreciates what really supports human populations or why desertification, logging of old-growth forests, and mass extinction of species are critically important to all peoples.

Second, the field of conservation biology developed with a largely terrestrial bias, which it retains. Consequently, it has lagged in addressing problems in freshwater aquatic systems and, especially, marine systems (Irish and Norse 1996). Recent attention to the marine realm, including major marine symposia at the meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology in 1997, seems to be addressing that problem.

Third, in my opinion, conservation biology is still too academic: it clings to its roots in academe and seems fearful of venturing too far into unknown territories. I believe that conservation biologists need to be more pragmatic and more practical, and the field needs more relevance to immediate problems of the day if we are to have a greater influence on the protection and recovery of biodiversity. To do this, we must dare to leave the comfort of the academic womb and take greater risks in the real world of conservation action.

Fourth, the nature of the university system itself, at least in the United States, has done little to foster risk-taking and creativity and much to promote conservatism and the status quo. With its high disciplinary walls (Meffe 1998), adherence to tradition, and rewards for conformity, academe not only frustrates progress in a new discipline, such as conservation biology, but does little to address the major environmental and social problems of the day (Orr 1994). Rather than playing a leadership role in cutting-edge ideas, universities often seem to lag behind, restricting such activities and rewarding those which bring in large sums of money for low-risk work. Much of the activity in conservation biology is taking place outside universities, in resource-management agencies, advocacy groups, and even resource-extraction industries.

Where does the Field Need to Go?

I think the field should move in several directions and be strengthened in some areas so that conservation biology can develop further as a discipline and, more importantly, be able to influence society with more scientifically based decisionmaking.

Page 262

• Conservation biology needs greater synthesis with other disciplines or subdisciplines—such as restoration ecology, design (broadly denned to include all human-made products and endeavors), and ecological economics—and with various human dimensions such as sociology, psychology, and anthropology. Conservation biology has something to contribute to all these, and vice versa. Greater communication across fields, some where conversations possibly have never occurred, can help to promote problem-solving in the broadest sense.

• Conservation biologists need to do a better job of teaching about the connection between the overall ecological condition and individual human-health or social conditions. Many times, the arguments we muster for the protection of biodiversity, although compelling to scientists, do not resonate with average citizens who are just trying to make a living. In addition to the various moral arguments we typically use to justify our concerns, we need to do a better job in making it clear that functional natural ecosystems are necessary for workable human social systems and the health and vigor of all humankind. Conservation biology is concerned not just with nature, but very much with humanity as well.

• We also need to take the lead in modifying educational curricula—from kindergarten through graduate level—to reflect better the central importance of an ecological perspective in society. The primary task will be to break down the artificial disciplinary boundaries that have haunted education for centuries, to overcome departmental territorialities, and to cease the extreme specialization that so often results in narrow technical training rather than a broad education that can lead one to understand the interrelationships in complex problems and begin to address them. We need to stop teaching as though mathemathics, sociology, biology, engineering, history, and literature are unrelated We need to do a better job of teaching the full diversity of the human experience and of centering it on functioning ecosystems that make the planet livable for all species, including humans.

• Conservation biology has a golden opportunity to join with many and varied religious interests that focus on environmental awareness and protection of life on Earth. For example, so-called “green evangelicals” fervently recognize and understand the importance of protecting biodiversity, although the term they use is different (“God's creations”). Seeing all life as the result of a single event of creation and interpreting Biblical writings on dominion as a responsibility for stewardship rather than a license for domination and control of nature, this perspective can be valuable beyond measure, reaching large numbers of people who otherwise might not identify with “biodiversity” or care much about it from a scientific perspective. Harnessing the energy of religious perspectives concerned with guardianship of creation can be a powerful boost to protection of biodiversity.

• Most important, I think, we need to do a better job of incorporating what we know into effective public policy. We need to make our science work; we need to put it to daily use. It is time for conservation biology to move to a new plateau in society, to make our presence known, our science relevant, and our views sought and respected. Ideally, the public should listen to what conservation biologists have to say with as much anticipation, concern, and enthusiasm as they have for daily stock-market reports, economic forecasts, or news about medical advances.

Page 263

Conclusions

I believe the science of conservation biology is in an extremely active, turbulent, and exciting period of development right now. The last 15 years have seen dramatic changes in conservation priorities, techniques, philosophies, and approaches. Now is when the science is being molded, when the approaches to the enormous challenges to humanity are being mapped out, and when the future of biodiversity and humanity largely are being determined. This is a thrilling, frightening, and wonderful time to be practicing conservation science, one that I hope we can look back on with pride and satisfaction. Conservation biology has taken huge strides in the effort to protect biodiversity, but these still are only the initial, cautious steps of a long and never-ending journey; we have much yet to learn and accomplish.

References

Callicott JB. 1990. Whither conservation ethics? Cons Biol 4:15–20.

Ehrenfeld DW. 1970. Biological conservation. New York NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Gunderson LH, Holling CS, Light SS (eds). 1995. Barriers and bridges to the renewal of ecosystems and institutions. New York NY:Columbia Univ Pr.

Holling CS. 1978. Adaptive environmental assessment and management. New York NY: J Wiley.

Holling CS. 1995. What barriers? What bridges? In: Gunderson LH, Holling CS, Light SS (eds). Barriers and bridges to the renewal of ecosystems and institutions. New York NY: Columbia Univ Pr. p 3–34

Holling CS, Meffe GK. 1996. Command and control and the pathology of natural resource management. Cons Biol 10:328–37.

Irish KE, Norse EA. 1996. Scant emphasis on marine biodiversity. Cons Biol 10:680.

Knight RL, Meffe GK. 1997. Ecosystem management: agency liberation from command and control. Wildl Soc Bull 25:676–8.

Meffe GK. 1998. Softening the boundaries (editorial). Cons Biol 12:259–60.

Meffe GK, Carroll CR. 1997. Principles of conservation biology, second edition. Sunderland MA: Sinauer.

Myers N. 1992. The primary source. New York NY: WW Norton.

Noss RF. 1990. Indicators for monitoring biodiversity: a hierarchical approach. Cons Biol 4:355–64.

Orr DW. 1994. Earth in mind: on education, environment, and the human prospect. Washington DC: Island Pr.

Pickett STA, Parker VT, Fiedler PL. 1992. The new paradigm in ecology: implications for conservation biology above the species level. In: Fiedler PL, Jain SK (eds). Conservation biology: the theory and practice of nature, conservation, preservation, and management. New York NY: Chapman & Hall. p 65–88.

Soulé ME, Wilcox BA. 1980. Conservation biology: an evolutionary-ecological approach. Sunderland MA: Sinauer.

Soulé ME (ed). 1986. Conservation biology: the science of scarcity and diversity. Sunderland MA: Sinauer.

Walters CJ. 1986. Adaptive management of renewable resources. New York NY: McGraw-Hill.

Wilson EO, Peter FM (eds). 1988. Biodiversity. Washington DC: National Acad Pr.