Since conservation biology’s emergence, commentary on (and in) the field has rightly emphasized its departure from prior conservation science and practice. However, the main “thread” of the field the description, explanation, appreciation, protection, and perpetuation of biological diversity can be traced much further back through the historical tapestry of the biological sciences and the conservation movement (Mayr 1982;McIntosh 1985; Grumbine 1996; Quammen 1996). That thread weaves through related themes and concepts in conservation, including wilderness protection, sustained yield, wildlife protection and management, the diversity-stability hypothesis, ecological restoration, sustainability, and ecosystem health. By focusing on the thread itself, conservation biology brought the theme of biological diversity to the fore. In so doing, conservation biology has reconnected conservation to deep sources in Western natural history and science, and to cultural traditions of respect for the natural world both within and beyond the Western experience.
Long before environmentalism began to reshape “conservation in the old sense” in the 1960s prior even to the Progressive Era conservation movement of the early 1900s the foundations of conservation biology were being laid over the course of biology’s epic advances over the last four centuries. The “discovery of diversity” (to use Ernst Mayr’s phrase) was the driving force behind the growth of biological thought. “Hardly any aspect of life is more characteristic than its almost unlimited diversity,” wrote Mayr (1982:133). “Indeed, there is hardly any biological process or phenomenon where diversity is not involved.” This “discovery” unfolded as colonialism, the Industrial Revolution, human population growth, expansion of capitalist and collectivist economies, and developing trade networks transformed human social, economic, political, and ecological relationships ever more quickly and profoundly (e.g. Crosby 1986; Grove 1995; Diamond 1997). Technological change accelerated humanity’s capacity to reshape the world to meet human needs and desires. In so doing, it amplified tensions along basic philosophical fault lines: mechanistic/organic; utilitarian/reverential; imperialist/arcadian; reductionism/ holism (Thomas et al. 1956; Worster 1985). As recognition of human environmental impacts grew, an array of 19th century philosophers, scientists, naturalists, theologians, artists, writers, and poets began to regard the naturalworld within an expanded sphere of moral concern (Nash 1989).
For example, Alfred RusselWallace (1863) warned against the “extinction of the numerous forms of life which the progress of cultivation invariably entails” and urged his scientific colleagues to assume the responsibility for stewardship that came with knowledge of diversity. The first edition of George Perkins Marsh’s Man and Nature appeared the following year. In his second chapter, “Transfer, Modification, and Extirpation of Vegetable and of Animal Species,” Marsh examined the effect of humans on biotic diversity. Marsh described human beings as a “new geographical force” and surveyed human impacts on “minute organisms,” plants, insects, fish, “aquatic animals,” reptiles, birds, and “quadrupeds.” “All nature,” he wrote, “is linked together by invisible bonds, and every organic creature, however low, however feeble, however dependent, is necessary to the well-being of some other among the myriad forms of life with which the Creator has peopled the earth.” He concluded his chapter with the hope that people might“learn to put a wiser estimate on the works of
creation” (Marsh 1864). Through the veil of 19th century language, modern conservation biologists may recognize Marsh, Wallace, and others as common intellectual ancestors. Marsh’s landmark volume appeared just as the post-Civil War era of rampant resource exploitation commenced in the United States.A generation later, Marsh’s book undergirded the Progressive Era reforms that gave conservation in the United States its modern meaning and turned it into a national movement. That movement rode Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency into public consciousness and across the American landscape.
creation” (Marsh 1864). Through the veil of 19th century language, modern conservation biologists may recognize Marsh, Wallace, and others as common intellectual ancestors. Marsh’s landmark volume appeared just as the post-Civil War era of rampant resource exploitation commenced in the United States.A generation later, Marsh’s book undergirded the Progressive Era reforms that gave conservation in the United States its modern meaning and turned it into a national movement. That movement rode Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency into public consciousness and across the American landscape.
Conservationists in the Progressive Era were famously split along utilitarian-preservationist lines. The utilitarian Resource Conservation Ethic, realized within new federal conservation agencies, was committed to the efficient, scientifically informed management of natural resources, to provide “the greatest good to the greatest number for the longest time” (Pinchot 1910:48). By contrast, the Romantic Transcendental Preservation Ethic, overshadowed but persistent through the Progressive Era, celebrated the aesthetic and spiritual value of contact with wild nature, and inspired campaigns for the protection of parklands, refuges, forests, and “wild life.” Callicott (1990) notes that both ethical camps were “essentially human-centered or ‘anthropocentric’. . . (and) regarded human beings or human interests as the only legitimate ends and nonhuman natural entities and nature as a whole as means.”Moreover, the science upon which both relied had not yet experienced its 20th century revolutions. Ecology had not yet united the scientific understanding of the abiotic, plant, and animal components of living systems. Evolutionary biology had not yet synthesized knowledge of genetics, population biology, and evolutionary biology. Geology, paleontology, and biogeography were just beginning to provide a coherent narrative of the temporal dynamics and spatial distribution of life on Earth.
Although explicitly informed by the natural sciences, conservation in the Progressive Era was primarily economic in its orientation, reductionist in its tendencies, and selective in its application. New concepts from ecology and evolutionary biology began to filter into conservation and the resource management disciplines during the early 20th century. “Proto-conservation biologists” from this period include Henry C. Cowles, whose pioneering studies of plant succession and the flora of the Indiana Dunes led him into active advocacy for their protection (Engel 1983);
Victor Shelford, who prodded his fellow ecologists to become active in establishing biologically representative nature reserves (Croker 1991); Arthur Tansley, who similarly advocated establishment of nature reserves in Britain, and who in 1935 contributed the concept of the “ecosystem” to science (McIntosh 1985; Golley 1993); Charles Elton, whose text Animal Ecology (1927) provided the foundations for a more dynamic ecology through his definition of food chains, food webs, trophic levels, the niche, and other basic concepts; Joseph Grinnell, Paul Errington, Olaus Murie, and other field biologists who challenged prevailing notions on the ecological role and value of predators (Dunlap 1988); and biologists who sought to place national park management in the USA on a sound ecological footing (Sellars 1997; Shafer 2001). Importantly, the crisis of the Dust Bowl in North America invited similar ecological critiques of agricultural practices during the 1930s (Worster 1979; Beeman and Pritchard 2001). By the late 1930s an array of conservation concerns soil erosion, watershed degradation, urban pollution, deforestation, depletion of fisheries and wildlife populations brought academic ecologists and resource managers closer together and generated a new awareness of conservation’ ecological foundations, in particular the significance of biological diversity. In 1939 Aldo Leopold summarized the point in a speech to a symbolically appropriate joint meeting of the Ecological Society of America and the Society of American Foresters:
Victor Shelford, who prodded his fellow ecologists to become active in establishing biologically representative nature reserves (Croker 1991); Arthur Tansley, who similarly advocated establishment of nature reserves in Britain, and who in 1935 contributed the concept of the “ecosystem” to science (McIntosh 1985; Golley 1993); Charles Elton, whose text Animal Ecology (1927) provided the foundations for a more dynamic ecology through his definition of food chains, food webs, trophic levels, the niche, and other basic concepts; Joseph Grinnell, Paul Errington, Olaus Murie, and other field biologists who challenged prevailing notions on the ecological role and value of predators (Dunlap 1988); and biologists who sought to place national park management in the USA on a sound ecological footing (Sellars 1997; Shafer 2001). Importantly, the crisis of the Dust Bowl in North America invited similar ecological critiques of agricultural practices during the 1930s (Worster 1979; Beeman and Pritchard 2001). By the late 1930s an array of conservation concerns soil erosion, watershed degradation, urban pollution, deforestation, depletion of fisheries and wildlife populations brought academic ecologists and resource managers closer together and generated a new awareness of conservation’ ecological foundations, in particular the significance of biological diversity. In 1939 Aldo Leopold summarized the point in a speech to a symbolically appropriate joint meeting of the Ecological Society of America and the Society of American Foresters:
The emergence of ecology has placed the economic biologist in a peculiar dilemma: with one hand he points out the accumulated findings of his search for utility, or lack of utility, in this or that species; with the other he lifts the veil from a biota so complex, so conditioned by interwoven cooperations and competitions, that no man can say where utility begins or ends. No species can be ‘rated’ without the tongue in the cheek; the old categories of ‘useful’ and ‘harmful’ have validity only as conditioned
by time, place, and circumstance. The only sure conclusion is that the biota as a whole is useful, and (the) biota includes not only plants and animals, but soils and waters as well (Leopold 1991:266–67).
by time, place, and circumstance. The only sure conclusion is that the biota as a whole is useful, and (the) biota includes not only plants and animals, but soils and waters as well (Leopold 1991:266–67).
With appreciation of “the biota as a whole” came greater appreciation of the functioning of ecological communities and systems (Golley 1993). For Leopold and others, this translated into a redefinition of conservation’s aims: away from the narrow goal of sustaining outputs of discrete commodities, and toward the more complex goal of sustaining what we now call ecosystem health and resilience. As conservation’s aims were thus being redefined, its ethical foundations were being reconsidered. The accumulation of revolutionary biological insights, combined with a generation’s experience of fragmented policy, short-term economics, and environmental decline, yielded Leopold’s assertion of an Evolutionary-Ecological Land Ethic (Callicott 1990). A land ethic, Leopold wrote, “enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land”; it “changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it” (Leopold 1949:204). These ethical concepts only slowly gained ground in forestry, fisheries management, wildlife management, and other resource management disciplines; indeed, they are contentious still. In the years following World War II, as consumer demands increased and technologies evolved, resource development pressures grew. Resource managers responded by expanding their efforts to increase the yields of their particular commodities.
Meanwhile, the pace of scientific change accelerated in disciplines across the biological spectrum, from microbiology, genetics, systematics, and population biology to ecology, limnology, marine biology, and biogeography (Mayr 1982). As these advances accrued, maintaining healthy connections between the basic sciences and their application in resource management fields proved challenging. It fell to a diverse cohort of scientific researchers, interpreters, and advocates to enter the public policy fray (including such notable figures as Rachel Carson, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Ray Dasmann, G. Evelyn Hutchinson, Julian Huxley, Eugene and Howard Odum, and Sir Peter Scott). Many of these had worldwide influence through their writings and students, their collaborations, and their ecological concepts and methodologies. Working from within traditional disciplines, government agencies, and academic seats, they stood at the complicated intersection of conservation science, policy, and practice a place that would come to define conservation biology.
More pragmatically, new federal legislation in the USA and a growing body of international agreements expanded the role and responsibilities of biologists in conservation. In the USA the National Environmental Policy Act (1970) required analysis of environmental impacts in federal decision making. The Endangered Species Act (1973) called for an unprecedented degree of scientific involvement in the identification, protection, and recovery of threatened species (see Chapter 12). Other laws that broadened the role of biologists in conservation and environmental protection include the Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), the Clean Water Act (1972), the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act (1974), the National Forest Management Act (1976), and the Federal Land Policy Management Act (1976). At the international level, the responsibilities of biologists were also expanding in response to the adoption of bilateral treaties and multilateral agreements, including the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) Man and the Biosphere Programme (1970), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) (1975), and the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (the “Ramsar Convention”) (1975). In 1966 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) published it first “red list” inventories of threatened species. In short, the need for rigorous science input into conservation decision-making was increasing, even as the science of conservation was changing. This state of affairs challenged the traditional orientation of resource managers and research biologists alike.
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