Feb | 2009 | ConservationBytes.com

One more (excellent) reason to conserve tropical forests

26 02 2009

Another nail in the deforesters’ justification coffin – tropical forests are worth more intact than cut down. This one from Mongabay.com and one for the Potential section:

Undisturbed tropical forests are absorbing nearly a fifth of carbon dioxide released annually by the burning of fossil fuels, according to an analysis of 40 years of data from rainforests in the Central African country of Gabon.

Writing in the journal Nature, Simon Lewis and colleagues report that natural forests are an immense carbon sink, helping slow the rise in atmospheric CO2 levels.

“We are receiving a free subsidy from nature,” said Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow at the University of Leeds. “Tropical forest trees are absorbing about 18% of the CO2 added to the atmosphere each year from burning fossil fuels, substantially buffering the rate of climate change.”

But the good news may not last for long. Other research suggests that as tropical forests fall to loggers, dry out due to rising temperatures, and burn, their capacity to absorb carbon is reduced.

The research, which combined the new data from African rainforests with previously published data from the Americas and Asia, lends support to the idea that old-growth forests are critical to addressing climate change. Recent climate negotiations have included debates on compensating tropical countries for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (“REDD” or “avoided deforestation”).

“To get an idea of the value of the sink, the removal of nearly 5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by intact tropical forests, based on realistic prices for a tonne of carbon, should be valued at around £13 billion per year,” said study co-author Lee White, Gabon’s Chief Climate Change Scientist. “This is a compelling argument for conserving tropical forests.”

“Predominantly rich polluting countries should be transferring substantial resources to countries with tropical forests to reduce deforestation rates and promote alternative development pathways,” added Lewis.

The new findings show that tropical forests account for roughly half of the 8.5 billion tons of carbon that is sequestered in terrestrial sources each year, the balance is absorbed by soils and other types of vegetation. Another 8.5 billion tons dissolved in oceans, leaving 15 billion of the 32 billion tons emitted by humans each year in the atmosphere. Deforestation accounts for roughly 6 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions – greater than the emissions from all the world’s planes, ships, trucks, and cars.

Note – the contention by Muller-Landau that the Lewis and colleagues’ findings are not realistic due to ‘regeneration’ demonstrates her ignorance of recent work demonstrating the sequestration aspect of mature forests. But more importantly, this cherry-picked gripe, even if it were plausible, is almost of no consequence. With much of the world’s tropical forests already badly degraded or destroyed, there will inevitably be large areas of regenerating forests for centuries to come (i.e., time periods relevant to climate change projections). We haven’t even managed to reduce the RATE of tropical deforestation, so the opportunities for regeneration will persist, making the Lewis result all the more important. Muller-Landau is known for her unrealistic and anti-conservationist views, so her comments are hardly surprising. My advice – take her opinions with a very large shaker of salt (or better yet, ignore entirely).

CJA Bradshaw

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Tags: biodiversity, conservation, science, tropical forests
Categories : Africa, Amazon, biocarbon, biosequestration, carbon, Central America, climate change, climate shift, deforestation, ecosystem services, habitat loss, Indonesia, oil palm, palm oil, tropical

Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss III

24 02 2009

Some more (see previous ‘Cartoon Guide’ instalments I and II) comedic reminders of humanity’s environmental short-sightedness.

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CJA Bradshaw

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Tags: biodiversity, cartoon, conservation
Categories : cartoon, conservation, deforestation, ecosystem, ecosystem services, exploitation, extinction, habitat loss, human overpopulation, threatened species

Don’t torture your readers II

22 02 2009

The second instalment of “Don’t torture your readers” (an attempt to stimulate better writing in conservation science) follows with some more mistakes, bad grammar and personal pet peeves.

DECIMATE (as in ‘… the population was decimated following…’) – I’ve seen this one used way too often. It is usually invoked by the author to imply some devastating reduction in population size (somehow it sounds bad); for this reason alone, the emotive language should be avoided. However, ‘decimate’ has a specific meaning: to reduce by every ‘one in 10’ (hence the ‘deci’ prefix). If you really mean the population was reduced by 10 %, use ‘decimate’. If you are just stating the population was reduced, state by how much and avoid emotive and incorrect terms.
DRAMATIC(ALLY) (as in ‘… we observed a dramatic decline in…’) – another meaningless, emotive word that belongs in the theatre, not in scientific writing. Quantify your meaning instead of relying on subjective terms.
CRITICAL(LY) (as in ‘… highlights the critical importance of…’ – This term is generally meant to communicate some urgent need or absolute necessity. While most authors would like to think their chosen topic is ‘critical’, many neither define to whom or what the results are ‘critical’, or even what the lack thereof would entail. In some circumstances it is used to infer some sort of threshold beyond which another state dominates, so I question the need for ‘critical’ at all in conservation writing. If you are trying to inflate the importance of your work, ‘critical’ is the word to use; if you mean a threshold, then simply state so.
FEW versus LESS – I’m amazed this still stumps so many people. ‘Few’ should be used to define a small number of countable (discrete) items (e.g., individuals, quadrats, plots). ‘Less’ should be applied to a measurable, continuous variable (covariate) that cannot be easily discretised (e.g., water, biomass, carbon). If you ever see someone write ‘less individuals’, get out the big red pen.
DATA – While on the subject of quantification, the word ‘data’ should always be followed by plural forms of the verbs (e.g., ‘… the data are…’; ‘… the data were…’). A singular ‘datum’ is one measurement and requires the singular form. A ‘dataset’ is a single group of data, so it too can use the singular form. If you want to communicate that your sample size was too small (for your intended purposes), you need to write ‘too few data’.
MIGHT/CAN versus MAY – I’ve often got this one wrong too. ‘May’ implies doubt or permission, so it is most often better to use ‘can’ or ‘might’ (where appropriate) when you expressly mean ‘under certain circumstances’.
THAT versus WHICH – This is not an easy one, and for a full discussion, visit this link. In the most basic description of the difference, ‘that’ usually introduces essential information in a restrictive clause, whereas ‘which’ introduces additional information in a non-restrictive clause. Quoting from the link given above provides some more clarity:

“What is FASCINATING to me is that . . . one way to determine . . . the correct word . . . is to ask the question, ‘Does the clause clarify which of several possibilities is being referred to?’ If the answer is yes, then the correct word to use is that. If the answer is no, the correct word to use is which.”

Seems somewhat counter-intuitive, but it’s correct (hence the confusion).

CJA Bradshaw

Comments : 9 Comments »
Tags: conservation, English, grammar, science, style, writing
Categories : bad grammar, conservation, scientific writing, words, writing tips

Shifting baselines

19 02 2009

A term first coined by Daniel Pauly (who we’ve previously covered as a Conservation Scholar), and one I could easily classify as a conservation Classic, it essentially describes the way changes to a system are measured against previous baselines, which themselves may represent changes from the original state of the system (definition modified from Wikipedia). Pauly originally meant it in a fisheries context, where “… fisheries scientists sometimes fail to identify the correct “baseline” population size (e.g., how abundant a fish species population was before human exploitation) and thus work with a shifted baseline“.

It’s easily considered a mantra in fisheries (there’s even a dedicated Scienceblog on the topic, and several other fisheries-related websites [e.g., here & here]), but it has been extended to all sorts of other conservation issues.

As it turns out, however, quantifying ‘shifting baselines’ in conservation is rather difficult, and there’s little good evidence in most systems (despite the logic and general acceptance of its ubiquity by conservation scientists). Now Papworth and colleagues have addressed this empirical hole in their new paper entitled Evidence for shifting baseline syndrome in conservation published online recently in Conservation Letters.

Papworth et al. discuss two kinds of shifting baselines: (1) general amnesia (“… individuals setting their perceptions from their own experience, and failing to pass their experience on to future generations”) and (2) personal amnesia (“… individuals updating their own perception of normality; so that even those who experienced different previous conditions believe that current conditions are the same as past conditions”), and they provide three well-quantified examples: (a) perceptions of bushmeat hunters in Gabon, (b) perceptions of bushmeat hunters in Equatorial Guinea and (c) perceptions of bird population trends in the UK.

Although the data have issues, all three cases demonstrate convincing evidence of the shifting baselines syndrome (with the UK example providing an example of both general and personal amnesia). Now, this may all seem rather logical, but I don’t want the reader to underestimate the importance of the Papworth paper – this is really one of the first demonstrations that it is a real problem in vastly different systems (i.e., not just fisheries). I think it’s hard evidence that the issue is a big one and cannot be ignored when presenting historical data for conservation purposes.

Humans inevitably have short memories when it comes to environmental degradation – this essentially means that in most demonstrations of biodiversity decline, it’s probably a lot worse even than the data might suggest. Policy makers take note.

CJA Bradshaw

Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: biodiversity, conservation, science, shifting baselines
Categories : biodiversity, climate change, climate shift, conservation biology, decline, fish, fisheries, harvest, impact, monitoring

One year later: Conservation Letters

17 02 2009

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I have been very proud to be a part of Conservation Letters‘ success since its inaugural issue in April 2008. I thought I’d share our Chief Editors’ retrospective editorial after the first year. Thanks to all who have made CL such a success!

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In the editorial that launched Conservation Letters, we promised a journal that would publish novel and innovative papers drawing on a diversity of disciplines, and including perspectives and case studies from across the globe. We anticipated first class research that would help deliver effective policy and management solutions. Furthermore, we pledged rapid publication: a review time of six weeks and submission-to-publication time of 20 weeks. So let’s see how we have done in the first volume.

The five issues of the first volume comprise 37 papers drawn from 146 submissions. Of these submissions, 40% were rejected without review. We did better than our target for processing manuscripts: average review time was five weeks and submission-to-publication time was 17.5 weeks.

Coverage of topics has been diverse. Several papers dealt with mainstream conservation science: habitat and population decline, climate change impacts and assessments for conservation planning. Many dealt with “hot” topics, namely natural capital and ecosystem services, conservation economics, and monitoring and evaluation. Few papers had a strictly biological focus – most also considered social dynamics and focused on production land and waterscapes. Most straddled disciplines. Although all papers articulated implications for policy and practice, two documented research that was engaged with the stakeholders responsible for developing policy or implementing practice.

We are disappointed that the geographic spread of the submissions was strongly biased in favor of developed, English-speaking nations: 36% of first authors hailed from the USA, 19% from UK, 16% from Australia and 6% from Canada. Only 11% of submissions originated from mainland Europe, 5% from Asia, 3% from Africa, 2% from Latin America. More encouraging was that almost half the papers published dealt with topics that transcended biome boundaries; the remainder was equally shared between land and water ecosystems.

At this early stage, it is difficult to assess whether any of the papers have had an impact on conservation policy and practice. However, the editorial team is pursuing ways of monitoring the extent to which papers are influential in catalyzing actions that safeguard nature and its services in a secure, just, and sustainable way. What we can report is that research published in Conservation Letters aroused considerable interest from major television networks (BBC, ABC, National Geographic), magazines (Economist, American Scientist), newspapers (New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Sydney Morning Herald) and conservation organizations (BirdLife International, The Nature Conservancy). Two papers attracted most of the media interest: Wilson and Edwards’ paper on low emission kangaroo meat (issue 3, 119-128) and Reed and Merenlender’s contribution that assessed the impact on carnivore populations of non-consumptive recreation in protected areas (issue 3, 146-154). Along with Kapos et al’s paper on measuring conservation success (issue 4, 155-164) and Koh and Wilcove’s article on the impacts of oil palm agriculture on tropical biodiversity (issue 2, 60-64), as of November these contributions also had the highest impact as measured by downloads. Conservation Letters will apply for ISI listing in early 2009 so it will soon be possible to track impact via citation analysis.

Overall, we are very pleased with the first volume of the journal. The papers are scientifically rigorous, innovative and – importantly – likely to have a real impact on policy and practice. Moreover, we believe that the quality and speed of the review process has been good. However, the journal does face certain challenges in maintaining this high quality of content and process. We need to attract more contributions with social science perspectives, that involve scientists from developing countries, and that are socially engaged in processes leading to implementation of conservation actions. As Conservation Letters grows and becomes even more diverse, we will also need to recruit to our editorial board more rare individuals like the ones we already have: leading scientists who are willing to allocate time to editorial chores that advance conservation science and policy.

Our success is attributed to the conservation science community who has so enthusiastically supported the journal by submitting their top-notch papers to a fledgling journal. Of key importance has been our outstanding editorial board. Its members have ensured a rigorous, fair and speedy review process. We wish to thank in particular those who dealt with four or more submissions for the first volume, namely Bill Adams, James Blignaut, Justin Brashares, Nicholas Dulvy, Richard Krannich, David Lindenmayer, Atte Moilanen, Mathieu Rouget, Javier Simonetti and Kerrie Wilson. At the helm is Corey Bradshaw, our Senior Editor whose dedication and commitment have underpinned our achievement thus far. Corey shouldered the lion’s share of editorial responsibilities for the early issues, personally handling 18 submissions. Thanks too for the sterling work by the team at Wiley-Blackwell: Managing Editor Jen Mahar and Associate Publisher Marjorie Spencer. Finally the entire team is hugely appreciative of the guidance of our Editorial Advisor, Michael Hochberg, whose experience as editor of our sister journal Ecology Letters, provided important direction for the editorial team.

By any measure conservation research is booming – both in terms of its scientific and real world impact. The remarkable early enthusiasm for Conservation Letters is testimony to the excitement that surrounds our discipline. We, the Chief Editors, are very grateful for your support.

Richard M. Cowling
Michael B. Mascia
Hugh Possingham
William J. Sutherland

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Tags: biodiversity, conservation, conservation letters, journal, science
Categories : conservation, conservation biology, ecosystem services, environmental policy, environmental science, governance

Toilet Torrens II: The Plot Sickens

14 02 2009

A few days into the Torrens ‘River’ disaster, and we see very little in the way of a truly dedicated, organised clean-up. With some token efforts to clean up the more obvious rubbish in the lake section itself (i.e., cars, fridges, etc.), there is nothing suggesting the true problems are going to be addressed. Indeed, the authorities are desperately trying to ‘find’ water to cover the problem up rather than deal with it.

Instead of a catchment-wide mass clean-up, the removal of the water-sucking invasive plants that line the river’s edge (see photos below), the implementation of a water neutrality scheme, and the removal of hundreds of untreated drainage pipes, they are willing to spend over $1 million to pipe in water from elsewhere.

I can’t believe it.

This is the best opportunity Adelaide has ever had to rectify the problem and clean the mess up once and for all; instead, the investment is going toward a cosmetic cover-up that will effectively fix nothing. Toothless. Some images I took today while cycling along the Torrens path follow:

CJA Bradshaw

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Tags: Adelaide, Australia, pollution, South Australia, Torrens, water, water neutrality
Categories : alien species, Australia, conservation, drain, environmental policy, eutrophication, impact, invasive species, investment, recovery, restoration, South Australia, water neutrality

Adelaide’s shame – the ‘River’ (toilet) Torrens

12 02 2009

I’ve put this post off for too long as it is, but after today’s ridiculous dereliction of duty ‘malfunction‘, I can no longer hold my tongue (as it were).

I’ve been living in Adelaide for about a year now, and it’s been slowly dawning on me just how badly managed, for decades, the Torrens River has been. I cycle or run to work along the Torrens cycle path and see and smell the amazing neglect that has accumulated over the years.

The river literally stinks of rot and filth. What am I saying? The Torrens is about as much a river as a trickle in public urinal. Actually, most urinals are a hell of a lot cleaner.

It’s not just the rubbish, the unregulated and ubiquitous pipes of untreated run-off entering every 100 m or so, the almost complete lack of flows during the summer, the terribly regulated flows during the infrequent winter rains, the toxic build-up of blue-green algae, or the choking invasive alien plants lining its entire course, it’s the unbelievable neglect, cover-up and blind ignorance that has lead to one of the most polluted, unnatural and degraded streams in Australia.

And it’s in the middle of Adelaide.

This is how some would rather you think of the Torrens:

But scratch just a little under the surface and you find this:

and this:

Yes, today’s mishap exposed decades of bad management to the press and the public in general; the authorities can’t wait for a little rain to cover up the ’embarrassment’, but they’ll have to wait a long time. This isn’t “embarrasing“, it’s shameful, disgusting, neglectful, irresponsible and naïve.

Of course, a few people have some partially right approaches to address the problem – indeed, Tourism Minister Jane Lomax-Smith suggests we take advantage of the low water levels and clean up the mess. I couldn’t agree more. However, apart from a few derelict cars pulled out, I’ve not seen a single attempt to get out there and do the job properly. We need to remove every last scrap of rubbish from the Adelaide Hills to Henley beach – this means the trolleys, oil drums, bicycles, wheelie bins and other assorted crap (I think I even saw a fridge today). I’m willing to help.

We need a major overhaul, clean-up and rethink about this so-called ‘river’.

The ‘drought’ that Australia seems convinced will some day end will not go away – climate change will ensure that, along with the persistence of some very bad urban water policies. We need to get used to the idea that we’ll have less and less water, not suddenly more when the ‘drought’ ends. Sorry, the drought won’t end.

So, what can we do? There are some very obvious improvements that can be made:

1. Undeniably, a massive, catchment-wide, get-your-hands-dirty clean-up is required to remove the astounding array of rubbish.

2. Yes, we have reduced flows and will continue to have in this state for a long time to come. So, we need to minimise waste. A paper I recently covered in ConservationBytes.com detailed how a water neutrality programme would benefit water supply AND biodiversity. The idea is relatively simple – the water allocated to industry, residents, etc. is taxed according to total use. The monies received are then invested in removing all those invasive reeds, rushes, palms, bamboo, etc. that line the water course (all of these are water-hungry pests that have no business being there in the first place). In one fell swoop you have an employment program, an incentive to use less water, a ‘water-neutrality’ scheme that makes water-intensive products (e.g., fruits and vegetables) more attractive to environmentally conscious consumers, removal of alien species that consume too much water and prevent native species from proliferating, and importantly, a functioning ecosystem that provides water more regularly.

3. Get rid or divert all those untreated storm pipes from all and sundry lining the Torrens along its path. I’ve seen campground drainages with all sorts of filth flow into the river, car park drainages and inappropriate garden waste ooze into the river right along its course.

4. Let’s get rid of the horses grazing on the denuded banks of the river near Henley Beach. What the hell is livestock doing grazing in the middle of a city?

5. Remove golf courses lining the river.

6. Debunk the myth that bore water used to keep artificially lush gardens in the wealthier neighbourhoods lining the Torrens is somehow not subject to the same problems as rainfall-sourced water. 72 % of the Torrens’ water use is residential. We waste far too much of the underground water on these ridiculous gardens in our desert city – I’m sorry, the prominent display of ‘Bore Water in Use’ in so many gardens around Adelaide is contemptuous and ignorant.

Can we mend the Torrens? Yes, yes we can. A lot of rivers is much worse shape have been brought back to life over the years (see examples here, here and here), so we can do it too. It just takes a little political will, some intelligent policy, a bit of money and public commitment.

CJA Bradshaw

P.S. I recommend you avoid swimming anywhere near Henley Beach for the next few weeks.

Comments : 9 Comments »
Tags: Adelaide, Australia, pollution, South Australia, Torrens, water, water neutrality
Categories : alien species, Australia, climate change, conservation, drain, environmental policy, eutrophication, habitat loss, invasive species, restoration, water neutrality, weir gates

Rare just tastes better

11 02 2009

I had written this a while ago for publication, but my timing was out and no one had room to publish it. So, I’m reproducing it here as an extension to a previous post (That looks rare – I’ll kill that one).

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As the international market for luxury goods expands in value, extent and diversity of items (Nueno & Quelch 1998), the world’s burgeoning pool of already threatened species stands to worsen. Economic theory predicts that harvested species should eventually find refuge from over-exploitation because it simply becomes too costly to find the last remaining wild individuals (Koford & Tschoegl 1998). However, the self-reinforcing cycle of human greed (Brook & Sodhi 2006) can make rare species increasingly valuable to a few select consumers such that mounting financial incentives drive species to extinction (Courchamp et al. 2006). The economic and ecological arguments are compelling, but to date there has been little emphasis on how the phenomenon arises in the human thought process, nor how apparently irrational behaviour can persist. Gault and colleagues (2008) have addressed this gap in a paper published recently in Conservation Letters by examining consumer preferences for arguably one of the most stereotypical luxury food items, caviar from the 200-million-year-old sturgeon (Acipenser spp.).

Sturgeon (6 genera) populations worldwide are in trouble, with all but two of the 27 known species threatened with extinction (either Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered) according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources’ (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Despite all 27 species also having strict international trade restrictions imposed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) (Gault et al. 2008), intense commercial pressure persists for 15 of these at an estimated global value exceeding US$200 million annually (Pikitch et al. 2005). The very existence of the industry itself and the luxury good it produces are therefore, at least for some regions, unlikely to endure over the next decade (Pala 2007). What drives such irrational behaviour and why can we not seem to prevent such coveted species from spiralling down the extinction vortex?

Gault and colleagues addressed this question specifically in an elegantly simple set of preference experiments targeting the very end-consumers of the caviar production line – French connoisseurs. Some particularly remarkable results were derived from presentations of identical caviar; 86 % of attendees of luxury receptions not only preferred falsely labelled ‘rarer’ Siberian caviar (A. baeri) after blind tasting experiments, they also scored what they believed was caviar from the rarer species as having a higher ‘gustative quality’. These high-brow results were compared to more modest consumers in French supermarkets, with similar conclusions. Not only were unsuspecting gourmands fooled into believing the experimental propaganda, subjects in both cases stated a preference for seemingly rarer caviar even prior to tasting.

The psycho-sociological implications of perceived rarity are disturbing themselves; but Gault and colleagues extended their results with a mathematical game theory model demonstrating how irrational choices drive just such a harvested species to extinction. The economic implications of attempting to curb exploitation as species become rarer when the irrationality of perceived rarity was taken into consideration were telling – there is no payoff in delaying exploitation as more and more consumers are capable of entering the market. In other words, the assumption that consumers apply a positive temporal discount rate to their payoff (Olson & Bailey 1981) is wrong, with the demographic corollary that total depletion of the resource ensues. The authors contend that such artificial value may drive the entire luxury goods market based mainly on the self-consciousness and social status of consumers able to afford these symbols of affluence.

The poor record of species over-exploitation by humans arising from the Tragedy of the Commons (Hardin 1968) is compounded by this new information. This anthropogenic Allee effect (Courchamp et al. 2006) provides a novel example mechanism for how small populations are driven ever-downward because low densities ensure declining fitness. Many species may follow the same general rules, from bluefin tuna, Napoleon wrasse lips and shark fins, to reptile skins and Tibetan antelope woollen shawls. Gault and colleagues warn that as the human population continues to expand and more people enter the luxury-goods market, more wildlife species will succumb to this Allee effect-driven extinction vortex.

The authors suggest that a combination of consumer education and the encouragement of farmed substitute caviar will be more effective than potentially counter-productive trading bans that ultimately encourage illegal trade. However, the preference results suggest that education might not promote positive action given that reluctance of affluent consumers to self-limit. I believe that the way forward instead requires a combination of international trade bans, certification schemes for ‘sustainable’ goods that flood markets to increase supply and reduce price, better controls on point-of-origin labelling, and even state-controlled ‘warning’ systems to alert prospective consumers that they are enhancing the extinction risk of the very products they enjoy. A better architecture for trading schemes and market systems that embrace long-term persistence can surely counteract the irrationality of the human-induced destruction of global ecosystem services. We just need to put our minds and pocketbooks to the task.

CJA Bradshaw

Comments : 4 Comments »
Tags: biodiversity, conservation, science
Categories : Allee effect, bushmeat, captive breeding, caviar, conservation, conservation biology, cuisine, ecosystem services, environmental policy, exploitation, extinction, extinction vortex, fish, fisheries, harvest, Red List, sturgeon, threatened species

Don’t torture your readers

9 02 2009

This may seem a little off-topic for ConservationBytes.com, but I thought it pertinent to communicate how bad English hampers the understanding, popularity and implementation of good conservation science. I’ve started a list of common errors, unnecessary jargon, bad phrasing, archaic usage and overly complex constructions that I often see in conservation writing. Many of these are personal preferences, but I try to justify my suggested alternative in each case. Some of these apply to general English writing, others to science only, and others just to conservation/ecological fields. My hope is that students and young researchers can use my advice to improve the clarity of their writing. This first list is only preliminary – later posts in this theme will appear as I record more examples.

CONDUCT (as in ‘… we conducted the experiment…’) – What is wrong with ‘do/did’? I have never seen a scientist ‘conduct’ anything, but I have seen a few good operas.
PERFORM – See ‘conduct’. While some scientists would probably be more effective Thespians, let’s keep the theatre out of science.
VERY (as in ‘… there are very few species…’ – ‘Very’ has no place in scientific writing – I defy anyone to quantify what it means (i.e., it has an entirely subjective interpretation).
QUITE – See ‘very’.
SITUATED (as in ‘… our study area was situated in…’) – Simplify to ‘is/was’. Much easier, isn’t it?
SIGNIFICANT (as in ‘…this result has significant implications for…’; ‘… significant scientific advances…’; ‘… the functional significance of…’; ‘… can play a significant role…’ – This is probably the most abused word in science today. All the former examples mean nothing and are entirely dependent on the subjective position of the reader. Used without a statistical meaning per se (but more on the abuses of ‘significance’ as an arbitrary statistical paradigm in a later post), ‘significant’ and her sisters (e.g., ‘significantly’, ‘significance’) have no more place in scientific writing than ‘very’. Students often invoke this word simply to sound more scientific. Rubbish.
TO BOLDLY GO (i.e., any split infinitive; I couldn’t resist using one of the more infamous split infinitives) – I believe the jury is out really on the acceptable use of split infinitives, and I may be losing the battle, but an infinitive (for those of you who are grammatically challenged, an ‘infinitive’ is the base form of the verb prior to conjugation) can never be split by an adverb in English. How many times have you seen ‘… to significantly affect…’, ‘… to adequately measure…’ or ‘… to properly test…’. Sorry, all wrong (should be ‘… to affect significantly…’, etc.)
10m (as in ‘… transects were set every 10m along…’) – You cannot write ’10metres’, so why, oh why, do people insist on sticking unit abbreviations next to the number? It should be ’10 m’!
i.e./e.g. – These abbreviations, id est and exempli gratia, literally mean ‘that is’ and ‘for the sake of example’, respectively. They are two words abbreviated each, so a full stop is required after each letter. Absolute correctness normally dictates the addition of a comma after the final full stop, but many journals drop the comma for whatever reason.
cf. – confer (compare). It is one word, so its abbreviation requires a single full stop after the ‘f’.
its/it’s – Why is it so difficult for people to understand this one (especially in Australia)? In almost every other circumstance, an apostrophe followed by an ‘s’ indicates possession to a singular noun, as in ‘…the transect’s divisions’, ‘…the nearest neighbour’s value…’, etc. When the noun in question is plural, then the apostrophe sits nicely outside the terminal ‘s’ (e.g., ‘… the species’ attributes…’). This is a quasi-universal law EXCEPT for its/it’s. In this case ‘it’s’ is the contraction of ‘it is’, so ‘its’ becomes the possessive form. So, you can write ‘…its burrow…’, but ‘…it’s burrow…’ is incorrect. Still confused? There’s a simple way to remember – whenever you see ‘it’s’ in front of something, say ‘it is’ to yourself and see if the phrase makes sense. If it doesn’t, then it should be ‘its’.
CONTRACTIONS (e.g., ‘can’t’, ‘won’t’, ‘it’s’) – These are colloquial forms and should never be used in a scientific manuscript.
IN ORDER TO (as in ‘… in order to compare the plots…’) – What’s wrong with just ‘to’? I have rarely seen a situation requiring ‘in order to’. Unnecessary verbiage.
HAS BEEN SHOWN TO (as in ‘… is a species that has been shown to demonstrate a…’). There is simply no need for this verbiage. Simply state ‘…is a species that demonstrates a…’ and then reference the statement properly at the end of the sentence.
ABBREVIATIONS, ACRONYMS AND INITIALISMS – Use sparingly, if at all. They are often discipline-specific and have no meaning outside relatively small circles.
UTILISE – Just write ‘use’. For some reason people believe ‘utilise’ sounds more technical. Rubbish.

CJA Bradshaw

Comments : 18 Comments »
Tags: conservation, English, grammar, science, style, writing
Categories : bad grammar, conservation, scientific writing, words, writing tips

Cloning for conservation – stupid and wasteful

5 02 2009

I couldn’t have invented a better example of a Toothless conservation concept.

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I just saw an article in the Independent (UK) about cloning for conservation that has rehashed the old idea yet again – while there was some interesting thoughts discussed, let’s just be clear just how stupidly inappropriate and wasteful the mere concept of cloning for biodiversity conservation really is.

1. Never mind the incredible inefficiency, the lack of success to date and the welfare issues of bringing something into existence only to suffer a short and likely painful life, the principal reason we should not even consider the technology from a conservation perspective (I have no problem considering it for other uses if developed responsibly) is that you are not addressing the real problem – mainly, the reason for extinction/endangerment in the first place. Even if you could address all the other problems (see below), if you’ve got no place to put these new individuals, the effort and money expended is an utter waste of time and money. Habitat loss is THE principal driver of extinction and endangerment. If we don’t stop and reverse this now, all other avenues are effectively closed. Cloning won’t create new forests or coral reefs, for example.

I may as well stop here, because all other arguments are minor in comparison to (1), but let’s continue just to show how many different layers of stupidity envelop this issue.

2. The loss of genetic diversity leading to inbreeding depression is a major issue that cloning cannot even begin to address. Without sufficient genetic variability, a population is almost certainly more susceptible to disease, reductions in fitness, weather extremes and over-exploitation. A paper published a few years ago by Spielman and colleagues (Most species are not driven to extinction before genetic factors impact them) showed convincingly that genetic diversity is lower in threatened than in comparable non-threatened species, and there is growing evidence on how serious Allee effects are in determining extinction risk. Populations need to number in the 1000s of genetically distinct individuals to have any chance of persisting. To postulate, even for a moment, that cloning can artificially recreate genetic diversity essential for population persistence is stupidly arrogant and irresponsible.

3. The cost. Cloning is an incredibly costly business – upwards of several millions of dollars for a single animal (see example here). Like the costs associated with most captive breeding programmes, this is a ridiculous waste of finite funds (all in the name of fabricated ‘conservation’). Think of what we could do with that money for real conservation and restoration efforts (buying conservation easements, securing rain forest property, habitat restoration, etc.). Even if we get the costs down over time, cloning will ALWAYS be more expensive than the equivalent investment in habitat restoration and protection. It’s wasteful and irresponsible to consider it otherwise.

So, if you ever read another painfully naïve article about the pros and cons of cloning endangered species, remember the above three points. I’m appalled that this continues to be taken seriously!

CJA Bradshaw

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Tags: biodiversity, cloning, conservation, science
Categories : animal welfare, biodiversity, captive breeding, cloning, conservation, decline, deforestation, environmental engineering, ethics, extinction, extinction debt, habitat loss, inbreeding depression, investment, minimum viable population, mvp, recovery, threatened species

Even Obama eats frog legs

3 02 2009

As the seemingly never-ending media blitz covering our paper describing the massive world trade in frog legs continues, I came across a very poignant example of how ubiquitous the trade in frog legs for human consumption really is.

Even one of the most powerful men in the world eats them. Need we say more?

Actually, I will say three more things: (1) We need a lot more investment in research to quantify the effects of this trade on threatened frog populations, (2) I wonder if Mr. Obama, his chef, or the restaurant owner had any idea what species or what country the frog in question came from?, and (3) if you still think cooked frog legs is a minor epicurean oddity enjoyed only by slightly eccentric French gourmets, think again.

CJA Bradshaw