conservation at a crossroads lecture slides thursday january 4, 2013
TRANSCRIPT
Development of the Conservation Movement
• 1872: World’s First National Park- Yellowstone
• Late 1800’s: increased interest in wilderness recreation
• Debate between conservationists and preservationists
Conservationists– Proper use of nature
Preservationists– Protection of nature from use
Golden Era of EV Legislation
• Wilderness Act - 1964• National Environmental Policy Act- NEPA 1969• Clean Air Act- 1970• Clean Water Act- 1972• Endangered Species Act - 1973
2005: Death of Environmentalism
“Modern environmentalism is no longer capable of dealing with the world’s most serious ecological crisis.”
“We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.”E.O. Wilson
“New conservation should seek to enhance those natural systems that benefit the widest number of people, especially the poor. Instead of trying to restore remote iconic landscapes to pre-European conditions, conservation will measure its achievement in large part by its relevance to people, including city dwellers. Nature could be a garden — not a carefully manicured and rigid one, but a tangle of species and wildness amidst lands used for food production, mineral extraction, and urban life.” Peter Kareiva
Questions of Conservation Today
• What is “nature”?• How should it be valued or protected?• How do we balance needs of humans and the
natural world?• What metrics do we use to guide decision-
making?• How do we allocate limited resources and
address tradeoffs?• What does success look like?
Defining Goals:
• Protect the rights of other species• Protect charismatic megafauna• Slow the rate of extinctions• Protect genetic diversity• Define and defend biodiversity• Maximize ecosystem services• Protect the spiritual and aesthetic experience of
nature
– From Rambunctious Garden, Emma Marris