Yet the events of 01 April 2012 are real*. Humans suddenly became intelligent.

In an unprecedented emergency UN session this morning, all the world’s countries pledged to an immediate wind-down of the fossil-fuel economy and promised to invest in a rational combination of nuclear and renewable energy sources. Some experts believe the pledge would see a carbon-neutral planet by 2020.

Additionally, the session saw a world-wide pledge to halt all deforestation by 2013, with intensive reforestation programmes implemented immediately.

Family planning would be embraced worldwide, with a concerted effort to see the human population plateau by 2070, and begin declining to a stable 2 billion by 2300.

Further, ecosystem services, including inter alia global-scale carbon taxes, water trading, pollination valuation and nutrient cycling, are to be set up immediately within standard commodities trading.

Perhaps most stunning of all was the complete rejection of economic growth for a sustainable ‘steady-state‘ model.

Some well-known politicians and celebrities had almost nothing to say, for a change.

My baker, a brilliant artisan, yet nearly unknown to most of the planet, had one of the most insightful comments regarding today’s events:

“Well, there you go. And I thought humanity was f*&k#d”.

CJA Bradshaw

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*Not

His main point (as is mine, and that of a growing number of conservation scientists) is that we’ve already failed biodiversity, so it’s time to move into the next phase of disaster mitigation. By ‘failing’ I mean that, love it or loathe it, extinction rates are higher now than they have been for millennia, and we have very little to blame but ourselves. Apart from killing 9 out of 10 people on the planet (something no war or disease will ever be able to do), we’re stuck with the rude realism that it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

This post acts mostly an introduction to Peter Kareiva & collaborators’ latest essay on the future of conservation science published in the Breakthrough Institute‘s new journal. While I cannot say I agree with all components (especially the cherry-picked resilience examples), I fundamentally support the central tenet that we have to move on with a new state of play.

In other words, humans aren’t going to go away, ‘pristine’ is as unattainable as ‘infinity’, and reserves alone just aren’t going to cut it.

Let me elaborate. It is plainly naïve, overly simplistic, unrealistic and ultimately criminal even to contemplate the notion that all extant species can be saved from extinction. Not only does this go against everything we know about the turnover of species on the geological time scale (i.e., 99 % of all species that have ever existed are now extinct), it erroneously overestimates our ability to solve the complex interaction between biology, governance, socio-economics, religion and politics (i.e., ‘conservation’).

And I use the word ‘criminal’ with sincerity. If you are naïve enough to embrace the outlook that conservation triage is unnecessary or even offensive, I’ve got news for you – you are (inadvertently or ignorantly) consigning many more species to extinction by wasting precious resources on the doomed. I have little time for climate-change deniers, religious zealots or alternative-’medicine’ quacks, so I have just as little time for so-called conservationists that choose to ignore reality.

But acceptance of the ongoing negative fate of biodiversity is insufficient to move us forward. While I agree with Kareiva and colleagues that a semi-religious attachment to the ideal of ‘pristine’ nature is helping no one (not least of which, biodiversity), we can go a lot further than just accepting the ‘new’ paradigm.

As we discussed in a recent post here on ConservationBytes.com, the greatest strides forward in this matured (but doggedly viscous) discipline will be to:

1. Accept that the biology is more or less well-developed. We can further fine-tune our estimates of loss or minimisations of gain, but the concepts defining how and why species go extinct are firmly established;
2. Get extremely practical about what to save. Adolescent idealism about saving everything on the planet will get us nowhere. Part of this is to determine WHICH species are the most important components of ecosystem resilience (ecosystem function), and part is being hard-core about designing algorithms that quantify this importance.
3. Focus on quantifying ecosystem services – which species complexes provide the highest benefits to humanity. Social revolution thus far (and, I argue, will continue to) eludes us, so convincing the blatantly humanist section of society will require some very well-established relationships between biodiversity and human health, wealth and welfare.
4. Accept that technical fixes are the (perhaps largest) areas of potential gain. Without solving our lust for energy at the expense of dwindling and finite resources, biodiversity will continue down the toilet.

So to all those dedicated and well-meaning environmentalist types out there, if you cannot accept these suggestions, then I have to put you in the same group as the self-interested, myopic, greed hounds that oppose any form of conservation. Get out of the way because you have become part of the problem.

I have some hope, but I remain profoundly pessimistic about our own future as a result of biodiversity erosion. We do not appear, after all, to possess a very strong sense of (long-term) self-preservation.

CJA Bradshaw

This post is about a paper we’ve just had accepted and has come out online in Biological Conservation called Strange bedfellows? Techno-fixes to solve the big conservation issues in southern Asia - and it’s likely to piss off a few people, and hopefully motivate others.

We wrote the paper for a special issue of essays dedicated to the memory of our mate and colleague, Navjot Sodhi, who died earlier this year. The issue hasn’t been released yet, but we have managed to get our paper out well before.

Like Navjot, the paper is controversial. Also like Navjot, we hope it challenges a few minds and pushes a few boundaries. We, as conservation biologists, must accept the fact that we have largely failed – biodiversity is still being lost at an alarming rate despite decades and decades of good science, sound evidence-based policy recommendations and even some rescues of species on the ‘brink’. Huge consumption rates, a population of 7 billion humans and counting, carbon emissions exceeding all worst-case scenarios, and greater disparity of wealth distribution have all contributed to this poor performance.

So what else can we do?

It’s not enough for us to sit back and say ‘Well, we’ve studied most systems, and we know what we need to do in terms of species conservation (and the ecosystem services they provide’) – it’s up to ‘society’ now to implement them.” This simply won’t happen.

We therefore require a vastly upgraded approach to species conservation that goes well outside of the box, and that approach must at least admit, and then explicitly address, the need for vast amounts of emissions-free electrical energy.

For the predominance of fossil fuel-based energy is the root of all [conservation] evil – vast amounts of power are required to grow our food (think of the petrol/diesel alone needed to run the machinery and then distribute the food around the world), transport our goods, recycle our wastes, supply us with water, etc. And what’s the principal determinant of species loss? It’s agricultural expansion that ends up cutting down all the forests and polluting our water courses.

Thus, without power, our societies essentially come to a halt. If the source of all this power supply happens to produce emissions that result in a rapid cooking (or a clearing for biofuels) of our ecosystems, we need to switch to alternatives. We argue that unless we open up the power-supply market to ALL forms of GHG emission-free generation, we’re screwed, and biodiversity will continue to gurgle down the toilet. This means a healthy, global embrace of nuclear energy is required, even though it can’t address all problems. So-called ‘renewable’ technologies just won’t provide enough energy to supply our needs until it is far too late.

So, we encourage people to keep an open mind on the subject, and consider the alternatives. Sure, some people will die if we wholeheartedly embrace nuclear energy, but many, many, many more will die if we don’t (e.g., from climate change-related deaths, reduction in food-producing capacity, direct deaths from coal mining, etc.), and biodiversity will suffer disproportionately.

Want some more information on the benefits of nuclear energy? Read Barry’s blog.

CJA Bradshaw

© www.osmre.gov

The Coalition of Financially Challenged Countries with Lots of Trees, known as ‘CoFCCLoT’, representing most of the world’s remaining tropical forests, is asking wealthy nations to share global responsibilities and reforest their land for the common good of stabilizing climate and protecting biodiversity.

“We are willing to play our part, but we require a level playing field in which we all commit to equal sacrifices,” a coalition spokeswoman says. “Returning forest cover in the G8 countries and the European Union back to historic coverage will benefit all of us in the long-term.”

Seventy-five per cent of Europe was once forested. Now it is 45 per cent. Some countries such as Ireland saw forest cover reduced to near zero. Most forest cover in the developed world is now often planted with stands of alien trees, turning them into deserts for biodiversity. Remaining natural forests are often highly fragmented and have few native species.

“For all the forests we in Indonesia, Brazil or Central Africa do not cut down, G8 countries should reforest a similarly-sized area,” says the CoFCCLoT spokeswoman. “Too many agricultural areas in Europe and the USA are only kept in business because of tariffs and subsidies.”

CoFCCLoT members also ask why they are criticized for developing oil palm plantations, even though these produce much more biofuel and oil per unit area than temperate crops such as maize — and thus require much less land to satisfy global demands. With the world’s population expected to reach 10.5 billion by 2050, it is crucial that food and fuel are produced efficiently, and where most population growth is expected.

CoFCCLoT points out that nature in wealthy nations needs urgent attention. “Large areas are degraded. Soils are compacted, soil faunas depleted, and their hydrology disrupted and contaminated.”

The coalition says that if wealthy nations restore their forests, they can help slow climate change by absorbing atmospheric carbon and provide people with clean water and healthy soils. They also highlight the benefits for species diversity and environmental services.

CoFCCLoT notes the opportunities to reintroduce bears, lynx, wolves, beavers and other threatened animals that have been severely reduced or driven to extinction in the Northern Hemisphere by rampant exploitation of natural forests in much of the industrialized world.

It says too that in the longer-term, ongoing climate change and reforestation might permit tropical megafauna to thrive in temperate countries. Lions could be reintroduced to Greece, they suggest, and gorillas might thrive in Spain. Both countries face economic challenges that could be reduced by the revenues from ecotourism.

New markets for local handicrafts and also cultural entertainments are anticipated in G8 countries. These developments would reduce agricultural pressure on the forests.

CoFCCLoT expects that their member countries will provide funds for local capacity building, awareness raising, dealing with human wildlife conflicts and law enforcement in the USA, Japan and Europe. “The limited capacity in many of these regions is a concern. But we are willing to share our skills and experiences” said the spokeswoman.

The coalition acknowledges that their demands will meet some resistance. People might be scared to live near large forests with wild animals and may be resentful of not being allowed access to forest resources. “But people will get used to it,” explains the spokeswoman.

“It is time to share these global responsibilities,” she adds. “The G8 cannot have their cake and eat it too”.

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Confused? Wait for Installment Two in a week or so…

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© www.greenberg-art.com

In the 1960s, Rachel Carson preoccupied (to put it mildly) the political and economic powers of the United States with the publication of her book, Silent Spring, an overwhelming essay highlighting the environmental impacts caused by the pesticide industry. Half a century later, the metaphor of that book – a spring devoid of bird song – stands in force as farmland birds keep declining worldwide at the mercy of agricultural practices insensitive to the ecosystem services biodiversity procures. The problem has been best studied in Europe where non-government organisations, such as the British Trust for Ornithology or the Sociedad Española de Ornitología, have been monitoring bird populations for decades, and the European Union has sumptuously financed research and management actions.

Sparrows are the commonest among common birds. Worldwide we see them wherever humans live, travel and take leisure, from mountains and beaches to stadiums and underground trains. These feathery dwarfs snick even through security checks and sliding doors at airports and shopping malls, and it is no one’s surprise to be overflown by one of them carrying a chip from the leftovers of a nearby food court. However, the deterioration of their populations has sown alarm among European politicians, society, and the scientific community.

© Gordon Ramel

As an example, Hole and colleagues¹ studied four genetically isolated populations of house sparrow (Passer domesticus) on Oxfordshire farmlands (United Kingdom). The number of individuals of one of the populations (University Farm) had decreased by 80% between 1960 and 2000, while the other three populations remained stable. During the coldest months over several winters, the four populations were fed ad libitum, with the number of survivors being counted between several consecutive winters before and after food addition. At the end of the experiment, supplementary feeding matched with an increase in survival only in the historically declining population (Figure 1).

The British biologists hypothesized that the population at University Farm was limited by overwinter food supply potentially resulting from agricultural intensification¹. The broader picture numbers the British population of house sparrows at ~ 13 million individuals, after declines by 50 and 60% in rural and urban areas, respectively, since the 1970s² (Figure 2). This is one among a deluge of cases giving evidence that sustained increases in crop yield per surface area (by means of intensive irrigation, fertilisation and chemical protection) is negatively impacting a variety of resources vital for many farmland birds³. Thus in the last three decades, the censuses of common farmland birds in the European Union (~ 120 species) have shown a sustained reduction^4,5 (Figure 2). John Krebs refers to this phenomenon as ‘the second silent spring’⁶, alluding to Carson’s metaphor, which is affecting birds and the entire biodiversity of our farmlands^7,8.

Larger yields, poorer environment

Fig. 1. Percentage of surviving house sparrows in 4 resident populations at farms in Oxfordshire (UK), before and after supplementary feeding in winter. Survival rates only increased considerably in the population at University Farm which had experienced a sustained decline between 1960 and 2000.

Human beings have turned more than half of the planet’s surface into agriculture, and lifestock has altered most of the remaining land⁹. In developed countries, the area devoted to crops and pastures has stabilized, but it keeps expanding in developing countries⁹. Whether developed or developing, agricultural intensification is a major agenda for the majority of countries, partly in an attempt to feed a human population currently nearing 7 billion and estimated to escalate to 9 billion by 2050¹⁰.

The challenge of food security (and a fair distribution of it) for so many people compromises the environment. I recently touched on how the health of bee populations can determine the quantity of produce. Well, the health of birds is an indicator of the environmental quality of our countryside and indirectly, of the food we consume. Thus in Europe, the worst historical censuses of farmland birds have been observed in countries such as Belgium, France, The Netherlands and the UK where agricultural intensification has rocketed in the last five decades, particularly cereal production⁴.

The European Union has reacted to the surmounting scientific evidence by adopting those censuses as one of its key indicators assessing the Sustainable Development Strategy. In addition, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has created, inter alia, agro-environment schemes which compensate farmers for following practices that respect the environment, like fertilisation caps or crop timing adjusted to the breeding cycle of birds. However, measures that work for one species at one farm in a given country might well be unsuccessful in others, so agro-environment schemes have heated polemics^11-13; nonetheless, the PAC amalgamates a growing 50% of the total billionaire budget of the European Union!

Fig. 2. Index of abundance in the 36 commonest farmland birds in 13 countries of the European Union governed by the Common Agricultural Policy; and index of abundance of house sparrows in rural areas of the UK. The European metric is standardised relative to 1980 counts, and indicates that bird numbers have halved in the last 30 years.

As in many other management scenarios, conservation measures are most effective, not only as a function of political will, but when the causes that drive population decline can be identified. Newton¹⁴ has recently overviewed the range of factors unequivocally linked to agricultural intensification that reduce bird reproductive performance and/or survival.

Briefly,

(i) herbicides and intensive lifestocking wipe out invertebrate populations which are prey to insectivore and omnivore species (e.g., cirl buntings Emberiza cirlus);

(ii) subsequently the reduction in those birds cascades to their predators (e.g., peregrine falcons Falco peregrinus);

(iii) delays in sowing favours plant overgrowth which precludes nesting (e.g., skylark Alauda arvensis);

(iv) ploughing destroys nests in the breeding season (e.g., stone curlew Burhinus oedicnemus);

(v) land drainage and grassland management contracts the habitat for waders (e.g., lapwings Vanellus vanellus); and

(vi) the destruction of hedgerows, bush and forest patches delimiting the crops deprives some species of vital food (e.g., song thrushes Turdus philomelos), shelter from predators (e.g., curlews Numenius arquata), and nesting sites (e.g., turtle doves Streptopelia turtur, along with collapse of abandoned cottages important for species like barn owls Tyto alba).

Other causes have been identified; however, the overall picture, most unsurprisingly, suggests that practices that reduce habitat heterogeneity, clash with reproductive periods, and/or release pollutants and fertilisers to the environment at a large scale, are doomed to mute future springs.

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Salvador Herrando-Pérez

References

¹Hole, D. G. et al. Widespread local house-sparrow extinctions. Nature 418, 931-932, doi:10.1038/418931a (2002)

²Robinson, R. A., Siriwardena, G. M. & Crick, H. Q. P. Size and trends of the House Sparrow Passer domesticus population in Great Britain. Ibis 147, 552-562, doi:10.1111/j.1474-919x.2005.00427.x (2005)

³Wilson, J. D., Evans, A. D. & Grice, P. V. Bird conservation and agriculture: a pivotal moment? Ibis 152, 176-179, doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.2009.00992.x (2010)

⁴Donald, P. F., Green, R. E. & Heath, M. F. Agricultural intensification and the collapse of Europe’s farmland bird populations. Proc. R. Soc. B-Biol. Sci. 268, 25-29, doi:10.1098/rspb.2000.1325 (2001)

⁵Donald, P. F., Sanderson, F. J., Burfield, I. J. & van Bommel, F. P. J. Further evidence of continent-wide impacts of agricultural intensification on European farmland birds, 1990-2000. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 116, 189-196, doi:10.1016/j.agee.2006.02.007 (2006)

⁶Krebs, J. R., Wilson, J. D., Bradbury, R. B. & Siriwardena, G. M. The second Silent Spring? Nature 400, 611-612, doi:10.1038/23127 (1999)

⁷Flynn, D. F. B. et al. Loss of functional diversity under land use intensification across multiple taxa. Ecol. Lett. 12, 22-33, doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2008.01255.x (2009)

⁸Kleijn, D. et al. On the relationship between farmland biodiversity and land-use intensity in Europe. Proc. R. Soc. B-Biol. Sci. 276, 903-909, doi:10.1098/rspb.2008.1509 (2009)

⁹Green, R. E., Cornell, S. J., Scharlemann, J. P. W. & Balmford, A. Farming and the fate of wild nature. Science 307, 550-555, doi:10.1126/science.1106049 (2005)

¹⁰Godfray, H. C. J. et al. Food security: the challenge of feeding 9 billion people. Science 327, 812-818, doi:10.1126/science.1185383 (2010).

¹¹Kleijn, D. & Sutherland, W. J. How effective are European agri-environment schemes in conserving and promoting biodiversity? J. Appl. Ecol. 40, 947-969, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2664.2003.00868.x (2003)

¹²Kleijn, D. et al. Mixed biodiversity benefits of agri-environment schemes in five European countries. Ecol. Lett. 9, 243-254, doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2005.00869.x (2006)

¹³Donald, P. F. et al. Response to Comment on “International Conservation Policy Delivers Benefits for Birds in Europe”. Science 319, 1042, doi:10.1126/science.1151939 (2008)

¹⁴Newton, I. The recent declines of farmland bird populations in Britain: an appraisal of causal factors and conservation actions. Ibis 146, 579-600, doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.2004.00375.x (2004)

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© T. Toles

Resolving the ‘Environmentalist’s Paradox’, and the role of ecologists in advancing economic thinking

Aldo Leopold famously described the curse of an ecological education as “to be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise”. Ecologists do have a tendency for making dire warnings for the future, but for anyone concerned about the myriad of problems currently facing the Earth – climate change, an ongoing wave of species extinctions and impending peak oil, phosphate, water , (everything?) crises – the continued ignorance or ridicule of such warnings can be a frustrating experience. Environmental degradation and ecological overshoot isn’t just about losing cute plants and animals, given the widespread acceptance that long-term human well-being ultimately rests on the ability for the Earth to supply us with ecosystem services.

In light of this doom and gloom, things were shaken up a bit late last year when an article¹ published in Bioscience pointed out that in spite of declines in the majority of ecosystem services considered essential to human well-being by The Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), aggregate human well-being (as measured by the Human Development Index) has risen continuously over the last 50 years. Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne and the co-authors of the study suggested that these conflicting trends presented an ‘environmentalist’s paradox’ of sorts – do we really depend on nature to the extent that ecologists have led everyone to believe?

The article has generated quite a bit of attention, as it challenged one of our most fundamental perceptions of our relationship to the natural environment. If it were possible for humans to supersede nature, then our current march through the Anthropocene and into a four or six degree-hotter world shouldn’t be of much concern for us (biodiversity might not be so lucky). Raudsepp-Hearne and colleagues tested four main hypotheses to try to explain this finding: that well-being is not measured correctly, provisioning services such as food production, which are increasing, are more important for well-being than other services, technology has decoupled humans from our relationship with nature, and the prospect of a time lag in humanity’s response to diminishing ecosystem services.

The article has been discussed in more detail in a more recent issue of BioScience, where Anantha Duraippah pointed out (and as hinted at by Tim Beardsley in the original editorial) that aggregating estimates of human well-being at the global scale can mask declines and inequalities across sub-global and country-level scales. Duraippah also questioned the reliability of the Human Development Index (HDI) as an indicator of human well-being, and pointed towards findings of the recent Stiglitz Report on the Measurements of Social and Economic Progress, commissioned by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The report identified numerous factors that make up well-being: those that can be measured objectively including employment and income, and subjective measures such as emotional happiness. Both types of measures – objective and subjective – were regarded as critical to obtain a well-rounded view of society’s genuine progress and well-being.

The response by Gerard Nelson argued that better technology, data and economic accounting will help to resolve the paradox, while most commentators across the blogosphere (see here, here, and here) focussed mainly on the final hypothesis proposed by Raudsepp-Hearne to explain the paradox – the expectation of a time lag in humanity’s response to diminishing ecosystem services. Technology (or more likely, cheap fossil fuels) and social innovation might be contributing to this time lag, and perhaps delaying the onset of a tipping point in ecosystem function and subsequently human well-being.

Interestingly, there have also been some comments (here and here) directed from an alternative perspective – that humans simply don’t rely on natural resources to the extent that environmentalists purport, and the continued positive trend in HDI in the face of environmental degradation is confirmation of this assertion. The environmentalist’s paradox is not a paradox because global growth in human capital (such as knowledge and individual skills) is substituting for our reliance on natural capital – ultimately meaning that human well-being will continually improve without restriction.

Fig. 1. Neoclassical (mainstream) economic view of the economy (http://goo.gl/F3ZSA). © www.irconomics.com

To understand this argument better, it is worth looking at the issue from first principles – beginning with the circular flow model of mainstream economic theory (Fig. 1). Here all economic activity is considered to be contained within a whole, self-contained system, where the environment is a subsystem of the greater economy. Resources produced by the environment (i.e., natural capital) are converted to human capital during the economic process, but environmental degradation associated with this conversion is not necessarily a problem since human-made capital could effectively substitute for the loss of natural capital. Increased efficiency in the conversion of natural to human capital, coupled with technological advancements, mean that according to this viewpoint the economy can increase in scale without any limits, and as such human well-being can continue to increase indefinitely.

The main problem with the circular flow model is that it is effectively a perpetual motion machine – a model that violates basic physical laws such as entropy and the conservation of mass and energy. Viewing the economy as a whole, isolated system that generates no wastes and requires no additional inputs is like describing an animal in terms of its circulatory system, but ignoring its digestive tract². If the circular flow model of the economy system is to satisfy the laws of thermodynamics, the system cannot be a ‘whole’, but instead sits within a larger system, the Earth, which is bounded by biophysical limits (Fig. 2). These limits mean that there are indeed limits to scale of the human economy relative to the natural economy, and that aggregate human well-being is ultimately constrained by these limits.

Fig. 2. Ecological economic view of the economy (http://goo.gl/F3ZSA)

So we have two alternative viewpoints – one which stresses the importance of the environment for human well-being, and another which argues that the environment perhaps isn’t so important after all. The conclusion reached by Raudsepp-Hearne and her colleagues argue that to resolve the paradox, ecologists need to direct efforts into understanding the links between ecosystem services and multiple aspects of human well-being, trade-offs and synergies between services, the role of technology and better forecasting of changes and potential tipping points in the future supply of ecosystem services. That being said, I can’t help but feel that the discovery of ecological tipping points – especially at the global scale – might not be something to cheer about while the Earth remains on its unsustainable trajectory with no ‘Plan B’ in sight.

It’s hard to disagree with the importance of this research direction, but perhaps the most interesting outcome of  Raudsepp-Hearne’s article is that the subsequent discussion has shown how polar opposite conclusions can be drawn as to why and how the environmentalist’s paradox will eventually be resolved, depending on your pre-existing view on humanity’s relationship to the environment.  It might be tempting just to disregard the viewpoint which considers the maintenance of the environment as unnecessary for human well-being, but as John Gowdy and colleagues argued in a recent essay³, it’s worth remembering that mainstream economics perceives the world as in Figure 1, where physics doesn’t exist and the environment is often considered as ‘external’ to the economic system.  This means that the vast majority of economic decision making is driven by an unrealistic view of the world, which has obvious consequences for biodiversity conservation.

Given these stark differences in the preanalytic visions of mainstream economists and ecologists (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2m respectively), it seems that working to resolve the environmentalist’s paradox is only the first step, and that a more systemic perspective is needed to understand how the world is to move onto a sustainable pathway. Raudsepp-Hearne and her colleagues suggest that cross-disciplinary discussion is needed to create a ”…science of sustainability capable of integrating the complexities of culture, human well-being, agriculture, technology, and ecology”. But such a discussion also needs to include a critical analysis of many of the theories which underpin modern economics to become compatible with broader goals for biodiversity conservation and long term sustainability.

Ecologists and conservation scientists in particular have a hugely important role to play in advancing economic thinking – but as Gowdy points out, it can be difficult for ecologists ask the fundamental questions required because of the differences in language used between disciplines. Paul Ehrlich has argued that ecologists should become economists, and vice versa – but while a change in profession might not always be possible, there is still an urgent need for much bigger and louder conversation between ecologists and economists if we are to truly build a science of sustainability.

There are, of course, many examples of ecologists and economists working together – for example, the annual The Askö Meetings which have built a shared understanding by leaders in both fields. Realistically though, these conversations shouldn’t be taking place just once a year in a remote island off the coast of Sweden (although it does sound lovely), but in conferences, within and between university and government departments, in tea rooms, lecture theatres and everywhere that ecologists and economists could potentially cohabitate. Of course interdisciplinary work doesn’t just happen if you throw people into a room together, so what else could be done? A buddy system? Or a trip to the pub? I don’t know what the answer is, but whatever happens, this is a conversation that needs to happen sooner rather than later. Now is the time to be part of the development of a ‘Plan B’.

Megan Evans

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¹Raudsepp-Hearne, C., G. D. Peterson, et al. (2010). Untangling the Environmentalist’s Paradox: why is human well-being increasing as ecosystem services degrade? BioScience 60: 576-589. doi:10.1525/bio.2010.60.8.4

²Daly, H. E. and F. Farley (2010). Chapter 2: The Fundamental Vision. Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications, 2nd Edition. Island Press, Washington, DC.

³Gowdy, J., C. Hall, et al. (2010). What every conservation biologist should know about economic theory. Conservation Biology 24: 1440-1447. doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01563.x

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Although not a conservation biology paper per se, Hardin’s classic essay (Hardin, 1968) changed the way we think about managing natural resources that lack definitive ownership.

The thesis of the “tragedy of the commons” is that individuals are inherently selfish and usually place their own interests first in using commonly owned resources, thereby resulting in their depletion. Hardin used a hypothetical and simplified situation based on medieval land tenure in Europe (herders sharing a common parcel of land) on which each herder was entitled to graze his cattle. Each herder maximized his gains by putting additional cattle onto the land, even if the carrying capacity of the common was exceeded and overgrazing ensued. The herder, by making an “individually rational decision,” received all the benefits from his cattle, but could in the process deplete the common resource for the entire group. If all herders make such selfish decisions then the common will be depleted, jeopardizing the livelihoods of all.

Hardin’s paper is now a central paradigm in natural resources management (e.g., fisheries); however, his work has been criticized most notably by Elinor Ostrom – the first woman to be awarded the Noble Prize in economics in 2009. In her classic work, Ostrom (1990) showed that when communities are given the freedom to self-govern, they are, under certain conditions, able to use the commons sustainably. Another controversial theme of Hardin’s paper is that an expanding human population is a detriment to the planet and its ability to support human existence, and thus he implies that humanity needs to be educated to relinquish the freedom to breed without limit (for more recent discussion see Ehrlich & Pringle, 2008).

CJA Bradshaw

Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons Science, 162 (3859), 1243-1248 DOI: 10.1126/science.162.3859.1243

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Each time environmentalists rally to defend an endangered habitat, and finally win the battle to designate it as a park “forever,” as Nature Conservancy puts it, the economic growth machine turns to surrounding lands and exploits them ever more intensively, causing more species loss than ever before, putting even more lands under threat. For each acre of land that comes under protection, two acres are developed, and 40% of all species lie outside of parks. Nature Conservancy Canada may indeed have “saved” – at least for now – two million acres [my addendum: that's 809371 hectares], but many more millions have been ruined. And the ruin continues, until, once more, on a dozen other fronts, development comes knocking at the door of a forest, or a marsh or a valley that many hold sacred. Once again, environmentalists, fresh from an earlier conflict, drop everything to rally its defence, and once again, if they are lucky, yet another section of land is declared off-limits to logging, mining and exploration. They are like a fire brigade that never rests, running about, exhausted, trying to extinguish one brush fire after another, year after year, decade after decade, winning battles but losing the war.

Despite occasional setbacks, the growth machine continues more furiously, and finally, even lands which had been set aside “forever” come under pressure. As development gets closer, the protected land becomes more valuable, and more costly to protect. Then government, under the duress of energy and resource shortages and the dire need for royalties and revenue, caves in to allow industry a foothold, then a chunk, then another. Yosemite Park, Hamber Provincial Park, Steve Irwin Park [my addendum - even the mention of this man is an insult to biodiversity conservation]… the list goes on. There is no durable sanctuary from economic growth. Any park that is made by legislation can be unmade by legislation. Governments change and so do circumstances. But growth continues and natural capital [my addendum: see my post on this term and others] shrinks. And things are not even desperate yet.

Here’s a thought. Stop fighting the brush fire. Stop investing time and effort in fighting for park preservation, and instead direct that energy into stopping economic growth. If the same energy that has been put into battles to save the environment piecemeal had been put into lobbying for a steady state economy, development pressure everywhere would have ceased, and habitat would be safe everywhere. After all, what area is not “sacred?”

For most of us who care about nature, bypassing local fights would seem like driving by an accident scene without stopping to offer help. Environmentalism, after all, is typically born from passionate concern about a threatened treasure very close to our hearts. But as General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz concluded during the Pacific War, to achieve the long-term strategic objective, it is sometimes necessary to conserve strength by “island-hopping” over enemy strong points so that resources can be saved to fight the bigger, more decisive battles. Each of us has only so much time and energy to budget for the cause. The question is, are we deploying it to our best advantage? So far, environmental victories have been won at the cost of losing the strategic war. Environmental watchdogs bark, but the growth caravan moves on.

The practice of designating hallowed places as nature reserves must no longer be seen as “victories,” but rather as concessions. They are a permit issued to keep on growing as long as a small portion of the land base is left off the shopping list. The declaration by certain politicians to “protect” 12% of our land surface from exploitation is a permit to leave 88% unprotected. What they are really talking about, is licensed exploitation. It is like paying the mob not to rob your neighbourhood, so that they can ravage others. The Saxons called it Danegeld, and all it bought was time. What is magical about this 12%? Does 12% somehow represent the area of land necessary to protect wilderness and wildlife? Or is it a political figure designed to achieve a compromise between conservationists and developers? [my addendum: see my related post about reserve percentages for marine parks]

According to wildlife biologist Dr. Keith Hobson of Environment Canada, a veteran warrior of decades of battles to save habitat:

There is no biological basis to 12%. It came out of the Brundtland Commission and is a dangerous concept… …most biologists I know consider the number to be totally arbitrary and political, with no relationship to actual biology or conservation. As for abandoning the nature preservation schtick in favour of reduced human and economic growth, I emphatically agree. After all, what have been the true ‘victories’ of the environmental movement? Largely postage-stamp pieces of real estate, which, once designated, open the floodgates of development around them. And like you, I have absolutely no faith in the longevity of these designations.

Sir Peter Scott once commented that the World Wildlife Fund would have saved more wildlife it they had dispensed free condoms rather invested in nature reserves. Biodiversity is primarily threatened by human expansion, which may be defined as the potent combination of a growing human population and its growing appetite for resources. Economic growth is the root cause of environmental degradation, and fighting its symptoms is the Labour of Sisyphus.

The main thrust of the evening was to have both academic (me & Andy Lowe) and on-the-ground, local conservationists (Sarah Lance, Craig Gillespie and Matt Turner) talk about what people can do to stem the tide of biodiversity loss. The video is now available, so I thought I’d reproduce it here. We talked about a lot of issues (from global to local scale), so if you have a spare hour, you might get something out of this. I did, but it certainly wasn’t long enough to discuss such big issues.

Warning – this was supposed to be more of a discussion and less of a talkfest; unfortunately, many of the panel members seemed to forget this and instead dominated the session. We really needed 4 hours to do this properly (but then, who would have watched the video?).

P.S. You can also view a larger version and skip to specific bits by clicking here.

It’s almost a bit embarrassing that I’ve never attended an ESA¹ conference before, but I think I waited for the right one. However, the main reason I attended was that I was fortunate to have received the ESA’s 3^rd Australian Ecology Research Award (AERA), and the kick-back was a fully funded trip. My only reciprocation was to give a 40-minute plenary lecture – a small price to pay.

I entitled my talk ‘Heads in the desert sand: why Australians should wake up to the biodiversity crisis’, and I received a lot of good feedback. I talked about the global and Australian trends of biodiversity loss and associated ecosystem services, focussing the middle section on some of our work on feral animal ecology (see example). I then gave my views on the seriousness of our current situation and why some of the fastest losses of sensitive ecosystem services are happening right here, right now. I finished off with a section on how I think Australian ecologists could get more relevant and active in terms of research uptake by policy makers. I hope that the talk will be podcastable soon, so stay tuned.

But that was just ‘my’ bit. This post is more about a quick summary of the highlights and my overall impressions.

The conference was ESA’s largest ever, with over 800 registrants – truly an Australian ecology record. There were some stunning (and not-so-stunning) plenaries, and a good selection of quality student research. Despite now being a member of 3 ecological societies (ESA, British Ecological Society and the Ecological Society of America), I’ve only ever been to one meeting for each. That doesn’t give me any huge insight into relative quality or usefulness, but I can say this meeting impressed me as much as the BES meeting in Glasgow in 2007 because it had a great mix of high fliers and students. The only ESA (America) meeting I’ve ever attended was too overwhelmingly large for me to see the point (but that was a long time ago).

Highlights (and dimlights) for me last week certainly include the following:

• A great combined insider-outsider perspective on the history of Australian ecology in particular, and the discipline in general, by the venerable and always entertaining Charles Krebs of the University of British Columbia. Charley was probably more subdued than I’ve seen him be in the past, but it was a well-crafted and inspiring talk.
• Bill Sutherland of the University of Cambridge had an excellent new take on his ‘horizon-scanning‘ perspective, and the talk itself was peppered with brilliant humour and positive notions (i.e., what we can do, and how we can make ourselves relevant).
• The Australian economist, Ross Garnaut, famous for his reports on the economics of climate change in Australia, gave a rather disappointing plenary. It might be more common for social scientists to read their talks during lectures, but really, if I wanted to read a synopsis of his analysis, I’ll just go to the website, thanks. I almost fell asleep despite the immense importance of his message.
• Stanford University scientist, Hal Mooney, gave a very entertaining, but sobering talk about how his generation of ecologists has failed to make any dent on the current crisis.
• I admit I missed Peter Bridgewater‘s talk, but ANU’s Lorrae van Kerkhoff‘s talk eluded me completely. I really didn’t understand her message, and found it loaded with motherhood statements rather than anything particularly practical. But maybe I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have.
• Julian Cribb gave perhaps the most frightening talk I’ve ever seen – the looming worldwide famine. He’s written a book about it, and I intend to buy a copy. If the stats he was citing are even half-true, we’re doomed (and people tell me I’m gloomy!).
• Richard Hobbs gave a brilliant talk for the Gold Medal lecture – a true conservation biologist hero that I’ve been meaning to interview for ages in Conservation Scholars. I’ll get one soon.
• Perhaps the best non-plenary talk I saw was by Don Driscoll. He spoke eloquently about the problems of redundant terminology in ecology and the lack of real application of ecological theory in conservation actions. One of my students is currently working on polysemous ecological concepts in density dependence theory, so I took a lot away from this. Don and I sat down afterwards and decided that we really do need to move forward with an Ecological Terminology Coda within the discipline. Watch this space.

The other talks I saw were generally of a relatively high quality, and many were by students presenting for the first time. Overall, it was one of the better conferences I have attended in a while. Well done, organising committee.

As I’ve mentioned in previous conference overview posts, the social events are some of the most important aspects of any conference. Where else can you really unwind and get to know a potential collaborator/student/employer? It’s over a beer (or [insert favourite drink]), my friend. I can happily report that the wine & cheese poster sessions, the swanky dinner at Old Parliament House, and the mass exodus to the pubs post-events were all top-notch in that regard. My only real whinge is that Canberra is absolutely dead from Sun-Wed after 22.00. A few pubs at least should consider staying open later.

I will gladly attend ESA conferences in the future – next one will be in Hobart, Tasmania.

CJA Bradshaw

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¹It’s an unfortunate alphabetical coincidence that the Ecological Society of America shares the same initialism. When I write ‘ESA’, I will always refer to the Australian organisation unless otherwise stipulated.