This, the title of Peter Kareiva and Michelle Marvier’s paper in Scientific American, embodies in some ways, what this website is all about. Certainly not the first researchers to conclude that people will only value biodiversity if it has direct implications for their own well-being (economic prosperity, health, longevity, etc.), Kareiva and Marvier’s paper nicely summarises, however, the extent to which conservation research MUST quantify these links. The corollary is that if we don’t, conservation research will pass into oblivion (along with the species we are attempting to protect from extinction). Nice paper, and certainly one to watch.

Why a shrinking human population is a good thing
The other day I was asked to do an interview for a South Korean radio station about the declining-population “crisis”. Therein lies the rub — there is no crisis. While I think the interview went well (you can listen to it here), I didn’t have ample time to flesh out my arguments; I’ve decided to […]
Erik Meijaard, adviser for The Nature Conservancy‘s forest program in Indonesia, posted an interesting essay on this subject entitled: Conservation For Us. Check out his blog on this and related issues here.
CJA Bradshaw
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