A Dangerous Idea in Zoology: Ignoring the Role of Genetics in Biodiversity Restoration

The term ‘biodiversity’ emerged in the mid-1980s and quickly became sufficiently popular that it could have been viewed as a ‘new field of science’. The broader community has also embraced the term and, ultimately, it has become a proxy for species conservation. As a consequence, conservation of biodiversity has effectively become the only approach to minimising continued species loss. However, despite the widespread use of the term, there is confusion over its definition, even among disciplines to which the term has become a focus. In Australia, much of the biodiversity conservation/restoration is community-driven (e.g., landcare, political pressure of animal welfare groups) with a focus on species and habitat biodiversity. Genetic diversity is seldom seriously considered. As a consequence, native species biodiversity management is often not maximising the potential outcomes. Arguably the greatest issue associated with incorporating genetics more centrally into biodiversity restoration is that its definition is often considered complex. In addition, the negative aspects of ignoring the genetic component of biodiversity may be masked by the positives when the outputs of a program provide many individuals of species considered at risk of extinction despite the longer term outcomes potentially having the opposite effect. To better manage biodiversity restoration all of us who use the term within our discipline need to ensure that, wherever possible, we seek to inform those around us of the importance of genetic biodiversity in biodiversity restoration programs. A first step is to determine a simple, all-encompassing definition of biodiversity that explicitly includes genetics

Transformações da terra: para uma perspectiva agroecológica na história Transformation of the land: towards an agroecological perspective in history

O artigo discute a constituição do campo da história ambiental, que se deu nos anos 70 em meio aos debates sobre a crise ecológica e a eclosão do movimento ambientalista. Esta história não aceita a noção de que as sociedades humanas não produzem alterações ambientais significativas, e interpela as condições específicas dessa interação recorrente. O sistema agroecológico representa um dos casos mais típicos de rearranjo da atividade humana sobre os ecossistemas naturais, em uma relação complexa de interação entre plantas nativas, vegetação forasteira, fertilidade dos solos e diversas práticas agrícolas. O itinerário dessas mudanças é essencial para se compreender a história do ponto de vista ambiental<br>This article discusses the formation of the field of environmental history which originated in the 1970s in the middle of the debates on the ecologic crisis and the emergence of the environmental movement. This history rejects the notion that human societies do not cause significant environmental alterations and analyzes the specific conditions of that recurring interaction. The agroecologic system is one of the most typical cases of the intervention of human activity on natural ecosystems in a complex interaction between indigenous plants, exotic vegetation, fertility of the soil and diverse agricultural practices. The roadmap of these changes is essential to understand history from the view point of the environment