Why Conserve Biodiversity?

– Why is conservation a worthy social goal?

Example

Workshop on Western Ghats Conservation Priorities

Lesson

• Biodiversity Conservation is not one, homogeneous idea

• What you want to conserve depends upon what you value, why you value it

• So why conserve biodiversity?

Possible rationales• Utilitarian-short & long-term:

– Flow of useful goods (today & tomorrow)

• Utilitarian: Flow of ecological services– ecosystem functioning/resilience– i.e., hydrological services, soil conservation services

• Precautionary Utilitarian: Insurance– Against pathogen attacks– Against climate change

• Religious: Traditional or Modern (DeepEcol)• Aesthetic: narrow (tourism) or broad

Rationale and its Implications

• Flow of useful goods: – Components

• Food, fibre, etc• Industrial chemicals• Medicines

– Conserve What?: Maintain only those species that produce these goods, or could produce them tomorrow, or are essential to the maintenance of some useful species

– Implies:“Naturalness” has no intrinsic value, as cultivation and gene banking improves, we can do away with ‘natural’ ecosystems

• Flow of “ecological services”: – As in “ecosystem functioning itself”?

• Where “functioning” = “productivity” (not socially ‘useful productivity’ but carbon fixation)

• PROBLEM: Self-referencing

– As in “watershed services” to downstream human (managed) agroecosystems?

– As in “climate mitigation service” to the global human agroecosystems?• No evidence to show that high diversity is reqd.

– Conserve What? Those assemblages that generate a specific service or combination• E.g., coffee plantations in W.Ghats would be fine!

• Insurance/Resilience: – Against Pathogen attacks– Against future climate change– Conserve What?

• Maintain diversity of the managed ecosystems, i.e., agroecosystems, & social systems

• Plus, some sources of diversity in the wild, such as wild relatives of cultivars?

• Religious value: – Traditional notions of sacredness

• Specific organisms, locations, landscapes• Has co-evolved with utilitarian dependence, but still has

some independent standing• Does not preclude human use & consumption

– Modern notion of ‘bio-centrism’ or ‘animal rights’• Not terribly different from traditional notions, except that it

may not be rooted in any sense of material dependence

– Maintain what? As much of ‘nature’ as you can– Criticism: mosquitos

• Aesthetic Value: – Tourism & furry animal value

• Charismatic species: tigers, lions, elephants, zebras, whales, dolphins

• Implications: Focus on these. • Criticism: Could become elitist.

– Broader aesthetic, “elevation of human spirit”• Not clear how different this is from religious rationales

(beauty vs sacredness)• Suggests that ‘natural-ness’ should be maintained in

and around human ecosystems

Backward reasoning• “…a utilitarian argument is unlikely to

provide an enduring rationale for conserving biodiversity”

Opaque reasoning“…some indigenous groups may meet the

expectations of conservationists by maintaining ‘acceptable’ levels of biodiversity in their territories

More open reasoning• “…being admirers of nature and appreciating

the intrinsic value of biodiversity, ecologists try to find some scientific arguments that can strengthen their position”

• “…ecologists should not ignore the intrinsic value of biodiversity….as a living stage for a unique evolutionary play…and an example of evolutionary heritage that is probably worth protection no less than the heritage of our culture”

Conclusions• We cannot be like Indian Cricket Selectors--

who select first and look for rationales afterwards

• To say that a particular rationale for conservation is “insufficient” is to behave like the Selectors

• We have to decide which rationale we agree with (could be more than one), and then espouse that type and level of conservation which the rationale logically leads us to

Is Conservation the only Social Goal?