Biodiversity and Wildlife Are Not Synonymous

Abstract

I agree with most everything that Peter Brussard, Dennis Murphy, and Reed Noss said in their editorial (Brussard et al. 1992), but not with their suggestion that conservation biologists should try to make wildlife and biodiversity synonymous in public mind. That, in my opinion, would be a step in wrong direction. The first thing that came to mind when I read their suggestion was physicist Paul Davies' observation that the world is not a collection of objects, it is a network of Of course it is objects (e.g., wildlife) that drive relationships. Nevertheless, reality is that coin of nature has two sides, pattern (including, but not restricted to, wildlife) and process (including, but not restricted to, relationships) (Leopold 1949; Perry et al. 1989; Noss 1990). The keystone definition of biodiversity, with all its warts, does at least provide basis for communicating this critically important concept. Clearly, a measurable goal such as no net loss of wildlife is essential, and is not provided by keystone definition. But it seems doubtful to me that conservation will succeed in long run unless we explicitly recognize, and educate public about, network of relationships and processes that ultimately determine health of any individual species. Consider, for example, some of problems associated with maintaining viable old-growth reserves in Pacific Northwest. Eighty years of fire exclusion, 50 years of intensive logging, and 10 years of drought have combined to produce a highly altered regional landscape that is not only short of old-growth habitat, it is vulnerable to insects, pathogens, and catastrophic fire (Perry 1988). Forests east of Cascades crest are weakened from chronic insect infestations, and drought and insects are beginning to take a toll in west-side forests. The remaining old-growth fragments exist as islands within a sea of young stands that are highly susceptible to crown fires. The upshot is that regional landscape has been transformed over past 100 years from one that was probably very effective at damping spread of disturbances, to one that magnifies them (Perry 1988; Franklin et al. 1989). If it plays out as predicted, climate change will exacerbate situation (Peters & Darling 1985; Overpeck et al. 1990; Franklin et al. 1989; Perry & Borchers 1990; Perry et al. 1990; collection of papers edited by Peters and Lovejoy 1992). How secure are old-growth-dependent species in this milieu, even those in reserves? Not very-wildfire and pests are singularly unimpressed by human boundaries. There are some measures that might buffer landscape of Pacific Northwest, most notably thinning and controlled burning in young and mid-aged stands (preold-growth). Yet many of latter are naturally established, and some environmentalists and conservation biologists resist any management of stands, arguing (with history on their side) that risk of screwing up natural processes is too great. But what about climate change, pollution, highly altered regional landscapes with a dearth of refugia? In face of these is there any such thing as a process that either is not already, or soon will be, affected by humans? I would argue not. But point here is not whether natural stands in Pacific Northwest should be managed or not, rather it is that decision must be made in context of processes and interrelationships that span many temporal and spatial scales. This must be essence of conservation strategies in modem world, a point that Brussard, Murphy, and Noss clearly recognized. But pruning away concepts of process and relationship from central definition of what conservation biology is about is not way to accomplish this. The real issue here, as they argued, is education. What do conservation biologists need to educate public about? A recent nationwide poll conducted by Peter List and Brent Steele of Oregon State University produced what, to me, were some very informative results. Ninety percent of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with Statement Humans have an ethical obligation