The complementary niches of anthropocentric and biocentric conservationists

A divergence of values has become apparent in recent debates between conservationists who focus on ecosystem services that can improve human well-being and those who focus on avoiding the extinction of species. These divergent points of view fall along

Synthetic biology and the conservation of biodiversity

AbstractSynthetic biology is a broad and fast-moving field of innovation involving the design and construction of new biological parts, and the redesign of existing, natural biological systems to address real world problems. It has many potential applications that may change human relations to the natural world. Synthetic biology is virtually unknown to the conservation community. Based on a meeting in 2013 that brought together these two communities we consider first the differences between the two fields, and second the kinds of opportunities and risks that arise.This is the accepted manuscript of a paper published in Oryx (Redford KH, Adams W, Carlson R, Mace GM, Ceccarelli B, Oryx 2014, 48 (3), 330-336, doi:10.1017/S0030605314000040)

Applying Ecosystem Services Approaches for Biodiversity Conservation: Benefits and Challenges

Ecosystem services as a concept and framework for understanding the way in which nature benefits people has led to a suite of approaches that are increasingly being used to support sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystems. However, the utility of the ecosystem services framework and associated tools for supporting biodiversity conservation are the subject of ongoing debates among conservationists. In this paper, we discuss several general ways in which ecosystem services approaches are supporting biodiversity conservation, which may not have been possible otherwise. The new opportunities that ecosystem services approaches provide for biodiversity conservation include: the development of broader constituencies for conservation and expanded possibilities to influence decision-making; opportunities to add or create new value to protected areas; and the opportunities to manage ecosystems sustainably outside of protected areas. We also review areas in which ecosystem services approaches may not effectively conserve certain aspects of biodiversity. Areas of particular concern in this regard include: species without utilitarian or economic value; ecological processes that do not directly benefit people; and critical ecological functions that may be undermined in attempts to optimize a target service. Understanding the benefits and limitations of using ecosystem services approaches for achieving biodiversity conservation will help ensure that the finite resources available for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development are used as strategically and effectively as possible to maintain the multiple components of biodiversity and to support human well-being

Applying Ecosystem Services Approaches for Biodiversity Conservation: Benefits and Challenges

Ecosystem services as a concept and framework for understanding the way in which nature benefits people has led to a suite of approaches that are increasingly being used to support sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystems. However, the utility of the ecosystem services framework and associated tools for supporting biodiversity conservation are the subject of ongoing debates among conservationists. In this paper, we discuss several general ways in which ecosystem services approaches are supporting biodiversity conservation, which may not have been possible otherwise. The new opportunities that ecosystem services approaches provide for biodiversity conservation include: the development of broader constituencies for conservation and expanded possibilities to influence decision-making; opportunities to add or create new value to protected areas; and the opportunities to manage ecosystems sustainably outside of protected areas. We also review areas in which ecosystem services approaches may not effectively conserve certain aspects of biodiversity. Areas of particular concern in this regard include: species without utilitarian or economic value; ecological processes that do not directly benefit people; and critical ecological functions that may be undermined in attempts to optimize a target service. Understanding the benefits and limitations of using ecosystem services approaches for achieving biodiversity conservation will help ensure that the finite resources available for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development are used as strategically and effectively as possible to maintain the multiple components of biodiversity and to support human well-being

Exploring the limits of saving a subspecies: The ethics and social dynamics of restoring northern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum cottoni)

Abstract The northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) is functionally extinct with only two females left alive. However, cryopreserved material from a number of individuals represents the potential to produce additional individuals using advanced reproductive and genetic rescue technologies and perhaps eventually a population to return to their native range. If this could and were done, how should it be done responsibly and thoughtfully. What issues and questions of a technical, bioethical, and societal nature will it raise that need to be anticipated and addressed? Such issues are explored in this article by an interdisciplinary team assembled to provide context to the northern white rhino project of the San Diego Zoo Global

What is the role for conservation organizations in poverty alleviation in the world’s wild places?

In this paper we provide an empirically-based way to address the general question of the broad-scale spatial relationship between poverty occurrence and areas of interest to those seeking conservation of large wild areas. We address the question of the spatial relationship between poor people and areas less impacted by human activity by asking three questions about the global spatial relationship between poor people and ecological intactness and how it varies by major biome and geographical region. We use infant mortality rate as a proxy for poverty and the Human Footprint as a proxy for ecological intactness, comparing global terrestrial maps of both. The analysis shows that the vast majority of the world’s poor people live in extremely urban and very transformed (peri transformed) areas. Only a small percentage of the world’s most poor are found in areas that are somewhat or extremely wild: about 0.25% of the world’s population. This fact has implications for the calls being made for conservation organizations to undertake poverty alleviation, suggesting that at a global scale those groups with interest in conserving wild areas would be able to contribute little to globally significant poverty alleviation efforts. However, these conservation groups are well positioned to develop new partnerships for delivery of benefits to some of the least accessible poor people in the wildest places of the world

Improving conservation practice with principles and tools from systems thinking and evaluation

Achieving nature conservation goals require grappling with ‘wicked’ problems. These intractable problems arise from the complexity and dynamism of the social–ecological systems in which they are embedded. To enhance their ability to address these problems, conservation professionals are increasingly looking to the transdisciplines of systems thinking and evaluation, which provide philosophies, theories, methods, tools and approaches that show promise for addressing intractable problems in a variety of other sectors. These transdisciplines come together especially around praxis, i.e., the process by which a theory or idea is enacted, embodied or realized. We present a review and synthesis of the learnings about praxis that have emerged from The Silwood Group, a consortium of conservation professionals, professional evaluators, and complexity and systems thinkers. The Silwood Group believes that for conservation activities to achieve ambitious goals, we should benefit nature without compromising the well-being of people, and that framing a praxis for conservation in the context of social–ecological systems will provide the greatest potential for positive impact. The learnings are presented as four key principles of a ‘praxis for effective conservation’. The four principles are: (1) attend to the whole with humility; (2) engage constructively with the values, cultures, politics, and histories of stakeholders; (3) learn through evaluative, systemic enquiry, and (4) exercise wisdom in judgement and action. We also provide descriptions and references for tools and methods to support such praxis and discuss how the thinking and approaches used by conservation professionals can be transformed to achieve greater effectiveness

Is It Time for Synthetic Biodiversity Conservation?

Evidence indicates that, despite some critical successes, current conservation approaches are not slowing the overall rate of biodiversity loss. The field of synthetic biology, which is capable of altering natural genomes with extremely precise editing, might offer the potential to resolve some intractable conservation problems (e.g., invasive species or pathogens). However, it is our opinion that there has been insufficient engagement by the conservation community with practitioners of synthetic biology. We contend that rapid, large-scale engagement of these two communities is urgently needed to avoid unintended and deleterious ecological consequences. To this point we describe case studies where synthetic biology is currently being applied to conservation, and we highlight the benefits to conservation biologists from engaging with this emerging technology